It really annoys me when people say things like "Looking for a spouse is like looking for a job. That's why your resume should be up-to-date with a good photo attached."
Really? I'm job hunting?
Really? I'm job hunting?
When one seeks a job, one coweringly enters an office, praying that the person in the big chair won't be too hard on them.
"Job interview" already has connotations of a one-sided relationship; the all-powerful vs. the eager-to-please intern.
I am not seeking a boss. I am seeking a bashert.
I can't stand the term "resume." Bad4 feels the same way, and I quote: "It's not a farshtinkener resume! It's a profile!"
My photo? Really? What employer would insist on that? If he doesn't want to get hit with a discrimination suit, he better be open to other qualities.
Please, let him judge me on shallow grounds alone. We are constantly hocked to give people a chance; not letting one have a conversation first to throw physical attributes in a whole new light is not exactly fair. If he wants to see what I look like before he'll spring for coffee, he's more than welcome to pick up a girl that suits his fantasies in Starbucks.
We like to think about emotions such as "love" or "devotion" or "I saw her/him and knew." By boiling down our relationship status to a piece of paper we are stripping this whole enterprise of any warm feelings; only cold, clinical stats.
Please, let him judge me on shallow grounds alone. We are constantly hocked to give people a chance; not letting one have a conversation first to throw physical attributes in a whole new light is not exactly fair. If he wants to see what I look like before he'll spring for coffee, he's more than welcome to pick up a girl that suits his fantasies in Starbucks.
We like to think about emotions such as "love" or "devotion" or "I saw her/him and knew." By boiling down our relationship status to a piece of paper we are stripping this whole enterprise of any warm feelings; only cold, clinical stats.
I love Data, but I don't want to marry him. "Query: Why is there no mention of camps attended?"
"Because I couldn't stand camp. I have no ruach."
"Because I couldn't stand camp. I have no ruach."
"Processing." (This takes a mili-second). "Elaborate as to why you abstained from this activity, whereas all other humans partake of such past-times."
Data's problem was that he tended to pigeonhole.
Yaakov saw Rochel from afar and he was smitten with her looks. Then he loved her soul for how she treated the livestock. I am not going to announce all of my facets on a piece of paper.
Yaakov saw Rochel from afar and he was smitten with her looks. Then he loved her soul for how she treated the livestock. I am not going to announce all of my facets on a piece of paper.
The mystery, honey, gets discovered in time. But in order to do that, buy a girl a coke.
To be fair, some employers do want your photo to make sure that the guy who shows up for work is the same one that came in to interview instead of a professional ringer.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, if "When one seeks a job, one coweringly enters an office, praying that the person in the big chair won't be too hard on them" is how you see the process, you might have some trouble getting that first job.
Third, remember that the idea of marrying for love is about a century old. Before that, for a very, very long time marriage was about economics. A woman married for money and/or status, a man to have offspring. Popular movies have distorted our understanding of this lack of romance in human history but there's a reason why none of their friends thought Romeo and Juliet were behaving in a sane fashion.
So when you're dealing with people who say this, it's because they're working with the older model in which, yes, the girl did show up with a resume.
I think one of the huge problems with the system is that a guy is supposed to be a little crazy, a little daring, when it comes to love. Because getting married is, in essence, illogical--your expenses go up, there is this other person you need to share with, and they get all offended when you don't call and say that you'll be home a little later today! So it has to be a little crazy. It has to be about love, to an extent. When it is all reduced to cold clinical facts on a paper...there is no crazy. There is no chance for anything other than the safe way; ie, the paper with the girl who dots the most Is and crosses the most Ts.
ReplyDeleteShame.
Profiles and the like do make things very black-and-white, when they're really grey. And they don't say much about someone's personality- especially for the quieter folks among us. Sometimes just meeting, without the pressure from the start, is smoother. I don't know that my husband and I would have done as well on standard dates as we did having met at a birthday party, talked for a long time, and then (a few months later), just spent some time doing things together, sometimes with a chaperone of sorts, even. Much easier just to be yourself.
ReplyDeleteMGI: I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a romantic. But there is a difference between meeting someone or having a piece of paper as your representative.
ReplyDeleteAs for the old country? The way it operated, at least in my grandparents time, was that the shadchan would do the selling via letter, rather than telephone or email.
While yes, romantic love is recent (were we watching the same rerun of "The Big Bang Theory" last night?) I am not even going that far.
Today's couples spend way more time in each other's company than they ever have before. They have to make sure nowadays that they don't want to kill each other.
JS: When it comes to dating, and our belief in bashert, there should be an acknowledgement that there are some things out of our control. All this paper-pushing is just part of a desperate attempt to place control on something that cannot be.
MR: Precisely. When they say "List your qualities," I can be pretty much anything, depending on the situation. Human beings are exactly that: grey, not carefully labeled. And self-labeling is certainly, most often, inaccurate.
Before I fired my shadchan I also got "it's a full time job". Unfortunately, I already had one of those, which I think is rather a good thing to have if one is looking for a spouse.
ReplyDeleteAnon: She said that dating is a full-time job? Jeez. And amen to your being employed!
ReplyDelete