Just Another Jewish Guy on JDate
“Lonely and bored to death; receding hairline; inflated ego; dumped by a long-term girlfriend who won’t talk to me; closet Republican; do not like art and/or museums; jaded and cynical from living in NYC for too long; big crush on Paris Hilton and Brittany Spears; looking for wife (Jewish) yet ambivalent (at best) about long-term commitment; sort of a bastard, though some women have found me endearing; but at least I’m not cheap, and I’ll buy you stuff.” These were the spontaneously introspective reflections I typed into the “About Me” section of JDate as I opened my account. I tried to be more upbeat for my “Ideal Relationship”: “My vision of my ideal relationship is simple: We sit together on the precipice of the Spanish Steps in Rome, holding hands, silent because speech is not necessary, and then we kiss.” Better, at least, than “Inflated ego, bored, closet Republican.”
Having reached that fragile age where a relationship might morph into marriage, I asked myself: Aside from the ethnic precondition of Jewish blood, what am I looking for in a woman? Again, I typed in my spontaneous thoughts to describe “Your Perfect Match”: “Used to like brunettes, but now blondes, although dark eyes are an imperative; please note, I have an aversion to women who cannot cook; and please be very good looking, by which I mean of the caliber of a supermodel, which is what I have dated heretofore.” This seemed rather bleak, so I decided, this time, to bluff: “Really, I could list the numerous qualities that I seek, but why not discover instead who you are?” I expressed my cooking prerequisite more tactfully: “If you are a chef, you will win my heart, for the art of cuisine is, in my life, of foremost significance.”
The Perfect First Date
I described my “perfect first date” as follows: “If the next morning I wake up and feel an existential pang, the universe suddenly cold and empty in your absence, it will have been a perfect first date.” What I neglected to mention was: “Odds are overwhelming that this will not happen; if, however, we wake up together the next morning disrobed, whereupon I find myself still attracted to you in our post-coital haze, then JDate will have been well worth the one hour investment to make a profile, and I might even ask for your number.”
And so my sojourn in Jewish cyberspace started with a demographic search, where my criterion for “my perfect match” were input into JDate’s search engine: “18-21, drinks socially and/or frequently, secular or unaffiliated; list most popular members first.” Sifting through the profiles, I found that most girls were pretty uninteresting, if not altogether dull: “I like long walks,” wrote one. “Someone to talk to, to spend time with,” wrote another, describing what she likes to do. Enjoy going out,” a third revealed. Then the inevitable qualification: “It’s hard to be original,” “It’s hard to really tell you who I am,” “This is my first time online dating,” “I’m new to the city,” yada, yada, yada. Finally, they tell you about their quirks, like how they paint their toenails different colors or how (allegedly) they are “irreverent” or how they like to do Pilates while hanging upside down from the Williamsburg Bridge–well, now that you mention that, I think I might like you! Or not. At least some of them were multi-dimensional: “I like going out to see movies, but I also like staying at home to watch movies.” Me too. We have so much in common.
The Daughter Who Wasn’t There To Be Asked
About twenty pages (two hundred profiles/women) later, I happened upon my soul mate. Eighteen years old and stunningly beautiful, her profile opened: “~*~ StEllA ~*~ i’m a really great girl who loooooves to have fun!!!!!!! i haven’t found a guy who ~*aPpReCiAtEs*~ me yet :(.” If anyone knows Stella, please convey the following: “The only reason I pretend to be cocky is to filter out other women, for it is you, my love, to whom my heart is forever bound.” Stella, I noticed, had not logged in since September. Distraught, I turned to Ecclesiastes for comfort: “Human life is but vanity, and man has little recourse but to drowneth his sorrows with drink.”
