BS”D
Life is a sequence of stories. It's a shame if you don't stop to write them down. I'm probably paraphrasing/stealing that from somewhere, but for now the source seems original, so I will claim it to be my own.
Twelve-thirty in the morning and I am typing like Mavis Beacon with insomnia. Why? Like I said, it's a shame not to stop and write it all down. In the beginning of my IDF army service I began writing emails to friends and family about the experience. Something was coming through loud and clear through the black pixels, and I developed an addiction to chronicling the important events of the week. Now, two years later, free and back in yeshiva, the hunger to record, to craft and develop the unfathomable, intangible, and ineffable into a couple of neat squares of composition is still burning. The subject matter is less sexy, but there are still plenty of ridiculous things that happen in life. You just have to have a little bit of self-humor, no shame, and a little pocket on your sleeve to wear your heart in.
What do I mean? Let me give you an example:
This is a story that happened to me a little over a year ago. Those who know me can attest to my being an incredibly hopeless romantic. Unfortunately, coupled with the dream of finding one girl to shower with love for the rest of my life comes a severe case of low self esteem, disabling me from ever picking up, let alone say hello to, the girl on the bus/street corner/doctor’s office/or wherever else girls seem to roam these days. What is a nice religious Jewish boy to do? One horrible and strangely pronounced word: “Shidduch.”
A shidduch is an arranged date. In the more religious Jewish communities people actually pay a matchmaker to set them up with someone. There are a whole bunch of complex dos and do-nots which we won't get into now. In the more modern religious world, a shidduch is usually just a blind date set up by a mutual friend who thinks that there is potential chemistry between the two.
My first real shidduch as a young adult who actually has marriage somewhere on his radar was a-spoiler alert- bomb (not to be confused with the positive connotations of “the bomb”). Of course, considering how it came about, it really should come as no surprise. Like I said before, traditionally in the modern religious world, friends like to play matchmaker. In my embarrassing case, my aunt filled in.
I was on leave from advanced training in the IDF to visit my family in a certain town in NJ. On one visit to my aunt's house (don't be offended Lisa, this has become the story of your Wailing Nephew) she excitedly began to tell me about a "friend" that she had in Israel that she would like me to "meet up" with. This initially struck me as strange.
“My aunt has a friend my age?" I thought, "How does that work? Wait a minue, is she trying to "set me up"?
Lisa proceeded to describe this "friend."
“She's a really good girl."
Hmm... flattering the girl. Definitely sounds like Lisa's been toying around with the matchbox.
“She reminds me a lot of you. She’s very musical, artistic, and cultured.”
The comparison. Getting warmer…
“She had been dating someone for three years, but a month ago they broke up.”
Oh yeah, that is one big-ass burning match that my aunt is holding in her hand. This is definitely a shidduch.
Lisa continued to tell me that it would be really nice if I would take her out somewhere and she’ll even give me some money to do so. That takes care of a big issue, but the elephant that nobody likes to ask was still there; namely is the elephant a figment of my imagination, or what she looks like.
I hold my sarcastic uncle to be a good judge of “character.” When he looked at me and said, “You want to date this one,” I knew that I did. And why not? My aunt promised to cover the cost of dinner, she sounds good on paper, and the uncle rated her high on the “superficial, it’s not really important, aw who the Hell are we kidding? is she hot or not” chart. You only live once right?
Something like that…
Back in Israel, I was ecstatic with the big news. Immediqtely, I called this girl, and while pacing in my tiny kitchen(ette) explained who I was and asked, in these words, if she would “like to meet up.” (Come on, who actually says, “Do you want to go out on a date?” I’m 20, she’s 19, we’re not really at the age where we go meet up to paint pottery and have platonic relationships. It’s pretty clear what “meeting up” is really about.) We set a date for two weeks later, after her parents had finished their visit with her.
Two weeks flew by pretty fast considering what I had been doing. While this mystery girl had been vacationing with her parents, I was charging up hilltops and wasting cardboard targets as part of my “war week,” the most intense of all weeks in IDF battalion training. After two sleepless days with sparse rations, and every manner of company exercise they could throw at us, I was ready for a nice weekend at home. With my aunt’s “friend” of course.
