Shidduch TV

Yes, I know, I'm about ten years behind the times, but I'm now watching Srugim. 

I asked Han if he had ever watched it, and he said he had started to when he was single, but found it too depressing. 

I totally get that. 

The show does bum me out. It cuts a little too close to home. It also doesn't help that I don't really find the characters . . . likable.  

Reut is humorless and sharp-tongued. Nati is self-absorbed, casually churning through dates without care, frightened of any "real" connection. Yifat is hard yet brittle, mooning over the nonreciprocating Nati.

Even the ones who are nice(ish) make pretty bad mistakes. Hodaya, who comes from a home more to the right (rabbi's daughter) than the life she's currently living, is constantly operating under a cloud of embarrassment. She dodges family members on the street, afraid of their reaction to her jeans. She's equally ashamed to tell her chiloni boyfriend that she's religious, even when she breaks up with him over it. 

Amir is a recent divorcee who tries to do the right thing, but is finding it frustrating as women are turned off by his previous marriage. That also leads him to goof up. 

I realized while I was talking with Han about it why it's a bummer: it encourages the notion that singles are screw-ups (they do say "dofek" a lot). They're single because they can't get their acts together. Which isn't fair to the rest of us screw-ups. Sorry, singles.

And yet, I'm addicted. It does remind me, all too keenly, of those years of unknowing, when you're not sure what you are "supposed" to be doing, flailing and praying. 

Maybe because us frummies have few entertainment outlets that display our lives that I'll take it and run.