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Sunday, November 18, 2007

The Beanie

It was pretty obvious that last night's blind date was going nowhere from the second we met. In fact, it was disdain at first sight...not on my part, but it was painfully obvious she wasn't pleased with me. I actually found her extremely attractive, even beautiful. She couldn't have been that disgusted with my looks, I thought to myself, as her eyes gazed over me like a woman who wanted to end the date before it even began. We emailed each other pictures ahead of time, and if anything, I look better in person than I do in the self portrait I took of myself with my 5 year old, 3 megapixel digital camera.

I was all showered, and dressed in my standard first date uniform: A stylish button down shirt, a pair of nice jeans, and Colehaan black shoes I paid too much for a while back. There was only one thing missing from my ensemble that apparently was the cause of this young lady's discontent...a beanie...a yarmulke...a Jew lid. Apparently, our matchmaker never bothered telling this Rebbetzin in training that I wasn't religious, and you'd think I was some tattoo ridden, crucifix wearing, idol worshipper by the way this chick was looking at me.

She begrudgingly agreed to go inside the cafe and sat with me for about an hour of extremely strained conversation. Now, obviously we weren't a match, but I vaguely recall from my days at Hebrew School some sort of "Love thy neighbor as thyself," principle that I always thought was central to any type of truly worthwhile spiritual movement. I guess she must have been absent the day they taught that in her seminary because she wasn't loving me at all. She would respond to my questions as if she was doing me a favor, and rolled her eyes at every one of my attempts at humor. When I asked her how the cafe we were in could possibly be kosher, if it served bacon, she began to explain to me how the pastries could be kosher, despite the pig on the menu, but then stopped herself in the middle, and said, "Uch...I don't need to explain this to you!"

She lives a block away from the cafe, and I offered to walk her home after our hour of awkward silences and loathing was over, but she scowled, and said, "That's okay." And off she went...probably home to wash the stench of irreligious Jew off of her saintly body.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

This chick is a bitch, but whoever set you up should've told her you weren't orthodox, and you that she was.

Anonymous said...

I agree with Isaac, what a total bitch, don't use that matchmaker again!

Anonymous said...

I've always found those types of cafes very curious. I'll be sitting there eating a dish with bacon in it, or something equally as unkosher, and at the table right next to me is an orthodox couple on a date. Something doesn't seem right.

Jessica said...

...why were you two set up in the first place?! And yeah, I'd have to agree with Isaac and Rebecca... though I wouldn't call her a bitch because I actually have a dog that's a female. She's more like an idiot with a pole up her ass.

Nice Jewish Guy said...

Sorry I can't be one of the "yeah Marc, what a beeyatch!" amen corner this time, but as a beanie-wearer myself, I have to chime in my two cents here.

Though obviously I wasn't present, I doubt that this girl was truly a 'bitch'- though certainly there are bitchy frum girls. More likely, here's the situation: she was just as chagrined to find you sans beanie as you were to find that that was a requirement of hers. You must understand that for us beanie-wearers, dating a non-beanie-wearer (or non-beanie-requirer) is simply a non-starter. It just ain't gonna fly. So here she was, having met you for the date; she could have nixed it right away on first sight (maybe you would have preferred that), or, in the same spirit of "love thy neighbor" that you have invoked, she decided to make the best of it and sit and talk for a while. After all, you were both already there.

As far as the cafe thing, many more "modern Orthodox" will drink coffee from paper cups in establishments that serve actual treif. The reasons are a bit too complex to get into here and irrelevant anyway.

My guess is also that she wasn't offended by you, just chagrined at the situation, and probably planning her tirade to the mutual friend who set you up for wasting her time (and yours).

Which brings up the bigger issue: who set you up anyway? Seriously, Marc, you've posted more than a few tales of clueless-friend setups before. Maybe you should be fishing in different waters.

And, while we're talking about it, I've wondered before: you never seem to have any good dates. Are you just not posting them, or is it possible that every person you go out with is somehow a jerk?

Marc said...

NJG- I've commented on this past. No, they're not all jerks, but what's the point in posting about a ho-hum date where nothing eventful or interesting happened?

As far as the orthodox chick is concerned, I understand her frustration, but she could have at least acted like a polite human being. She WAS a bitch. Trust me!

Anonymous said...

If she was willing to eat pastries in a non-kosher restaurant she couldn't have been that orthodox. Even among the modern-orthodox many would not eat pastries in a non-kosher restaurant. Strictly speaking these pastries cannot be kosher. Also, there is an issue of 'maras ayin' - that people seeing a religion jew eating in a non-kosher restaurant might think they are eating non kosher food and conclude that it's ok to eat non-kosher food in a non-kosher restaurant.

Anonymous said...

We've all been "chagrined" at the site of a blind date we weren't into for whatever reason. That doesn't excuse acting like a child. I wasn't there either, but that's the sense I get from reading the description of the events -that this "woman" has a lot of growing up to do in terms of social decorum.

Anonymous said...

I guess this comes down to the ol' communication thing — someone, you, her, the matchmaker, should have made the rules clear so everyone could have made an informed choice on whether to meet or not.

That said, one you did meet, one or the other should have said (as soon as it became apparent that there was no "there" there): I don't think this is working well, do you? Nice meeting you, but shall we move on?