"But he's going to be out of town for the next couple of months," the shadchan said apologetically. "Would you be willing to . . . Skype?" Her worried tone makes it sound like she's asking me to marry him unseen.
I've never had a need for Skype, so I gamely downloaded it and created an account. On the evening in question, I happily got half-ready for a date.
Let's see, nice sweater . . . I could wear pajama bottoms, but what if I have to stand up for some reason? Shlumpy in-house skirt will do. Hair could be in better shape, but it looked fine enough on the video feed. My hand reached out automatically for the bottle of perfume, but then I cheerfully recalled that Smell-O-Vision isn't around yet.
Merrily barefoot, I arranged myself comfortably on the couch, making sure the background was pleasant, decorative pillows and elegant curtains peeking flatteringly into the frame. I arranged some scholarly-looking seforim on the sofa arm, and fiddled with the video settings to see if I could make the background cozily warmer in tone.
Bloop bloop . . .
After chatting for almost two hours, we bid each other a polite goodnight, and I blissfully pranced off to bed, free from the sometime residual nausea that follows being chauffeured by a fellow with questionable driving skills. Additionally, I felt a wee bit more free to be "myself," that I did not have to worry about comprising my ride home, or end up being abandoned in a ditch.
Seriously, people, this has to be exploited more, at least for the initial meetings. Heck, all my first dates should be Skype dates.
 |
| Via reddit.com, by TimeTraveling Mouse |
What about phone dates?
ReplyDeleteI think you're seriously onto something there!
ReplyDeleteIf that's a genuine screen shot, then you are adorable, and he has a real Rick Moranis vibe going on. :-)
Altie: Judging by the pre-date phone call, it is not reliable. Too, too often, those phone calls are great and the date was excruciating, and vice-versa.
ReplyDeleteYocheved: Nope, not me. Nor was he for me either. :p I just had to use that image for all the Star Wars tchotckes.
Princess=we MUST be related! I agree this is DEFINITELY a time saver (as well as travel & money saver), and have done this with Shadchanim. Of course its easier to sit in your living room (in pj bottoms) and chat with a group of women for 20 minutes without 10-20 hours of traveltime, not to mention taking 2 days off work just for a group of women to see how you look in person and ask you questions they already have answered on your resume-infront of them.
ReplyDeletethe only stick thing is-when you skype date a guy and you KNOW it's not gonna go much further, it kinda gets hard to end the call, after all you ARE home so you have no good excuse to end the convo...unless of course, you can pull the power cable with your toe and fake a disconnect with the internet :)
That's what I should do, Skype shachanim! It's usually a waste of time anyway, so that way I don't have to leave the house, at least.
ReplyDeleteIn general, I'm a chicken, and even though I know it's not going anywhere I don't know how to end things. Even they don't know how to. How many of them suddenly snarl, "Let's get out of here" as though it is Starbucks' fault that they are stuck with me?
There's always "I have to go to work in the morning" or "Is that the smoke alarm?" or "Look, behind you!" and slamming the screen closed. :P
As for being related, I saw something that all of Ashkenazi Jewry are from 350 people. Divide that by Hungarians, big chance we share DNA, sis.