Then it was more of the same: “I am laid back,” “outgoing,” “witty”–so you claim. “I love everything life has to offer,” “Passionate about everything,” “I’m the type of person who likes to go out and have fun”–so unique were all of these girls that it was hard to narrow my choices. “I want a driven man, who knows what he wants”–doubtful, if you really met one of us. Then I actually gagged encountering one profile that opened with “Shalom, I love Hashem.” When a girl brings El Shadai into the bedroom, she gets a little edgy about doing the fun stuff.
The Wicked Daughter
The best profiles are the racy ones. My favorite was Fun_Elissa-69, who lacked Stella’s pristine beauty, but nevertheless had that “I’m-a-Jewish-porn-star” look, like that nice Sephardic girl-next-door who got a job at Hooter’s. Such girls, generally, have more than enough attention from the mammalian male in the real world. There is, necessarily, some catch, like Fun Elissa’s profile is a practical joke, or perhaps ‘she’ is really a she-male; or if she is real, so is her case of Chlamydia.
Fun Elissa was just begging for trouble: “21 years old… my friends have described me as insatiable… I’m thinking of getting a tattoo and I have a few piercings in private places… 🙂 before we know it, the night has flown by cause we’re having SO much fun… when we wake up you continue to rock my world :-)=> }~(-: Frequent and passionate lovemaking are essential.” So true. But how did this get by the ominous Customer Service censors, who patrol the online dating scene to delete objectionable materials from profiles? Anyway, I e-mailed Fun Elissa 69: “Let’s go out and hav$ a good tim$ together!” I also offered a suggestion for her tattoo: “Shiksah.” Fun Elissa did not respond.
The Simple Daughter
The wittiest profile, Mich7569, opened with: “Nice Jewish girl with large butt and big breasts.” Her perfect match: “A guy that enjoys the simple things in life”–like her big Jewish breasts? Her ideal relationship: “Simplicity.” But the red flag was her perfect first date: “I hate wildlife. dont take me to the zoo.” What type of girl doesn’t like furry little animals? Mich7569 learned from her past relationships that “Sleeping with a guy on the first date does not guarantee he will call the next day.” Smart girl. “No matter what, the guy at least owes a phone call,” she insisted, going on to explain how she aggressively pursues delinquent men by telephone, e-mail, and fax. That’s a nice touch–by fax. Women, too, can be creepy stalkers; watch out, gentlemen! Like others in the predatory web of JDate, this Jewish gal wants a Jewish husband ASAP, which perhaps explains why the guys don’t call her the next day.
Girls, you see, do not join JDate to date. They join to find a husband. The temptress, brimming with passion, lulls the unwitting Jewish male into the snare of Jewish domestic cohabitation. Indeed, if Mich7569 were a little more self-aware, she would have said: “Nice Jewish girl, with large butt and big breasts, seeking Jewish husband to bankroll my wardrobe and to impregnate me with his Jewish seed so that I fulfill my biological urge to procreate, as well as my spiritual longing/guilt to contribute to Jewish continuity.” That’s JDate in a nutshell. But not always.
The Wise Daughter
Sophia was the exception. She happened to grow up in the same city as one of my ex-girlfriends–providence, coincidence, whatever. She is a successful 27-year old entrepreneur, which is sort of sexy, for such girls are typically straightforward, thus rendering the mating rituals more felicitous and less costly. She informed me that she was flying to New York just to visit some friends (that is, strategically place herself in proximity to me and “see what happens”), and that she would stay a
t the W Hotel–this caught my attention, which I suspect was her intention. Sophia was my first live JDate. We met up at the Time Lounge in Midtown. I gave her my full attention, looked straight into her eyes, made sure she had a few cocktails, yada, yada, yada. Well, this is what I tell my friends….in truth, we never met up, because she apparently lost interest in me after our initial few rounds of e-mail.
Another Zionist Conspiracy?
During my very last IM conversation on JDate, I was contacted by JAP_JEW_NYC: “Hi, how are u?” “Wait, have you read my profile?” I replied. “Hold on,”she said. Two minutes later, she IM’d me again: “What are you trying to accomplish? Repel women?” This prompted an existential crisis, as I suddenly felt estranged from the world, even from my own self.
