The What's 'UnderThere' Underwear Debate

Lately, my friends have all caught on to my lingerie fetish. OK, so I'm a bit obsessed. OK, there's no way I will walk into a Victoria Secret without walking out empty handed. Yes, I love PJs and all that goes with it. But hey, everyone has their fetish and as long as I'm wearing whatever it is 'under there' then its all tznius and it's a win-win situation.

Whilst speaking to a newly married friend and telling her about my new buy, she said to me 'SOS-you better buy stuff now, cuz after you get married, you ain't gonna have the time to even think about buying such stuff.' I gotta admit-that sorta scared me. I mean, when it comes to something that you like, something that makes you happy, or what I like to call 'retail therapy' how can you be sooo busy, that you won't have time to shop for something as basic and necessary as underwear?

At the same time, another one of my friends had mentioned that she wears really racy stuff. I must admit, I was shocked, I mean coming from her, but if that's how far she'll go in terms of being racy, then so be it. After all, no one will ever know (except her cleaning woman who does her laundry and her hubby-to-be).

What I don't get is the people who tell you that you shouldn't be into all this stuff. Instead, you should be going to your local Wal-Mart or something of the sort and buying Fruit of the Loom tighty whities. I just don't get it people. Everyone has their own style, be it hair, accessories, clothing, makeup, or just a 'look', so what's wrong with a lingerie style? It's not as if we're advertising it? It's not as if it shows or anyone can see it? Why would it bother people? If anything shouldn't we be comfortable and feel even a bit proud/confident with our so-called 'boldness' in personal taste of lingerie fashion? Shouldn't that be a step towards the 'we're ready to get married, so we can get more awesome lingerie for our hubbies to appreciate as well', or is that not?

(although I havta admit, there should be Halachos against the really racy stuff-anyone say lacy red thongs?)

Aside from that, I also have it on good authority that those of Sefardi origins have bridal showers where their future mom-in-laws actually buy them an entire trousseau of expensive lingerie. How much more embarrassing is that? A single gal, in a room with all her friends, her mom's friends, cousins, relatives, etc. accepting something as personal as lingerie from her hubby-to-be's mom?! Now if that is not traumatizing, what is?

The way I see it is-if they can't see it, so be it. Buy it, wear it, be happy.

If a Girl Says "No"

I don't know why this suddenly just hit me now, but why is it that when a guy is offered a girl and he says no, then its fine. The guy is allowed to say no, it's not for him. No one will ask why or persuade him to say yes or atleast to consider the idea.

When a girl says 'no' than she gets heck from people. After all, by the time the shidduch got redd to her, the guy actually said 'yes' which means 'how dare she say no?'

Shadchan Conversation Starters

Don'tcha just luv it when a Shadchan calls you up and opens the convo with the following line:

"I have a guy for you. I really don't know him (that well) but I heard he's a great guy and I think it can really work"

Ya, us singles, looove hearing that. I'm sure to most of you, that's a normal conversation starter and personally, it irks me, because in all of honesty 'ya never know' always lurks in the back of my mind, but 'C'mon! get real!' is what I'm thinking as I roll my eyes and listen to the Shadchan's list of qualities, schools and references..

Last week I had a call from a woman. She's not a Shadchan, not a teacher, neighbor or relative. In fact, I don't even know her, which is how I was suspicious of her call in the first place. She claimed to have heard about me (and my 'singleness') and said she had a boy. She told me she didn't know him or his family well, but she would find out.

Then there was a long silence

A long awkward silence.

Then she asked if I had any questions.

I kid you not, folks, I had to hold back my laughter and told her I had no questions at all (aside from 'how did she get my number?') as all she said was she has a guy whom she doesn't know and SHE was the one calling ME.

Then she asked me one question about myself, just ONE small bit of non-important info and asked me what she had to do.

So, I, the 'single' gave this woman, the so-called 'shadchan' advice on how to go about redding a shidduch. Point #1 being, 'actually try and KNOW both sides, or atleast ONE side'.

In any case, I have yet to hear back from her. I doubt I will.

But seriously people, you're calling us singles to try and sell an idea, a potential husband-atleast TRY and start the conversation with something more exciting, enticing, believable, a great opening line!

