Free To Be Me

I've already plowed through "My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend," although due to baby-induced sleep deprivation, I've forgotten pretty much most of it. I vaguely recall that it was highly enjoyable. 

Rebecca Bloom, the star and co-creator, came out with a memoir, and she was duly interviewed. This paragraph spoke to me. 

“I’ve never been able to be anyone but myself,” Bloom said in a video chat. “And when I’ve very vociferously attempted to not be myself — when I would come to school and be like, ‘I’ve had a makeover!’ — I’ve never been able to hide well. The conclusion I’ve come to in the past 10 years is, well, I might as well just lean hard into who I am.”

Yuuuuuuuuuup. 

In real (as opposed to the blogosphere) life, few people get me. Less than few comprehended me in school. The harder I would try to be likable, I was avoided even more. So, if the results are going to be the same, I might as well be me. 

The heilaga Brené speaks of the difference between "fitting in" and "belonging." In my view, it's still "belonging" even if you are on your own, in your own space. The price of fighting my own nature and personality was too high, and I was unwilling to pay it. 

Perhaps some thought (no, some definitely thought) that if I had been more willing to be "typical" (whatever that means) I would have married earlier, but . . . that's a negatory. Han and I aren't "atypical," we just like to abide to our own truths, like moisturizers, funky clothing, and lemon desserts (that's just a few of the things we have in common). 

As long as you are nice to others, there is nothing wrong with embracing yourself. I've become quite fond of goofy energy. 

Shidduch Lit: It's Not You

 OK, I know I have been saying that the persecution of singles takes place all over, in all cultures, countries, and societies, but I don't think that it really hit home until I read Sara Eckel's It's Not You: 27 (Wrong) Reasons You're Single. 

I mean, I thought it took place on some level, but not to the extreme as it is in the frum world. From what I've been gleaning from this book, which was recommended by an anonymous follower, the perception of something inherently wrong with singles is a view shared by, well, the entire human race. 

As I read, I was surprised how practically every sensation I experienced as a single was accurately described. Her chapter on being picky was practically my post on the same topic, word-for-word. 

That lead me to another epiphany: I'm expecting too much from our community. 

If the entire human race finds singlehood terrifying to look at, how is it possible for the frum demographic to calm the hell down? Eckel is describing a lifestyle where people aren't particularly religious yet they expect everyone to pair up; our faith demands that men get married and make a go at populating the earth. 

I can't expect the frummies to become mellow with the whole concept of "older singles." The campaign slogan, instead, should be kindness. Or tact, at the very least. 

Tragedy exists in a multitude of forms. People are born with disabilities. People die young by illness or accident. People yearn to be parents, but remain childless. Those subject to those circumstances must struggle with hurtful comments as well. 

The problem isn't the wrong perception of singlehood. It's the typical reaction that in our discomfort and need to control, we often say things in a desperate attempt to believe that we can prevent such circumstances, that if we do the "right thing" then we shall be thusly spared. 

So, single person, you must be too picky. You must be commitment phobic. You must not be trying hard enough.

Now we can all sleep at night. 

To get back on topic, Eckel's book is an excellent read for those who have been battered by well-meaning yet ego-devastating comments. I would have highlighted and posted 85% of it and reposted it, when it's much more gratifying to simply read it. She doesn't simply make a statement like "that's ridiculous"; she backs it up with other papers, other thinkers (even Brene!), other points, logically disproving the myth at hand.

"Yes, I Can!"

I come from a line of dedicated TV watchers, and Ben takes after me in that he'll watch any moving screen. His current preference is by a channel or something called Super Simple Songs, which churn out baby-friendly song clips. "The Ants Go Marching" is unfortunately stuck in both mine and Han's heads. 

One of the songs is "Yes, I Can!" It sort of goes like this: 

Little bird, little bird can you clap? 

No I can't, no I can't, I can't clap. 

Little bird, little bird, can you fly? 

Yes I can, yes I can, I can fly!

Elephant, elephant, can you fly? 

No I can't, no I can't, I can't fly. 

Elephant, elephant, can you stomp? 

Yes I can, yes I can, I can stomp! 

And so on. A list of animals that are asked if they can do something they can't, then asked to do something they can. 

It made me think of people. We aren't much different. Han and I joke about the lyrics from "Reading Rainbow": "I caaaan do ANYTHING!" Yeah, can you fly? Splat. Humans, without a motley of expensive and complicated accoutrements, can't fly. Doesn't make them less than birds, though. 

We each have our own abilities. It doesn't mean if someone lacks our gifts and possesses their own that we have to start competing. 

I'm an early bird. I bake with whole wheat flour. I can recite one Shakespearean sonnet by heart. Others thrive in the night, can make unicorn cakes, and do coding.

Ma believed that one can learn something from anyone. She left behind a tower of notebooks, scribbled with bits of information she gathered ranging from cooking to philosophy to child-rearing to homeopathy.  

