And that’s probably true, but sometimes I read too much into that.  Sometimes I work too hard, and try to be committed to someone who, as it turns out, I just plain don’t have feelings for anymore.  [...]]]> People are always saying that relationships are very hard work, and lots of effort, and working things out blah-blah-blah.

And that’s probably true, but sometimes I read too much into that.  Sometimes I work too hard, and try to be committed to someone who, as it turns out, I just plain don’t have feelings for anymore.  I end up dragging out the relationship to the bitter end, and everybody leaves sad and exhausted with the weight of much too much emotional baggage on their back.

Is falling out of love all my fault?  Am I not working hard enough?  Or am I just not with the right person in the first place?  After all, initial infatuation is pretty strong.  You could end up seriously dating someone well before it wears off and you realize they’re completely not your type.  And then what?  You’re supposed to fall in love with them?  You can’t just make yourself fall in love with anybody.

At what point do you know whether you need to keep working on something or whether you need to end it?

I did not find my soulmate

But I did find some alcohol and a gentleman who was quite fond of my behind.  He would like to take it to the movies.  I’m [...]]]> Tu B’Av was on Monday.  Tu B’Av is the day in the Hebrew calendar when you’re supposed to find your soulmate.

I did not find my soulmate

But I did find some alcohol and a gentleman who was quite fond of my behind.  He would like to take it to the movies.  I’m not sure if I’m invited.

I was reading this article from Scientific American Mind about online dating.

There was a line in it that said, “We already have a commitment problem in America, one of several reasons why roughly half of first marriages and about two thirds of second marriages here end in divorce.”

We have a commitment problem.  That’s it?  Not a compatibility problem, not a staying in love problem, not a finding-the-perfect-one-for-you problem.  A commitment problem.  So, the hard part isn’t falling head-over-heels in love with someone…We can do that pretty easily.  The hard part is hanging out with them all the time afterward.  We can make the promise, we can get to the point of marriage, somehow all of that happens easily…We can say the vows…We just can’t stick to them.

Is that it?  Have we been evaluating this all wrong, hoping that love and butterflies will be the everlasting glue keeping us together?  It’s just a commitment issue?

This must be why in studies they say that arranged marriages result in greater instances of long-term happiness.  They don’t have that initial flash of love, they don’t go by the adrenaline rushes or butterflies or meet-me-on-top-of-the-empire-state-building feeling we call love.  They’re not as good at grand acts of romance, or initual sparks.  But they sure can do commitment.  They don’t start out in love, they grow into it.  They build love through a mutual respect for one another.

I often wonder if you can just stick any two people in a room together and see if they’ll fall in love eventually.  One of two things will happen:  They will either grow to love each other or hate each other.  But perhaps those emotions aren’t as far off from one another as we thought.  They both involve caring a lot about someone.

I think the most offensive thing you can feel towards someone is apathy.  To just not care completely.  That hurts worse than hate.  This, I think, is why so many people are mean.  Nobody paid any attention to them otherwise.

Always missing someone, craving someone, having an inappropriately close relationship with your phone.  And everywhere you go you want to tell them about it, and every conversation you have you wish was with them and it takes over your life.  Even moreso than a short distance [...]]]> Long distance relationships suck.  There’s just no getting around it.

Always missing someone, craving someone, having an inappropriately close relationship with your phone.  And everywhere you go you want to tell them about it, and every conversation you have you wish was with them and it takes over your life.  Even moreso than a short distance relationship would, because when you’re with them time is always scarce and fleeting so you never want to hang out with anyone else, and when you’re NOT with them all you’re doing is trying to think of ways to be with them.

You’re not “in-the-moment,” you’re not living your life, you’re just wondering what Significant-Other is up to and when they’ll text.  You make sure you clear a large portion of your day so you can stare at your computer and Skype for 8 hours.  You start to suck at keeping in touch with anyone else, you’re just consumed by this suddenly all-encompassing relationship.

People say that starting a long-distance relationship in the beginning isn’t wise because you grow apart, but that’s not true.  I think it works in the opposite way.  You grow closer, because you’re forced to communicate more, express how you feel, spend more money, give up more sooner in the relationship.

In a local relationship you can just casually say, “Oh yea, I’ll come over later,” walk a few blocks, and that doesn’t say a lot.