Yet upon further introspection, it occurred to me that there is only so much that the human mating ritual–dating–can be digitized and commodified. Online dating creates false expectations. It becomes impossible to objectify women to any satisfactory degree, as one’s subjective imagination, tainted by lust or hope, imagines a woman to be as beautiful, if not more, than her pixilated digital image suggests. Additionally, it takes away the mystery and tension of approaching another flesh-and-blood human in a real-time, live-action venue (a.k.a. real life, like a bar).
Granted, reality is thornier than cybernetic intercourse, not to mention riskier (physically, as well), but it is also more intense and (potentially) more profound: The shivers down the spine, the spontaneous budding of manhood, the flowery perfume infused with the primordial pheromones from her underarms–meeting a girl online just isn’t the same. And it amuses me how in “real life,” even those who most adamantly clash with my personality, or diverge in political orientation, nevertheless find themselves drawn to me. It is called chemistry. (It’s like: I don’t care what he says, he is cute and just bought me a drink.)
In the days of yore (late 1980s/90s), the paradigm of life was thus: Smile from across the room, approach, talk, kiss, exchange numbers, talk more, kiss again, then marriage, kids, divorce, retire to Florida, early bird suppers, death. But it all started with flesh-to-flesh contact.
Meanwhile, in today’s world, my online potency is akin to premature ejaculation: In “dating,” I barely get beyond an initial e-mail, or perhaps about five lines of an instant message. My digital images and marketing ability simply fail to convey that I am the most eligible Jewish bachelor….in the world? I think I come across as a bit too direct. One girl thought I was a chauvinist–me, are you kidding? But put into perspective, for every success on JDate, I suspect that statistically there are one thousand failures; that is, for every mated couple, there are probably one thousand un-mated couples. And who benefits? The Jewish guy/gal collecting the $29/month fee from the suckers who subscribe.
Just Another Jewish Guy?
Before the end of my excursion into Jewish-dating cyberspace, I decided to look at myself from the other side. Not only did I find my profile, but also I found two others that I had composed in past months. All with the same pictures. One said I was 26; another, 28. According to one, I was “liberal”; another “moderate.” “California, PhD, modern orthodox,” claimed one. “Kansas, high-school education, another stream,” affirmed the other.
Then, to make matters worse, I started perusing the profiles of my compatriots. That’s how I realized the extent of my popularity–rather, unpopularity. In JDate, one’s profile is ranked by the number of teases and hot-listings s/he receives from others. One can “tease” another with one of a few formulaic messages: “All your imperfections are perfect for me,” “I’m looking for a serious relationship, are you?” One can also “hot list” the better pickings of the crop, something like a digital inventory to keep track of potential dates/wives. Fun Elissa 69, obviously, had been at the top of the list for weeks. Me? Quite the contrary, it was only after fifteen (aspiring screenwriter) accountants, followed by fifteen Sephardic-macho toy boys, followed by another fifty embodiments of sheer mediocrity–only there, after eighty other Jewish guys, did my profile appear.
The insult is profound. Higher than I in the hierarchy of eligible Jewish males included a plump guy with a beard and yarmulke (28 years going on 40), followed by pale, prissy, and bespectacled Ashkenazim, and then some hulking guys, biceps bulging, who remind me of the monstrous men found on fetish porn sites. Nice Jewish guys? Even lower in popularity, in the dark depths of JDate’s gene pool, where the guys have lazy eyes, borderline albino complexions, and other blatantly unsavory attributes–only there, among these platitudinous, run-of-the-mill accountants, did my profile finally appear. So much for my inflated ego.
Then again, what am I looking for? Do I even know? Is it a girl who “looooves to have fun!” Could it be a Sephardic “pro” with piercings in private places? Or a simple girl with a big Jewish butt and boobs? Whatever it is, I’m not convinced I’ll find it on JDate.