I try to hold by the same belief, consciously being open to what others share. Sometimes it works; often it doesn't. It doesn't mean that their suggestion wasn't good, it just wasn't good for me. 

When our insecurities are in high gear, other people's skills and beliefs can be a threat. But like the many animal species out there, one person is capable of "clapping," but can't "fly"; another can "fly," but can't "stomp"; she can "stomp," but can't "swim." 

Let's focus on our unique abilities.

Lessons from the Ancient

I have had a recent epiphany. 

I'm old. 

OK, not old old. Not ancient. Not quite the crypt keeper. 

But I'm certainly older than I used to be. 

I like dark chocolate. The type that's 72% cacao? That nasty stuff. Milk chocolate, the joy of my girlhood, is too sweet.

My lower back is something to be coddled and exercised. I wear a posture corrector so it doesn't go to pot while hauling a rather zaftig infant on my hip. 

My kinfauna are dating. (Do they seek my insights after my many, many years in the field? Of course not.) 

Despite my rigorous creaming program, smile lines are fighting back. 

I'm going to be 35 this year. I shouldn't be so surprised. 

I'm not upset by my revelation. It has made be contemplative. 

Should I be having a mini-mid-life crisis? Frankly, I'm too tired. Ben doesn't quite sleep through the night, and I'm too busy gazing at him in a I-can't-believe-this-squishy-baby-is-mine haze to care that my "best" years may be behind me. 

What was so "best" about them, anyway? 

I spent my 20s thrashing about the dating quagmire, and in the process found myself. I think I was on a bit of a time delay, and during those years I had the self-discovery and whatnot that established my identity. I like that. 

I like being sure of myself. Surer. Knowing what I am and what I need and who I want to be. 

So here's to my dark chocolate, creaky bones, and determined wrinkles. It's time to start aging with grace, with the self-assurance I finally found. 

Mennonite to Jew

Mishpacha Magazine featured a story, written by Sharon Gelbach,  a number of weeks ago about a family of Mennonites that decided to be megayer and later, make aliyah. What I found enrapturing regarding their story was not only their free-thinking ways—they don't feel a need to find a specific niche in which to define themselves—but also their emphasis on a positive, rather than negative, outlook.

Akiva and Basya, before converting, home-schooled their children: 

They weren't looking to isolate the children from the negative as much as to have an active, positive influence and to be able to exert greater control over what their children were learning. "If you focus on the negative, saying, 'I'm trying to avoid x, y and z,' they're eventually going to see those things," Akiva explains. "As I see it, you have to say, what am I doing this for? I want to have a say in what's being taught in a positive way."

Regarding where they chose to send their children to school, after moving to Israel:

". . . most of those school representatives expended a lot of energy telling us why not to send our children to other places, not why we should send to them. I'm not saying they're bad, but as I see it, you don't degrade somebody else to build yourself up. They were saying, 'We're better,' rather than, 'Here's what we have to offer.' Bnei Akiva was the only school that said absolutely nothing about anybody else. They basically said, 'This is what we have to offer. This is what we can do.' . . . If you live in a negative mindset, it's going to get passed right on to the children."

Regarding his parents:

Akiva still maintains regular contact with his parents, and speaks to his father once a week. "If you don't teach your children to respect your father, whom they can see, how will you teach them to honor their Father in Heaven, Whom they can't see? It's important to me there is no negativity in the relationship, because that gets passed down to the children."

. . . Akiva credits his father with imparting him with lessons on how to combat peer pressure. "I teach the kids that it's okay to be different. We don't have to be like the world to be part of the world. We have to be able to say, 'I'm okay with being different.'" 

Perhaps because they were outliers in the first place—being Mennonites—the idea of being different is not so difficult for them. But I was so taken with their contentment in choosing their own path, a path that is not defined by a specific group, understanding that there is no right way to be a Jew. 

 

I'm finishing The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish, and this line won me over:

People go through life trying to please some audience. But once you realize there's no audience, life is simple. It's just doing what you know in your gut is right.

Mamma Lushon

Every family has their own language, and that unique vocabulary can live on. 

In my family's case, cutely mispronounced baby words can cling for decades. For instance, as a toddler, Luke said "dahngess" (which is actually Yiddish for "worries") instead of "downstairs," and to this day, we say "dahngess." Then the next generation of kinfauna left their mark, and in short order. Luke's now 6-year-old son used to say "chapach" instead of "garbage," and I seem to be stuck saying the same. 

Then there are the European pronunciations from my parents' backgrounds. "Interasant" for "interesting"; "stoordy" for "sturdy"; "banant" for "banana." 

Then, when one marries, the spouse introduces their own family language. One of the reasons why I feel like I can be completely myself with Han is his ready acceptance of my verbal quirks, as this vocabulary is so much a part of me that it's unthinkable that I can let it go. 