But when you say, “Oh yea, I’ll come over later,” spend $200 bucks, and then hop a plane cross country….Well, that’s saying something.  You commit pretty fast when you’re in a long distance relationship.

Having said that, I feel bad for Nuns.  Nuns are in a perpetual long distance relationship.  They are in LOVE with this guy, this Jesus fellow, and they married him and devoted their life to him, and hang pictures of him on their walls.  They just wanna be good and be with him and chill in the eternal heavens, but instead of worrying about flight times and prices, they’re worrying about sins and blessings and “Did-I-wear-my-habit-today,” or “Will-he-still-love-me-if-I-forgot-to-pray-on-Monday.”

Jews also have a long distance relationship with God, but it’s an open relationship.  We still see other people, ya know, earthly beings and stuff.  We have an understanding that that’s okay.  That He comes first but it’s okay to get a little something on the side.  Our bashert.  That chick/dude he set us up with on top of Sinai.  We got like a group relationship going on.

It was our first phone conversation.  Well, second technically.  The first conversation he called me.  It was epic.

I hate talking on the phone, but I wanted to talk to him on the phone.  It was weird.  I had nothing to say.  [...]]]> I called him and we talked on the phone for like an hour.

It was our first phone conversation.  Well, second technically.  The first conversation he called me.  It was epic.

I hate talking on the phone, but I wanted to talk to him on the phone.  It was weird.  I had nothing to say.  It was like we just wanted to prove we were at a point in the relationship where we could do that.

We talked about absolutely nothing.  We talked about how he was bored and there was a bug in my kitchen.  We talked about how he thought someone was watching him, and how his friend’s dog is cute.  We talked about how strip clubs suck.  I said they suck because they’re ridiculous and degrading and it’s weird to want to get really turned on with all your guy buddies.  He said they suck because the strippers are usually unattractive and it’s a tease.

I don’t trust him yet.

It goes in waves.  I trust him for a little, but then the psychotic part of my brain sees that a girl wrote a smiley face on his Facebook wall and thinks, “Well, what if I’m just a pawn in this huge ploy to hurt my feelings?  What if I only THINK he really likes me, but in actuality he’s been texting all these other girls too and that’s why they’re going around writing smiley faces on his wall?  What kind of thing is a smiley face to put on someones wall anyway?  That’s not even a statement.  SAY SOMETHING, HUSSY.”

And then the rational part of my brain is like “I dunno Shoshana, that’s a lot to go through just to hurt your feelings. People usually only expend that kind of energy to use people for something, which he clearly isn’t doing, because you’re very far away and you have no money.  Also, he texts you like all the time.  How would he even have time to be flirting with other girls?  He’d have to be some kind of texting fiend.  Not to mention you hung out with him every night before he left.  He’d needed to have cloned himself to be seeing other people, and he’s been out of town ever since.  Smiley face girl is probably just some meshugana hussy who does that to everyone’s wall.

Why thank you Rational Shoshana.  That was necessary.

…But I didn’t trust it so I called John, a good friend of mine and mutual friend between me and smiley face girl on Facebook.

“Okay John so what’s her story?”

“HUGE hussy.”

…That’s what I thought.

“Flirts with everyone.”

Clearly.

“Had to transfer cause she got such a bad reputation.”

Far away.  Non-threatening.  But maybe they were keeping in touch?  After all, I’m far away and he’s keeping in touch with me.

The beginning of relationships are fun and exciting, but also terrifying because you’re not that secure with the situation yet.  You’re not comfortable enough around each other to really talk about your feelings, or what the relationship is, or where it’s going.  It’s like walking on eggshells.  Don’t let them know how much you really care, otherwise one might crack and suddenly they won’t like you anymore.  Don’t be too needy or they’ll get annoyed.  Don’t be too unavailable or they’ll give up.  Find a happy medium.

So my plan is, don’t call him.  But when he calls me, act really excited about it.  But not like, too excited.  Not like you were waiting for him to call or anything.  Cause you weren’t.  You were out.  You are busy and important and NOT checking your phone every two minutes and then complaining to your friends about how oh-well-you-never-liked-him-anyway, or you’re-too-good-for-him, or he’s-probably-gay.

Hmph.  Boys suck.

I feel like the country of Germany is very guilt ridden about the whole Hitler thing, as they very well should be.  That was dumb.  They [...]]]> Michelle and I met the two most delightful German guys yesterday while getting manicures.  They were very sweet, extremely kind, and wonderfully interesting.  We agreed to meet for friendly drinks.