Naturally, all of the guys in my platoon knew about this date. I drove them crazy by talking about it all week. Before going home, they all patted me on the back and wished me luck on Saturday. I was still a little squeamish; the situation was still kind of unclear and too good to be true. Nonetheless, Saturday night came round, and I suited up in true wailing fashion. Short sleeved, pin striped, white button down shirt, my trademark red striped blue tie, jeans, and my sweater sleeved suade jacket (or “swacket”). Damn I looked good…
We had agreed to meet in the Old City where she was studying, and I had just entered through the Jaffa gate when my phone rang. It was Lea, a mutual friend other than my aunt whom I had been trying to extract information from (and my 11th grade ex, but that’s another story).
“Yoni,” she said, “I’m so sorry that I’m only calling you now. I meant to call you as soon as Shabbat ended, but I completely forgot. Are you on the date yet?”
“No, I’m on my way to pick her up, why?”
(By the way, some guys pick girls up for dates in Cadillacs, I pick ‘em up with my feet. And they damned well better bring theirs along with them ‘cause that’s the way we roll in Israel.)
“She has a boyfriend.”
I am at the entrance of the holiest neighborhood in Jerusalem, and I am cursing like a submarine sailor who has just been told that he will be swabbing the toilets underwater while his friends go home to play.
“What the f*** am I doing? How the Hell is this possible? Oh my G-d, this is my G-d d**** weekend. What the Hell? Didn’t she break up with him?”
“I’m sorry I know you were looking forward to this, but she even said to me, ‘What does he think this is a shidduch?”
This would be when the hero of the story turns around and goes home. But no, our hero clenches his teeth, and despite all of his friends advising him to call in sick, that idiot goes onto meet her.
“It’s so nice to meet you,” the honestly good looking girl says to me. “And it’s so funny that we both know Lea. You know she was talking to me today about us meeting up and how it’s kind of awkward….”
“Yeahhh… what exactly are we doing tonight?”
Apparently she really had broken up with her three year boyfriend like Lisae had said. Only she began dating her best friend a couple of months later. When she had spoke to my aunt it sounded like a good idea at that early fleeting stage of freedom.
Never have I thanked G-d for involving me in acting as I did that night. I was polite, conversational, and even charming despite the fact that I wanted to scream. If you have never gone on a date where you think you are going out for dinner and she just wants “orange juice and chocolate cake,” you do not know the meaning of frustration. You have to play this game of trying to decide what you want until she orders. Her order lets you know where you stand in terms of how she views the date. Suffice it to say, the lavish meal that I had planned on ordering in the cute ambient café was reduced to a bowl of soup.
Unbelievably, as we ate, she actually asked questions about my life. What is the army like? What are my passions? What do I want to do professionally? In all honesty, if it hadn’t been for the very clear tip off that she was going to say no, I would have asked her on a second date. She was smart, cultured, and as good looking as they said she was. But she also seemed to be slightly scratched, as they say in this country.
After walking her back we continued to talk more. I don’t think I have ever wasted so many words in my life. There they were, shiny hovering pearls of charm, wisdom, and wit, falling to the ground to rot. Finally she excused herself to take care of a friend suffering from a bad night, but told me to give her a call the next time I was out.
Yah, ‘cause I just love hanging out with taken girls whil my time until I return to the army ticks down.
I was happy to get moving. I also had a friend to take care of after bad night-me. Drink therapy was in session with my friends. Remarkably enough there was a sale on a beer and chaser for only 30 NIS, the exact amount left over from the money that my aunt had given me. (Yes, just because I knew that things could not get anymore awkward I paid for the meal, and got her to cringe). Talk about a sign from G-d…
Somehow, mind you not without a lot of red-faced guffawing , I managed to return to the army and face my friends with the story. Until this day it remains a favorite of various friends and their parents, although I’m still trying to understand what happened that night.
See? Stories are everywhere. It's a shame if you don't write them down.
אין תגובות:
הוסף רשומת תגובה