Wednesday, April 22, 2015

When a Girl Looks Nice...

Lately I've been trying whatever I can to make myself more 'appealing'. I'm not the type who gets weekly manicures or has a beauty regimen so the most effort on my part is wearing my hair down and treating myself to new eyeshadow. Oh and it goes without saying: buying some new clothes of course. Being sefira and all I couldn't wear the new clothes but I was able to enjoy the feeling of a nicely made up face with new spring pallet colors and my beautiful hair let down. It felt really good for a change to 'dress up' for ABSOLUTLEY no specific occasion and not having to rush anywhere. Just a chill regular ol' day. 
Which is why it was sorta a let down when every single co-worker of mine felt there needed to be a "reason" why I changed my look and looked 'nicer'. I mean with every compliment of 'wow your hair looks nice down' or 'you look great' came a backsided comment of 'you must be dating' or 'do you have a date tonight?' Or 'seeing someone perhaps?' And even 'so when r u making it official?'

Seriously guys?!?$ I mean seriously? Why can't people just give a compliment and then shut up. Do I have to explain that people shouldn't say stupid things or give out mouth filters? It's enough I have to deal with nutty shadchans and people trying to set me up but don't ruin my day and get all invasive. If you can't say anything nice don't say it at all. And if you could a small word of praise always helps :)

Saturday, April 18, 2015

What's Your Hashkafa?

Being on the "market" for quite a while, I figured I got all the lingo and all that goes with it down pat. I know the routines, the unanswered calls to shadchans and their voicemails that tell you to not leave a message. 
I know that sometimes "he's busy now and just gave a yes" is a nice way to say he isn't interested.
I know that 95% of the time when a guy takes you home after a date and doesn't walk you to your home, it means he isn't interested. 
I also know the difference between 'Heimishe', 'comfortable', and 'Baalbek Batish'. 
What I'm still trying to figure out is the different hashkafos. It gets confusing as do people. Nowadays I have Sefardi friends who married chassidim, breslov who married lubavitch, baalei Teshuva who are greasier than lakewood learners. There is the guy that doesn't want a TV but flat-out stated to the shachan that in place of a TV, he would like to register to HULU (umm, excuse my ignorance on this one but isn't it the same thing?)
There's the guy who writes on his resume that he's very makpid and Frum and went to all the 'brand name frummie yeshivas' yet states explicitly he only wants a girl who wil cover her hair, elbows and knees-I assumed that was a given, especially for a Frum guy?
What about the one who learns each morning and attends a shiur at night, yet after a number of dates he casually slips in a joke about shomer negiah and makes fun of the whole concept, which opened up an entire can of worms, with me finding out he doesn't hold of it. A FRUM BOY WHO LEARNS-why would I even dream of asking that question to a reference?
Nowadays, I've learned that anything goes and that's ok. To each his own. It just adds to my confusion, my trust levels and now I feel stupid asking even the most obvious and sometimes awkward questions to references such as 'does he have any kids I don't know about?'
Thinking we need some new terms for all these new types of hashkafos. 
Any ideas?

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Why Didya say "NO"?

This shadchan just called to give me a name of a guy. Well to put things in perspective, she called my mom to ask my mom about a guy for me (yes, even at my age she still refused to speak directly to me-seriously?)
Either way my mom called to ask if the name sounded familiar which it really did. I checked into my shidduch book and sure enough I dated the guy and couldn't quite remember any reasoning as to why we didn't do it he dating, other than him being weird. The shadchan was very pushy as to the reason why I said no. She wouldn't let down until we caved. I ran to look at my old whatsapp messages and sure enough (thank u iphone!) a search with his name gave us the answer: HE SAID NO. yes folks after the shadchan pushing and prodding as to why I wouldn't give it a second chance (which surprisingly and according to my whatsapps-I was willing to give it another try even tho he seemed uber weird), it wasn't even me who said no. 
Why is it that when a guy says no it's cool. But when a girl says no she has to have backup evidence and proper reasoning to her decision. Even when it want my decision in this case, I was guilted into believing it actually was me-which clearly in this case-it was not. No Sir ree

Sunday, April 12, 2015

Pesach Dates

It gets kinda awkward when you have a date over Pesach, especially since you can't exactly buy a drink anywhere, let alone go to a coffee shop and if you go to a lounge and the server asks what you want to drink it looks kinda bad when you say no thanks-especially as they know you're a Jew. 
Mix in the fact that there's the mish and non-mish as well as grebrokst which also complicates things if you're bringing along a snack. 
I won't even go so far to speak about Pesach cosmetics/hair products but let's just say when traveling for a date especially, things can get pretty sticky over Chol Hamoed Pesach. 
I was set up with a boy from overseas a week before yom Tov. As I'm sure you can imagine, the timing was quite hectic between finishing up at work where I'd be taking a few days off, and helping clean and cook and prepare at home I was really balancing time. The guy, on the other hand, was here for a few weeks vacation. He had no preparations to do in terms of helping anyone clean or cook for Pesach and because there was a different timezone he did all his work in the morn/eve. If was frustrating as he was really eager to have 'deep meaning conversations' whilst I was brushing hi off the phone, one hand on the blender, another with the vacuum so I can finish my work in time. 
Worse off, we had ABSOLUTLEY nowhere to go on dates as Easter had coincided with chol hamoed and things were closed, it was too cold to walk around outdoors and i brought some nerdy looking macaroons as snacks which we ended up just munching on in the car. 
All I can say is that it was a bit of a disaster, and I ended up feeling bad that I couldn't give the guy a good time and show him around and he was frustrated that I was busy hosting family and helping at home (hello? Don't they celebrate Pesach outside North America?). 
Needless to say, I'm ready to move onto the next and hope that those of you who were set up over Pesach had successful macaroon dates!