"Shoin nisht the vaaser," Babi would say when washing hands. "Frozen meat doesn't rot," Zeidy would say regarding the health benefits of frigid weather. Quoting my grandparents, my parents, my siblings, the kinfauna—it's comfort, it's continuity. 

I thought of this while reading Deborah Tannen's "My Mother Speaks Through Me." Her mother died nearly 15 years ago.

I was grateful to be reminded that whenever I open my mouth to speak and my ears to hear, my mother is still with me.

Luke is a scientist; he told his kids that Babi will always be with them because they carry her DNA, she is literally in them. DNA can be seen in action, I have noted. I look like my father's side of the family, but Luke constantly says my mannerisms are like Ma's. When I echo her words, when she quoted her parents' Yiddish and Hungarian, I feel as though she is not gone, but with me. 

How to Stay Sane While Dating: XVII

For those who have been dating for a while, there will inevitably come the suggestions to try something a wee bit more "alternative." Dating websites and dating events are the top two. 

To be clear, I have no objection to dating websites or dating events. What I do object to is their revered status as magic bullets. 

They aren't. They are merely another potential means to meet your special someone. Or the potential means to meet many, many stalkers. 

I kid. 

Sort of. 

I was once coaxed (make that bullied) into joining SYAS. I was uncomfortable with the whole enterprise to begin with, because the internet is the perfect smokescreen. One can make oneself look perfect (as the Instagramers know) and conveniently gloss over the more human details. 

I was on it for approximately 48 hours. Besides for the fact that I had no idea how to categorize myself (I'm not "Yeshivish Modern" nor am I "Modern Orthodox MACHMIR"), I am relying on a faceless someone who doesn't know me to set me up with another faceless someone she doesn't know either. My first suggestion couldn't even manage to tie together the contradictory details between his photo and his written description, and I realized I don't have the koyach for this. I deactivated my account to save my sanity. 

OK, why didn't I join one of those non-shadchan websites? Because it made me feel gross to sift through profiles and judge people ("Ew, he's nasty," "Gah, what a loser," "Is he kidding me?" "Oy, what a nebach"). I might as well go to hell now. And how would I gracefully fend off unwanted advances? Xanax, please.

Singles events. Oh dear dear dear. I went to two that I wished I hadn't gone to, and one that was tolerable but pointless. Everyone blended together to the point that I couldn't differentiate between the men or the women. And the organizers couldn't stop being annoyingly condescending.

Then the Shabbos meals. PSA: Do not serve hard liquor at the table. The women guests do not appreciate being interrogated by drunks. 

People encourage, "Step out of your comfort zone." But there is a reason why I have parameters for a comfort zone: To keep my stress levels from triggering acid reflux.   

There are some people who don't mind these alternative means. That's great. I mean, really. They can join in these activities and even enjoy themselves. But I didn't. I was tormented. And nowhere is it written that I must terrorize myself in order to get married. 

So you don't have to step out of your comfort zone. If you are meant to meet him, you'll meet him. Hashem works out the how, no one else. 

How to Stay Sane While Dating: XVI

When I was single, I got a lot of flack for my makeup. Which I donned under my mother's supervision, mind you. 

Women (it was very rarely men, they seemed to enjoy it) would make constant comments. Too much. Too strong. 

Which, of course, was the reason why I was single. 

I will not deny that there were a number of dates that were horrified by my cosmetic choices. (They were also the guys who didn't believe in ironing.) Or there were some dates who liked my face paint, but were disappointed to learn that I had brains, too. 

Oh, that was a reason why I was single, too. "Don't act so smart on a date," I was told, once even by a non-Jewish client. 

Luckily, it wasn't an option for me to "tone myself down." I yam what I yam. And how am I to know what man likes what?

So I continued in my pink-lipped and big-vocabularied glory, poo-pooing the naysayers (with my parents' support) until the merry day that I met Han, who adores my Face and enjoys the brains that goes with them. 

Since people like to blame, they will zero on in a quality that they happen to find personally objectionable and claim, "Hey, that's why you're single!"  

In my case, my Sephora obsession was my crime. Even though these women simply chose other options for their Faces (that didn't suit them one bit, shudder), they needed to make their lives more orderly by pinpointing an obvious error and believe that "if only" the poor dear saw the horror of her ways, she would be wed by now.

A faulty presumption, indeed. 

But I wasn't in the dating game just to get married. I was in that stupid, chaotic, exhausting world to find a life partner. Someone who would see me. Someone I could see. Someone I could be my natural self with, feeling safe and accepted.  

Han's best friend's wife was told "she would never get married" if she continued in her quirky ways. Well, she did, obviously. 

It doesn't say anywhere in the Gemara how we have to suppress our personalities in order to marry. It says Hashem has it all taken care of.  

So be yourself. 

Multi-Faceted

The frum world is not immune to the current trend of polarization. If one dons a streimel, then he must be ______, ______, and ______. If one wears a kippah serugah, he must be ______, ______, and ______.