I feel like the country of Germany is very guilt ridden about the whole Hitler thing, as they very well should be.  That was dumb.  They should not have let him do that.  People got hurt, cultures got extinguished, it was not okay.

And it was fairly recent.

I knew it would come up eventually.  It always comes up eventually.  I live in a Jewish facility, I work for a Jewish company, I drink Kedem grape juice with lunch…It was bound to happen.  And I realize a person is not their former fascist dictator, and of course held nothing against him, but I still felt weird letting him know that I was Jewish.  I just avoided saying it for some reason.  Not that it mattered to anyone or would have changed anything…I just felt like once I said it there would be this elephant in the room of, “Hey, so, there’s a good chance your ancestors killed my ancestors…Nice that you admitted they were wrong…Nothing personal…Can you pass the pretzels?”

Put a Jew and a German together and the Holocaust is bound to come up eventually.  And I just really didn’t feel like discussing it over cocktails.

And it did come up, as of course I predicted, and we had a long conversation about how much he loves Jews, and I told him how much I love African Americans, and we both established that despite our countries bad reputations we are not prejudiced people.  And that was nice.  But at the same time a little weird.  It felt like making excuses for an obnoxiously drunk family member at a party.  “Oh old Uncle Jimmy, you know him.  Always committing genocide and enslaving people… I’m really sorry about that…”

Then we met the dessert chef who is apparently a very big deal.  He was listed as one of the most eligible bachelors in New York and voted ‘hottest chef’ in multiple magazines.  He was aware [...]]]> Michelle and I went for drinks at a swanky place last night and got desserts as well.

Then we met the dessert chef who is apparently a very big deal.  He was listed as one of the most eligible bachelors in New York and voted ‘hottest chef’ in multiple magazines.  He was aware of this. He was a jerk.  But he was giving me free desserts.

Commence flattery.

I tried to make conversation:

“I was friends with a dessert chef in Hawaii who always complained that his girlfriends all got fat from eating his food.  Does that happen to you?”

“Nope…You just gotta use sex-ercise.”

…Classy.  You have a lot of sex.  I’m delighted that I know that about you.  He spoke with a confidence and swag employed by only men who are extremely intoxicated or trying much too hard to be cool.

He said things normal guys wouldn’t say.  Not because they’re particularly charming, but because they’re things you shouldn’t say!  Things that would get other men slapped.  But this man had a great power over women….

It wasn’t his fruity tattoos.

It wasn’t his excessive hair gel.

It was chocolate.

This man had chocolate.  And he knew it.

Four platters of dessert later we were swept off our feet.  It didn’t matter what he said.  It could be anything.  The man was a culinary genius.

My friend got his card before she left the bar.  They e-mailed back and forth until she asked him to hang out and he said in so many words, not unless you’re going to sleep with me.

It was striking that he could just BE that forward.  And women weren’t turning him down.  He knew they wouldn’t.  Women came to his restaurant for the purpose of finding him and going to bed with him.

But we were turning him down.  Because he was very rude and we are ladies and deserve to be treated as such.

Then we got into a conversation about the future.

“I’m gonna go to all these different cities; Costa Rica, Malibu…travel the world.”

“Won’t you get lonely?”

“Well I won’t [...]]]> He said he was worried about getting surgery alone, without anyone to take care of him.  I, of course, offered to fly in and take care of him after surgery.

Then we got into a conversation about the future.

“I’m gonna go to all these different cities; Costa Rica, Malibu…travel the world.”

“Won’t you get lonely?”

“Well I won’t go alone.”

I decided to give him the opportunity to say something adorable.

“Oh yea?  Who are you gonna take with you?”

The correct answer would have been, “You of course, darling.  You’re so great and awesome and special.  I’m so lucky to have you.”

But instead he said this:

“I don’t know, hopefully I’ll have a girlfriend or something.”

Me!  Right here.  The one you’re sharing your hopes and dreams with.  I am your girlfriend.  Jerk.

Okay, okay, I get it.  That’s a long time from now, we don’t know what’s gonna happen, blah-blah-blah practicality.  But I still would have appreciated the vote of confidence.

Suddenly I was feeling insecure and listening to him narrate his awesome vacation getaway with his future girlfriend.