The 'Half-Shadchans'

I have come upon a new fashion lately. Nothing to do with shoes, hairstyles or clothing; A 'Shadchan Fashion' that I have named the 'Half-Shadchan'

You see, it all starts with a phonecall. It could be from someone you know, or someone you don't know. It's usually a shy person, or someone who never dabbled in shidduchim, perhaps even a teenager or a single friend. They call you up and tell you they heard about a guy. As the phonecall goes on, the caller, you find out, doesn't really actually know the guy, but only heard of him from someone else who either

a) went out with him

b) met him in (i) grocery store (ii) waiting room (iii) the bank

c) got his resume from a friend/relative who went out with him and said he's a great guy but just not her 'type'

d) just joined a shidduchgroup and heard about him.

Whatever the case, it's a sort of name-dropping situation, so in fact, the 'half-shadchan' thinks she is helping and is sooo happy she got the courage to make the phonecall and be 'involved' when infact, it is not helpful at all. Dropping a name means nothing. You gotta do all the research yourself (most of the time, without any resume to follow) and then, if you finally decide, if you finally GET info on the guy, that it sounds at all shayach, then you actually have to FIND someone YOURSELF, who will 'redd' the shidduch. This is almost unlikely as how will you find someone who knows you AND who feels confident enough to redd YOU to this guy they most likely never even heard of, let alone know.

So folks, if you actually build up the courage to make a phonecall and you really wanna help and be involved in Shidduchim, please, it's just ONE MORE extra call for you to make (get the guy's info and speak to him/his family about the girl) in order to move the Shidduch along.

Humph!!! Half-Shadchans!

HaTzaddik Leibby Kletzky A"H

Whilst I know this blog is about Shidduchim, I can't help but NOT think of Leibby Kletzky A"H. The past few days, every news site, be it foxnews, yahoo, to vosizneias & yeshivaworld has been covering this story. I admit, I was hopeful that they would find him and eagerly prayed for his return or that he be found, perhaps asleep on a park bench, from all the walking, when it was clear from the video footage that he was lost.

I can't even describe my feelings when I woke up and first thing, still in pjs, opened my iphone to check the news and read the headlines. My heart dropped, my eyes bulged, I was in denial-how can this be? How can an innocent, young, beautiful child have this happen to him? How can such a thing happen? A brutal murder-a yiddishe neshama?!?! Who ever heard of such a thing? These things are unheard of in our communities. How much more surprised to hear that the murderer-the butcher, the sicko, psycho, freak of nature, is a Yid?!? Who DOES this?! Who even has a heart to do such things?! I'm still in shock, I'm still pained by the thought of his parents, family and even, nebach, poor Leibby who met the wrong adult from whom he asked for directions.

And so, this post goes for him. We've heard and seen over the past few days what a Kiddush Hashem the Jewish name has made over the media. Reporters, newspapers, media, youtube all were impressed by the thousands and thousands of volunteers, the speediness and efficiency in the way the search was handled, sooo many caring individuals who gave up of their time, their early mornings, evenings, 24/7s to help search for this precious neshamale.

I received the following link by email and thanks to TheCoolJew for putting it in writing.

May we only share in Simchos!

How to Help Yourself? Name Swap!

So, it's been a while since my last post-and I apologize for that, but my pc broke, so I'm working off of laptops, netbooks, iPhones and such and I hate borrowing other's people's stuff for a bit longer than the checking of emails...

In any case being that I'm still 'stuck in the Shidduch scene' I decided there must be SOMETHING I can do to help myself, other than waiting around for phonecalls/email/faxes, which are getting less and less and when they DO come in, are getting worse and worse (in terms of the potential candidates). Then I met a friend of mine who I literally haven't seen in months. We got talking and of course after updating each other on our lives, the convo turned to, well, what else? Shidduchim, as we are both 'still' single. We started to think of guys for the other one-which was sweet, and such a natural thing to do for a friend, especially in the same situation, you WISH the person to just be OVER the Shidduch-dating already and just be settled, happily married, etc. and then we mutually decided to name swap.

I'm not saying a few names, I'm talking organized, techy name-swapping. The full fledged, sit down at the Cafe, bring your laptop, bring your Access Database, or Excel worksheet with all info and going through all potentials for an hour or so. And this, ladies & gents, is what we intend doing. If nothing comes of it, atleast we both know we tried, we did our Hishtadlush and perhaps, who knows, we may come up with a good idea for any of these potential guys that might not be shayach for either of us.