Because my father speaks a heimishe Yiddish, many often mistakenly think he's a lapsed chassid. Well, they better be prepared for a whole lot of dropped knowledge, son. (European Jewry was not neatly divided into two categories, "chassidish" and "litvish." Yiddish was the spoken language of all Jewry, and the havara is based on region, not sect. For instance, the Lubavitchers and Stalliners speak Yiddish with a different havara than the Polish chassidism. As for Hungary, there were no home-grown chassidish movements therein. The prevailing outlook was that of the Chasam Sofer, a flaming misnaged. But I digress.) 

People are rarely perceived as what we truly are, which is multi-faceted. For instance, there are women who like makeup and fashion while simultaneously digging sci-fi and superheroes (cough). 

I'm not the only one.

I was reminded of this while reading two articles in the Sunday Review a few weeks ago, "Go Ahead, Speak for Yourself" by Kwame Anthony Appiah, and "Jocks Rule, Nerds Drool" by Jennifer Wright.

Appiah shows how qualifying statements—"As a Jewish woman," "As a lawyer turned baker," "As a Wookie"—create false imagery in conversations. Take "As a Jewish woman"; I would perceive a fellow frum gal, while others may see a Democratic liberal who goes to temple only on the High Holy Days. Identity isn't as clear-cut as we would like to think. Nor can one of us claim to speak for everyone under the "Jewish woman" umbrella. 

On that same note, Wright upends the simplistic stereotype of jocks vs. nerds: Jocks have it great in high school; nerds don't. Jocks are doofuses who can only do blue collar work; nerds succeed. Jocks are jerks, but the girls like them anyway; nerds are nice, but girls don't know better. 

 

It does not follow that being great at sports = idiot, mean, and lady killer. Nor does it follow that scrawny, awkward brilliance = consideration. I've met enough sweet, smart guys who can throw a ball, and enough intelligent yet condescending chaps who thought they were better than everyone else. Unbrilliant nerds also exist.

Of course I am guilty of prejudgement based on supposed identity. But whenever I fell into that trap, I ended up looking stupid indeed. Just as my makeup makes me seem to those who are equally prejudiced.

Born This Way (Laughing Hysterically)

I know I'm pretty late to the game, but I started watching Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. While I personally can't stand stories about women who chase down uninterested men, the pilot episode hooked me with "The Sexy Getting Ready Song." 

Rebecca is getting ready for a party where she hopes to see the unrequited object of her affection. The opening scene is the usual, lady in lacy lingerie, strappy heels, and satin robe gyrating in front of a mirror.

Then it goes downhill. We bear witness to the true beauty process, which involves plucking nose whiskers, waxing body hair, scraping off dead foot skin, suffocating body shapers, eyelash curlers, and horrific burns from curling irons. A rapper enters, and begins the usual sexist lyrics, then trails off as he witnesses how the sausage truly gets made: 

"God, what... this is how you get ready? This is some... this is horrifying, like a scary movie or something. Like some nasty-*** patriarchal ****. You know what? I gotta go apologize to some b*****s. I'm forever changed after what I've just seen." 

At one point, Rebecca croons, "Let's see how the guys get ready," and the camera cuts to Rebecca's date, Greg, sleeping peacefully on the couch. 

As she wafts from the house looking smoking, Greg can't believe his eyes. "Oh, I just woke up from a nap," she says airily. 

The episode closes with the rapper, Nipsey Hussle, calling up a list of women and apologizing. 

"Hey Denise, it's me, Nipsey Hussle. I recently had an eye-opening experience. I'm calling to apologize for the way I treated you when you danced in my recent music video. Denise, I'm sorry I showered you with Cristal. I didn't even ask if you liked Champagne, and it probably messed with your blow-out." 

"Ashley, I realize now that it wasn't right for me to tell you what to do with that big fat ***. You can wiggle it, or you can sit it down in a classroom and get that college degree in communications." 

"Chelsea, I'm sorry I put you in a bikini made of gold coins and then made you dance on the roof of my Bentley. I realize now that metal conducts heat and that was probably a very uncomfortable experience." 

"Anyway, Denise, hit me up whenever you get this. I'd love to discuss The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir, which I just read. You are beautiful inside as well as out. You are my equal!"

I was weeping (with hilarity). It reminded me of this post, along with Amy Schumer's music video, "Girl You Don't Need Makeup" (the boy band serenade her that she's perfect without glop, only to recoil in disgust when they see the reality, and beg her to slap the stuff back on). 

My niece said to me the other Friday night (with a complete Shabbos Face), "You look pretty." 

"Thank you, sweetie. It only took a half hour." 

"It was more like forty-five minutes," she corrected.

Gentlemen: Respect the process. That is all we ask. (Han does. Good man.)