I kinda stopped wanting to spend $200 bucks to care for him so he could recover and run off to Mexico with some hussy that’s taking my place.

So after hearing more stories about how he and his Not-Me girlfriend were going to travel the world and live happily ever after, I decided to retaliate.

“Oh yea?  Well me and future hubby will be cruisin’ down High Street on Segways.  And it’s gonna be a ton of fun.”

Take that.

It’s a difficult problem cause it’s not something I can get mad about.  It’s one of those stupid-irrational-girl-problems that just make you feel bad even though no ones actually doing anything wrong.  What would I say, “How dare you not want to marry and run away with me?”  We’ve been dating for like 2 months.  He doesn’t even know my favorite color yet.  But I still see no reason why he shouldn’t want to devote his future fantasy life to me.

It’s a tricky business when you’re talking about the future with your new boyfriend/girlfriend.  You don’t want to rush things, you want to keep things open, realistic.  Clearly you’re not about to start planning your future together anytime soon.  You’re not going to start making claims of staying together forever.  But for sake of cuteness, for sake of politeness, for common courtesy, can you please just pretend I’m the only person you ever want to be with?  At least for now…While you’re with me?  Is that so much to ask?

It’s just upsetting to hear your boyfriend talk about his life post breaking-up with you.  It’s like, “We just got together!  Can’t we wait it out a little bit?”

He had no problem about making little quips about marrying me before.  He’s from Israel so we would joke about how he’d have to get married to stay in the country and I’d say, “Uh oh, better act fast and find someone on JRetroMatch” and he’d say, “Not unless you’re on JRetroMatch.”

And yea we both knew it probably wouldn’t actually happen but it was still nice to hear.  I felt like when it comes to fancy vacations he should extend the same cute courtesy.  But nope, clearly he’s just using me for citizenship.  Lovely.

I don’t want to freak out or move things too fast, I just don’t want to feel like I’m something he’s settling for.  Like I’m not ideal, I’m just okay for now until he meets the actual love of his life later on.

I deserve better than that.

There are certainly distinct features that mark a New Yorker.  Every New Yorker drinks coffee, has little regard for traffic signals, has a small dog which they walk around with in the morning time, and usually isn’t very nice to people (for good reason, because most people [...]]]> Today marks my first month living in The City.

There are certainly distinct features that mark a New Yorker.  Every New Yorker drinks coffee, has little regard for traffic signals, has a small dog which they walk around with in the morning time, and usually isn’t very nice to people (for good reason, because most people are absolutely insane.)

New York is a scary city because there are lots and lots of people and everyone is taken out of context.  You could strike up a conversation with an attractive busboy to find he was royalty in a foreign country, or talk to an innocent little old man on the subway only to discover he wants to rape and kill you.  And then there’s the bus driver with a foot fetish.  There’s always a bus driver with a foot fetish.

I was wingman-ing for a friend of mine last night who thought the waiter was cute.  We called him over and started asking him questions about his Grateful Dead belt, other favorite musicians, where he went to school, and what he studied.  Conversation was going smoothly until this sentence somehow casually came up:

“Yea, I mean, I had to be sent away to a guarded facility when I was 17…”

And we just nodded our heads like “Oh yea, totally.  That’s completely normal.”  Even though we had just realized that he had most likely been in jail or an insane asylum.  Neither was ideal.   But he was so attractive.  There was no way he could be crazy.  Maybe it was just a super hardcore elite boarding school.

There was an episode of Sex and the City where Carrie dates someone who was in an insane asylum.  The fact of the matter is, when you’re in such a big city full of everybody scattered and uprooted, there is no normality.  There is no mainstream, no guidelines, no heuristics to use to figure people out.  People become skeptical and cynical and sometimes just mean.  I’ve decided to become more open to crazy people.  After all, who am I to say that they’re crazy?  They’re quite nice and usually very conversational.  Who cares if it’s conversation about the cat they murdered last week?

It’s not like I’m all that normal, either.  I eat french fries with honey.  Now that’s a little creepy.

He was romantic, and sweet, but not sappy.  Never sappy.  And I needed that because in the long term, I hated sappy.  The mistake I made [...]]]> I really liked that no matter how hard Relationship Shoshana tried to be corny and romanticize things and do cute things, Jack would keep me grounded.