I suggest you all do the same, you 'never know'...

Just 'cuz we're BOTH single, doesn't mean we're the SAME!

My bestie & I are often 'redd' to the same guys. Well, we ARE besties, so I'm sure there's some kinda similarity between us, aside from both of us being Frum, single, fun, gals looking for our future hubby. Also, we are both looking for the same type of boy. Notice I said same type and not same because, whilst we may be similar, we are obviously 2 separate individuals and there is a set zivug for every person, so whilst we may both be looking for college/working guys, not every college/working guy is the same.

There are different backgrounds, different minhagim, levels of Frumkeit, personalities, hobbies, etc.

So, although you may think that all girls talk about the guys they date-wait a sec. ok, all girls probably talk about the guys they date, but even among my closest friends, we will talk about our dates, our horror stories, etc. but not mentioning names of course. The only time a name would come up is to ask if they were redd or dated the guy and can give some info/input, or if they might know someone who knows the guy (obviously dependent on the guy's info, e.g. city, shul, family, etc.) This is how we know we've been suggested to and/or dated the same guys.

Point being, recently I was suggested a guy and nothing came of it. In fact, I didn't even go out with him as we never heard back, which in my book simply means-they ain't interested.

A few weeks after, my friend called as she knew I had relatives living on the same block as the guy she was redd, and whilst she mentioned the name for me to ask my relatives, I realized it was the same guy and gladly gave her all the good info I heard (most of which was from that same relative!)

Somehow there was a mix-up and suddenly we both got calls back from our different shadchanim that the boy was interested in us=at the same time! Strange. Well, it came time to sorta break the news to our parents as to what was going on-like was he planning on double dating or what? So our parents called the shadchanim and explained the situation. The shadchanim spoke to each other and decided that whichever one of us was really interested in him, can have him, but we should decide on our own.

How ridiculous is that? Especially not even knowing the guy yet. Suffice it to say, we both pulled out, it just wasn't fair and was the most insane conclusion to a confusing situation.

Perhaps the guy thought we were the same person?

What is it with Weddings?

So, I've been bragging on this blog how I love June=wedding month. I still love June and I still love going to weddings (except the ones where the women line up outside the dancing circle to talk about each person, what they're wearing, how they look, etc.)

But what I just don't get is what is it with these weddings that make people sooo stupid?

Excuse me, but for lack of a better word at the moment, I just had to use the word stupid, because I don't know what else to coin it as.

I'll sum it up for you by telling you what happened at the last wedding I went to last week.

I was dancing in the circle and a guest of the wedding party came over to me. I haven't seen her in ages and she was talking to me and said she wanted me to meet someone. Well, normally I would've been hopeful, but knowing the guest and knowing the people at the wedding, let's just say I was MORTIFIED. She's the type of person that you never know what to expect. So, I sorta quickly excuse myself, praying that I could stake out in the women's washroom until she gets distracted or someone pulls her back into the dancing circle-but, no such luck.

Half an hour later, she finds me speaking with a friend outside the hall. She grabs my hand, pardons my friend and walks me to meet that 'someone'. Luckily, it wasn't some weird guy or somethin. Unluckily for me, it was a Shadchan. AND she was speaking with a woman and her daughter.

How much more awkward could the situation get? I actually knew the woman speaking to the Shadchan, her daughter is quite a few years younger than me-awkward. Even moreso, when the Shadchan finishes her 'meeting' with the woman, my wedding guests introduces us and it turns out, we met years back-awkward. So we make small talk (like, 'oh, I remember you, now, are you still looking? what's going on in ur life'-talk) and stand oddly looking around at other people, both of us waiting for an excuse to cut the meeting short.

But, as awkward as the whole thing was-I just don't get why people just don't have the brains to actually 'have these meetings' or 'small-talk's a little outside of the hall, where not everyone at the wedding has to look and see 'oh-there's SOS speaking with that Shadchan who made so-&-so's shidduch. Let's stand around and try and lip-read' or something to that effect. It makes it so much more impersonal and yes, even though weddings are in obvious time=in ur face time, when Shidduchim are totally out there and there are loads of singles (hopefully) on both sides of the mechitza looking to get married, and you're all dressed in your best, I still believe some dignity, privacy and respect is in order.

Am I wrong people?