She Gotta Be She

I don't consider myself a feminist. If you think that women should get equal pay, that makes you a feminist. Can't I just be someone with a basic sense of "fair"?

My objections to feminism in its typical form is the aspiration to male heights. "We can do anything a man does!" 

But I don't want to be able to do things like a man. I want to do things like a woman, and since that comes natural to me, I'll be awesome at it. 

Take this mild example: Han, because he's male, may get some respect by customer service because he's male. I'm never going to get the male equivalent of respect because, duh, I'm not male. 

However, if I carefully apply my makeup and opt for a bold matte lipstick, then enter with a dignified bearing, I'll certainly get courteous service. 'Cause I'm doing it like a woman. That's what my Momma taught me. (Like I told Ta recently: "They call it 'war paint' for a reason.")

Amanda Hess muses on similar lines in "The Trouble With Hollywood's Gender Flips." Numerous films that initially had primarily male casts are being redone with women in the same roles. Three cheers for "equality."

. . . even when a Hollywood franchise is retooled around women, it still revolves around men — the story lines they wrote, the characters they created, the worlds they built. These reboots require women to relive men’s stories instead of fashioning their own. And they’re subtly expected to fix these old films, to neutralize their sexism and infuse them with feminism, to rebuild them into good movies with good politics, too. They have to do everything the men did, except backwards and with ideals. . . 

There is a slight moral miscalculation here: that in order for a film to be considered feminist, it has to show women fighting men, and not each other. But life pits women against one another, and eliding that is just as ridiculous as staging all intra-female conflicts in kiddie pools full of Jell-O — it ignores what women are actually like. . . 

It’s hard not to watch these female ensembles and yearn for the heights of “Bridesmaids,” or more recently, the coastal California social satire-murder mystery “Big Little Lies,” both of which lean into conflict between women instead of shying away. These stories acknowledge that women have problems that originate within and between themselves, not just in their relationships with men. In short, they let women be interesting. And when their feuding crews of women do team up, it feels earned instead of assumed. (Both stories were also originated by women.) Besides, comedy requires the upending of social expectation, and the funniest parts of these projects are the moments when the characters wrestle free of feminine demands — not by “acting like men,” but by acting out as women.

Big Little Lies was based on the engrossing book by Liane Moriarty (I read the book before they came out with the adaptation, which I have not yet seen). 

I, personally, do not feel resentful that men get to wear talleisim and have to daven three times a day. I have my own skills, my own talents, my own ways of serving God—because I'm a woman, not despite it. 

Fake Princesses

There is a scene in The Crown, Episode "Beryl," where Princess Margaret is being photographed for her annual birthday portrait. Muffled beneath gauzy poofery, she smokes incessantly as Cecil Beaton gushingly invokes the glorious fairy tale that shall inspire the lowly. 

Margaret poses, smiling prettily, as the camera flashes; then she slumps backward, her unhappiness visible on every pore of her beautiful face. 

The rest of the show depicts her misery. She did not choose this role, or the facade needed to maintain it; she is trapped in a gilded cage. 

The irony is that while we are certainly not all princesses, many of us are stuck in the same false imagery of our own making. Social media has become a platform where only the simplistic "wonderful" is posted, omitting any of the requisite "bad" that we all have in our lives. The result is that the viewer sees only the fairy tale, and believes it. But she is not inspired by it. She is depressed by it. 

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz puts it bluntly: "Don't Let Facebook Make You Miserable."

The pressure to look a certain way on social media can do much more than distort our image of the musicians other people actually listen to. . . None of this behavior is all that new, although the form it takes is. Friends have always showed off to friends. People have always struggled to remind themselves that other people don’t have it as easy as they claim.

Think of the aphorism quoted by members of Alcoholics Anonymous: “Don’t compare your insides to other people’s outsides.” Of course, this advice is difficult to follow. We never see other people’s insides.

"My So-Called (Instagram) Life" by Clara Dollar, explains how relying on her false media self cost her a relationship, and she attempted to use it to get back at him:

And so it went, and I kept at the beautiful box I was crafting for myself. A shoe box covered in stickers and fake jewels. The kind you would make for a pet parakeet you have to bury. I would dream about Joe at night, and in the morning I would post something silvery and eye catching. It was always just tinfoil, though, not truth. And I prayed no one would notice. . . 

A girl who follows me, with whom I’ve spoken only a handful of times, told me it was so “on brand.”

My brand, specifically: funny, carefree, unromantic, a realist.

I’m like the chief executive of my own company, so I’m familiar with my branding, but its success doesn’t thrill me the way it used to. Instead of feeling validated by her comment, I felt deflated. I barely know this girl, and yet she knows me, knows my “brand,” and I am overwhelmed by the desire to tell her that I am fake, that I am heartbroken.

I have Instagram on my phone, but barely look at it. I really should delete it. If any "friends" post something obviously self-serving, I unfollow them from my feed.