He was romantic, and sweet, but not sappy.  Never sappy.  And I needed that because in the long term, I hated sappy.  The mistake I made was that with every other guy I was with I’d be sappy and cutesy in the beginning.  It’s tempting to be cutesy in the beginning, you’re so infatuated and  you just want to let that take over.  So then, the guys would become sappy too.  They thought that’s what I wanted so they’d reciprocate, they’d get in the habit, and then eventually I’d stop and they’d keep going and I hated it.  I’d start to pull away and they’d get more and more sappy, profess their love more and more, trying to fix things, and I’d get bored and bored and bored and leave.

Jack was sweet, but not sappy.  He wouldn’t say ‘I miss you,’ he’d just sigh and say,

“You better hurry up and get over here.”

He wouldn’t say, “I’m thinking about you,” he’d text,

“Hey, what’s up?”

He wouldn’t say, “I love you,” he’d just passionately kiss me and say,

“Eh, you’re okay.”

…And strangely enough I much preferred it that way.

Every  guy I dated in the past was perfect on paper.  He was the nicest, the kindest, the smartest, the most considerate.  Always adoring, always sweet, and always always getting boring.  Jack is not perfect.  But he might just be perfect for me.

I’m a writer.  I work with words.  Everything I do is wordswordswords.  What I liked about Jack is that he wasn’t into words, he was into actions.  He did things, he showed emotions, he didn’t just talk about them.  He didn’t dilute feelings with words, he showed me by making me dinner, or helping me with work, or coming to visit when I was out of town.

We are opposites.  He says opposites are good for each other because you learn more from the other person; they help you grow.

And I’m growing.

I just hope I don’t grow into someone I don’t want to be.

He was okay with it.  He actually took it very seriously.

Meredith Vieira asked “Do your friends tease you about this?”

“What?  Oh no, I have no idea why my friends would make fun of me.  [...]]]> There was this guy on The Today Show, Colby Brin, who’s mother made a website devoted to finding him a wife. (MarryOffYourSingleKids)

He was okay with it.  He actually took it very seriously.

Meredith Vieira asked “Do your friends tease you about this?”

“What?  Oh no, I have no idea why my friends would make fun of me.  I’m just looking for love, and I’m thirty so it’s expected that I’d let my mother start a website devoted to finding me a girlfriend and then talk about it on the Today Show.  I feel this is something completely normal.”

“So,” kindly asks Meredith Vieira, “How good a matchmaker is she?”

“Well she’s good, She set me up with someone very attractive”

…Yea that’s right, I date attractive people.

“And it had a lot of potential.”

I would do her.

“But I kinda dropped the ball on that one.”

Yea that’s right, I broke up with HER.

“I don’t date everyone my mom sets me up with.”

…I promise I’m not desperate.

If his friends are not teasing him about this his friends probably have no sense of humor.  I understand, it’s innovative, it’s for a real purpose, I get this.  But it’s also silly.  He has to recognize that it’s silly.  There are now websites where you have to write essays explaining why you’d be good for him and then a date with him is the prize.  Why is that such a great prize?  Because he’s been on tv?  I’m probably way cooler than this guy.  People should enter contests to win dates with me.  Except that I wouldn’t be okay with that, because, oh, I don’t know…I have a soul.

What would I even think of someone who wrote a thousand word essay to be with me?  I’d think “I don’t even know you.  You must be a crazy person.  I’m going to be single forever.”

And he probably will be because the second he actually FINDS somebody…Bye bye fame.  Bye Bye Today Show.  He’s famous for being single and now fame is what he has to bring to the table in a relationship.  Girls don’t want to date him because he seems like a really great guy.  They want to date him because he’s famous and they’re competitive.  Suddenly it becomes less about finding a meaningful relationship, and more about winning a prize.  It’s not “I want you because you seem great,” it’s, “I want you because a lot of other people want you.”

But once they get you, things might turn sour.  We already have a hard enough time trusting one another.  Security and trust are the most important part of a healthy serious relationship.  Once you lose those; once you have to freak out cause she just wants you cause you’re famous…Well, that sucks.

Also the Mom is practically begging, and she’s very open about it.  When you beg someone to date someone, it makes them sound a little pathetic.

“Date my son please.  Please.  I’m begging you.  No one will ever lover him.  I’m his own mother and I want to give him away.  Please just date him, get him some dinner, get him out of the house he’s driving me crazy.”

Nice try mom, but I don’t think I”ll be writing that essay any time soon.