For more humorously truthful Facebook postings: Joyce Wadler's "Facebook When You No Longer Care."  

To quote Stephens-Davidowitz: We're all a mess.  

Seek Your Weird

Has it never happened that you went out with a guy, thought it was like the worst date ever, and then a girl you know becomes blissfully engaged to him, much to your shock? It is a great mystery how two people's distinct, unique personalities manage to mesh pleasantly in marriage. If that's not a proof of God, I don't know what is.

An episode of The Mindy Project ("May the Divorce Be With You") had a line that really resonated with me: 

"Look, you're a weird guy . . . But that's what's great about you, and if you can find a weird girl whose weirdness matches up with your weirdness, pffft, I wouldn't let that go." 

Liz Lemon's Wedding on 30 Rock. Two weirdos in love.

Spoiler alert: Weird people don't think they're weird. They think they're normal. Normal doesn't exist. It's just averaged-out weirdness.

How to Stay Sane While Dating: VIII

Before I began dating, I was a wide-eyed, gullible innocent. I grew up, B'H, in a wholesome home. I was truthful to the point of self-incrimination. I truly thought that the world was the same. 

Well, I learned otherwise soon enough. 

Even though I had been bullied and teased in school, I associated that behavior with children, not adults. I didn't realize that "grown-ups" are just as capable of interacting with others by less-than-noble means. 

I also naively assumed that those who called up redting had my best interests at heart. It was more like "good enough for yenem." He's a wonderful boy! For you! Not my daughter! No way! But for you, perfect! 

Slowly, to avoid post-date barfing, I began to toughen up. I knew I could no longer believe anyone—and I mean anyone. The self-proclaimed stranger shadchan certainly didn't know me. But when close family and close friends began messing up, that's when I knew I was pretty much alone in this.

It doesn't mean I morphed into a hard-eyed, tough-talking jade. I like to think I maintained my composure, refinement, and dignity (in public, at least. I ranted enough behind closed doors, to fellow single friends, and on the blog). 

Staying politely firm to one's convictions by straightening the backbone can be a challenge. 

Han says that who, in the end, gets the happy ending, the title of "hero"? It's the person who didn't give in. That remained true to his (or her) values, struggling through the obstacles, and emerged—muddy and sweaty, valiant and triumphant—at the top.

Those who gave in, those who "settled"— they don't get the closing movie credits of swelling violins. Would you root for the character who sold out? Not likely. 

The shidduch world barriers are different from ToughMudder, but no less exhausting. Your supposed advocates may turn on you and call you "picky." You will be harassed by complete strangers to go out with their suggestions, who on paper, are totally cray-cray. You will go on dates that you knew were fruitless, and may have to hurt and reject and feel like scum. You will develop heightened senses for detecting potential false information. You may have a frustrating dating drought, and then when a shidduch finally comes your way, wish you were back in that drought.  

I probably left out a few other givens, but you get the point. 

Discover your strength. Not bitterness. Strength. The strength that comes from self-belief and self-conviction.

"What Is Your Genius?"

Esther Wein explained it: chochma + bina = daas. 

One could erroneously think that all three are the same. But they are not. 

"I don't understand," Ta cannot comprehend. "She is so smart! How could she say something like that?" 

"She's smart, sure," I reply. "But Ta, you are the one who always talks about E.Q.! That's not the same as I.Q." 

There are even more facets to the mind, like rationality and intelligence. Again, do they sound the same? Kinda. But they aren't. David Hambrick and Alexander Burgoyne explain how in "The Difference Between Rationality and Intelligence."  

The work of Kahneman and Tversky showed how humans are, for the most part, irrational (is there any concrete reason why I should be scared of the dark?). Then Stanovich showed there is no correlation between high I.Q. and R.Q.—the Rationality Quotient. 

Based on this evidence, Professor Stanovich and colleagues have introduced the concept of the rationality quotient, or R.Q. If an I.Q. test measures something like raw intellectual horsepower (abstract reasoning and verbal ability), a test of R.Q. would measure the propensity for reflective thought — stepping back from your own thinking and correcting its faulty tendencies.

To my mind, this shows how certain admirable qualities are overlooked while others are overhyped—like so-called "brilliance." 

I saw this quote the other day: 

Albert Einstein wrote, “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” The question I have for you at this point of our journey together is, “What is your genius?”

We all have something to contribute. The problem is when we don't realize that our "something" won't be the same as another's. 

Your Husband, No One Else's

In a long-ago interview with Bill Moyers, Maya Angelou revealed her theory that most women marry other people’s husbands. She didn’t elaborate, but I immediately understood. Out of hopefulness, impatience, insecurity or for a thousand other reasons, we too often rush into relationships that are poor fits for us, robbing our partners and ourselves of more promising connections. . .

“I have finally married my own husband,” Ms. Angelou went on to say.

Many years after my first marriage, so did I.

I read in a frum magazine that the rising rate of divorce amongst our newly wedded youth is not necessarily due to the inability of these couples to make it work; it is because they should not have married in the first place. Incompatibility cannot always be overcome.

The opening paragraph is from an article by a disabled woman, Ona Gritz ("Love, Eventually"), who realized that she was in a relationship with an able-bodied man simply because he wanted her. After years of rejection from men, this was an offer she could not pass up. 

But she did not feel with him that deep connection that she had with her best friend, and she could not help but contrast the two relationships. Shouldn't marriage have that? 

She eventually divorced, then later met and married her soulmate—who happens to be blind, while she has cerebral palsy. 

It’s true that Dan and I are very similar. We’re both romantics yet also fiercely independent. We’re introspective to the point of obsession. Though he’s a decade older, we share a love for the music from his teenage years. And long before we met, many of the same novels and poetry books lined our shelves.

Dating, to put it bluntly, sucks. I have read letters of women who have had enough, that decided to "settle" and simply marry. Perhaps, to some, the settling was worth it; but I have heard too many tales of the bleakness that can follow such a decision. 

Breathe. Be patient. Find happiness in the meantime. And come to know yourself, so you can know what you need.    

"Be That Person"

I like to think I have reached a point where I no longer absorb snippy comments. Often, if on the receiving end, I look intently at the other and wonder, "Golly, she must be really hurting about something." 

Anonymous trolls, the most cowardly of the cowardly, offset their own misery by depositing nasty little statements here and there. This cooking blogger posted a video taking such a one to task, by sharing her own burdens and appealing to the world to just be freakin' nice.  

Dr. Perri Klass, M.D. ("What Knitting Can Teach Us About Parenting"), is a pediatrician; to unwind, she browses through a knitting website, where she noted that despite the, er, straight-up ugliness of the various posted projects, the vast majority of comments are nice. Yet she doesn't see that empathy outside, as parents are usually subject to sniffing disdain if their toddler has a public meltdown (an occupational hazard, and to be expected). 

I would like to suggest that everyone who has posted more than one comment in the last two years passing judgment on other parents learn to knit as soon as possible. Winter is coming, and we all need scarves. There are some really nice, easy patterns on Ravelry, and you can download many of them free — and then you can choose your yarn and put your heart into it and make something beautiful.

With luck, the people who see it in real life and the ones who admire it in the photos you post online will respect the effort you put into it, and offer praise and encouragement. And if they don’t have anything nice to say, they won’t say anything at all.

Whenever I now get that judgy voice in my head, I'm disappointed in myself. Then I choose to see a quality about the other that I am forced to admire. And I can.

Comfy Beauties

In my teenage youth, I loathed makeup. I found it false, and worse, an effort. 

Yet here I stand before the bathroom mirror, 90 minutes before a date or wedding, applying and dabbing and penciling with gleeful care. I feel fabulous. I love it. I no longer think of paint as "false," nor do I consider it work.

I also love my cleansers, creams, serums, oils, shampoos, conditioners, Dead Sea face masks . . . the list goes on.

Via theodysseyonline

Ta always claimed there was a Gemara or something that said fathers must provide their eligible daughters with cosmetics and skincare, so halachically, a little chein and yofi (also known as sheker and hevel in Eishes Chayil) is fine. 

Now there is a "No Makeup Movement." Alicia Keyes no longer wears any. True, but she has plenty of product to treat her skin and style her hair. Where is the line when it comes to "natural" beauty? 

 

Haley Mlotek considers this in "To Wear Makeup or Not to Wear Makeup?"  She claims, "The question is surprisingly fraught, but the answer is simple": 

. . . comfort is the root of confidence, and not the other way around. This is true whether a person is wearing makeup or not.

And (don't be surprised to hear this) I believe that to be true. If a gal walks into a room without "enhancement," she'll bowl everyone over with her ear-to-ear grin. She could be followed by an exquisitely crafted Face who refuses to make eye contact or smile, and people will nervously edge away from her. 

I'm comfortable in my Face. Other women aren't, so it won't give them that boost of attractive confidence that I experience. Thankfully, we are not all the same. 

Although, would you be willing to try a touch of mascara? It's a miracle-worker.  

Yes, I Do Live

Golly, how I have missed you. 

I know it is not fair of me, but I shan't enlighten my audience just yet about the current state of things. It has been a hectic time in my life—"the best of times, the worst of times"—and I shall remain shtum for a while longer. 

Yet oh, the sweet joy of typing! I cannot abandon it. So I shall move on to other topics. 

Today's discussion: Cultural identity. 

Via pucker mob

Mark Oppenheimer brings up a  point I didn't notice before: There is a delicate difference between "Jew" and "Jewish"—the former is used hesitantly, the latter preferred ("Reclaiming 'Jew'"). 

But do us frummies have any qualms identifying as "a Jew," as opposed to "Jewish"? In my own case, I flatly informed someone just the other week that "I'm a religious Jew." It may be more of an issue for the secular ones of our flock. 

Yes, so we are Jews, one big happy family, etc. etc. Under that umbrella, however, due to the myriad years wandering this inhospitable Earth, we have been transplanted into a variety of countries with their own ethnicities and cultures which became absorbed into our bloodstream. 

How can it be that my nephew is a stereotypical Hungarian in infancy? It latched onto the genes, people. 

J. Courtney Sullivan worries in "Kiss Me, I'm Pretty Sure I'm Irish" that despite her firm Irish upbringing, DNA testing may show that she is not so. 

Being Irish is something I have in common with my relatives, even when distance and politics divide us. Last summer, on a beach vacation, five of us simultaneously pulled out tubes of S.P.F. 50. “We’re Irish,” someone said by way of explanation. The same reason is given for why we rarely hug or talk about our feelings.

Sounds like my crew. Except we say, "We're Hungarian." 

Am I 100% Hungarian? Of course not. That's the joy of it, though; as a Jew, I know I'm not 100% anything, except (hopefully, ancestry could have become muddled over millennia of scurrying) Jewish.

Whatever the results, I’ll still know by heart all those childhood jigs and reels that are responsible for my good posture and complete inability to dance like a normal person. I’ll still sunburn easily. I’ll still come from a large, Irish Catholic family, even if we’re a little less Irish than we thought.

So I shall swoon at the sight of aesthetic beauty, take pride in interior decorating and personal fashion, moan over nukedli paprikash, and whatever else that comes along with being Hungarian. And if I'm not? No worries. The Jews will still keep me.  

And the Oscar Goes To . . .

Very few believe that I'm an introvert. They cannot comprehend that I simply inherited a divine acting gene. 

It's not enough that the presence of too many people sucks the life force out of me; I'm also a "Feeler," meaning I'm always worried (to insane extremes) about people's feelings. Was I friendly enough? Did I just accidentally insult her? I was so focused on the pain of my shoes that I didn't see her come in—does she think I was intentionally ignoring her? 

That's why I'm zonked at night. Housework is less strenuous for me than all these mental machinations.

Susan Cain enlightened introverts worldwide that they are not alone, and that embracing their personality is okay; I was one of the redeemed. As was KJ Dell'Antonia ("Am I Introverted, or Just Rude?") 

But I can set aside my inclinations, and for much of my life, that’s exactly what I did. I came to the party. I made the small talk. And because I was raised in a world where manners mattered, I did more. I introduced myself to strangers. I approached the lone older family member at the wedding for a talk about the bride. I was a good guest, and when necessary a good host. I did my mother proud.

Oh, how we act. "Oscar," as Babi would say. But with introversion now being "cool," Dell'Antonia found herself refusing functions left and right—after all, she's an introvert, and needs to "self-care."

Society has a rich history of people seizing on social evolution as an excuse for bad manners. From the Romantic poets to the transcendentalists to the Summer of Love hippies, many have rejected a supposed facade of good behavior in favor of being true to their inner nature. Good manners are mere mannerisms, the argument goes, which serve only to put barriers in the way of deeper connections.

But then she felt guilty. 

When I skip big gatherings of strangers, I’m not just being a little rude to the individual people around me, I’m being uncivil in a larger sense. The more we isolate ourselves from new people, the more isolated and segregated our society is likely to become. . . 

When I asked Ms. Cain if self-indulgent introverts risked crossing the line into antisocial behavior — if we might, in fact, just be being rude — she laughed, and agreed. Sometimes, she said, “you have to consider the other person’s point of view instead of getting wrapped up in your own discomfort.”

Personally, I'm always freakin' worried about the other person (not that I don't slip up at times). 

This anecdote got me: 

Years ago, I was habitually late. “I can’t help it!” I declared to an expert in time management (I’d turned my effort to reform into a magazine article, as writers do, which gave me the excuse to seek professional help).

“Have you ever missed a plane?” she asked. I had not. “Then you can help it. You just care more about yourself than about the needs of others.”

Oh, snap. 

She concludes that "selfishness" is the gauge. Yet I found her logic to be a little . . . forced. If she doesn't go out, society won't be diverse enough? That seems a little dramatic. 

I would argue, as an exhausted Feeler, that there are plenty of social interactions with strangers that keep diversity going—like waiting in line to pay in Costco or T.J. Maxx, or traveling by public transportation. Luckily, frum Jews have further religious and social obligations that force us out there, like shul, simchas, parlor meetings, and yeshiva dinners.

And it's not like I loathe all social interaction. I like going to simchos when I have a connection there (otherwise I feel stupid). I enjoy it when invited out for a Shabbos lunch by pleasant hosts, and if they have invited other pleasant people, that's lovely. 

Be nice. Always be nice. Yet it is imperative to know your limits, and plan around them accordingly, so you don't go stir-crazy.