Ephron's Epiphanies

So in my last post I said that the state of marriage is in flux. 

I recently read Nora Ephron's autobiographical novel, Heartburn. Her character in the book, Rachel, is heavily pregnant with her second child with her second husband. She is 38. She discovers that he is having an affair. (This was Ephron's experience.) The year is 1983.

In the book, most of the couples she knows have struggled with infidelity and divorce. The one lovely marriage is between her therapist and her husband. Everyone else is divorcing or divorced or remarrying. Curious, I googled the peak for divorce in the United States, and it was in 1980. 

Her therapist Vera wisely intones that Rachel subconsciously chose her husband knowing he was unreliable. Rachel pushes against that analysis: 

"You picked him," Vera said, "because his neuroses meshed perfectly with yours." I love Vera, I truly do, but doesn't anything happen to you that you don't intend? "You picked him because you knew it wouldn't work out." "You picked him because his neuroses meshed perfectly with yours." "You picked him because you knew he'd deprive you the way your mother or your father did." That's what they're always telling you, one way or another, but the truth is that no matter whom you pick, it doesn't work out; the truth is, no matter whom you pick, your neuroses mesh perfectly and horribly; the truth is that no matter whom you pick, he deprives you the way your mother or your father did. "You picked the one person on earth you could have problems with." "You picked the one person on earth you shouldn't be involved with." There's nothing brilliant about that—that's life. Every time you turn around you get involved with the one person on earth you shouldn't get involved with.  

And what's all this about picking, anyway? Who's picking? When I was in college, I had a list of what I wanted in a husband. A long list. I wanted a registered Democrat, a bridge player, a linguist with particular fluency in French, a subscriber to The New Republic, a tennis player. I wanted a man who wasn't bald, who wasn't fat, who wasn't covered with too much body hair. I wanted a man with long legs and laugh wrinkles around the eyes. Then I grew up and settled for a low-grade lunatic who kept hamsters.* At first I thought he was charming and eccentric. And then I didn't. Then I wanted to kill him.

*Her first husband.   

"Doesn't anything happen to you that you don't intend?"

Right here is the struggle of the single. That if one is single, one is being ridiculously selective; if one's relationship failed, it's because she subconsciously chose badly. The burden is all on her, the individual, even though relationships involve two people, not just one calling the shots.  

(Although, in the book her second husband cheated on her before proposing. Ladies, take notes: don't take him back.)  

The confusion over marriage is evident here. She thought she was being realistic and settled. That blew up in her face.   

I once heard a shiur where the rabbi was complaining that back in the old country, divorce was practically unheard of, as opposed to today. Yes, because back then, the stigma of divorce and the struggle to survive made it a near impossibility. It doesn't mean the marriages were any happier or fulfilling. 

Crisis or Change?

We were sitting around the table, and invariably the "shidduch crisis" came up. I launched into an unofficial TED talk, listing all the factors that created a struggling dating culture in the yeshivish world. 

"But what about the modern Orthodox shidduch crisis?" she asked. 

"There's a modern Orthodox shidduch crisis?" 

"Oh, very much so!" 

"I'm surprised by that. Everyone says that the reason why there's a yeshivish shidduch crisis is because singles can't socialize organically, but you're saying there is one anyway in a culture with organic socialization." 

I was telling over this conversation to Han, and he laughed. "There's a shidduch crisis all over! It's not just Jews!" Which is true. Open a newspaper. 

One of my objections to the term "shidduch crisis" is that we're being very simplistic about the problem. It's framed as strictly an issue about meeting someone and marrying them. Yet what about a divorce crisis? What about the unhappy marriage crisis? 

A childhood friend of mine married at the "ideal" age of 20. She's now divorced with children. How many of those years was she unhappy? Just because she married a decade before me doesn't mean she avoided a crisis. 

A reel popped into my feed about The Gilded Age, the HBO show that takes place in the early 1880s. The nouveau riche Mrs. Russel is determined to dominate the old money New York society that attempts to ostracize her. When an impoverished Duke comes to town, she plots to buy him to marry her daughter, Gladys. Teenage Gladys, however, is "in love" with someone else. 

Mrs. Russel tells her daughter that Billy is a "worthless non-entity" who will grow to resent Gladys. Gladys is not convinced, yet eventually is browbeaten into marrying the Duke, who is a rather nice guy despite the fact he starts a bidding war over who gets to be his Duchess.  

The woman who did the reel (don't remember her name) was saying that while the popular audience reaction is horror at Gladys's fate, considering the times . . .? Women had little to no rights. If a young woman married while young and stupid and in love, there was a strong possibility that man would turn out to be a disappointment. If he was, it wasn't like divorce was easily accessible. She could be trapped for life. So it was of the reel maker's opinion that by marrying the Duke, who could guarantee her status and influence and perhaps a chance of "love" in the future, Gladys would be making a smarter choice.  

This is a very different world than we know of today. 

People want more from marriage. Women don't need to be supported; they can support themself. Men don't need women to keep a functioning home. The state of marriage itself is in flux. 

Singles want more out of marriage. That can mean waiting longer for it. 

It's Not About Being Ready

Segment 1: 

 ". . . I'm ready." 

"It doesn't work that way," I said. 

"No, that's exactly how it's supposed to work. It doesn't happen until you're ready, but when you get ready and you least expect it, that's when it happens." 

"You are expecting it," said Jill. 

"Oh my gosh, I am not," Katie said vehemently. "At this point, I'd be positively shocked." A lie. I knew what she meant, but dead scared something won't happen is not the same as actually believing that it isn't about to.

"Maybe you aren't really ready," said Jill. 

"Of course I'm ready. I want this so much. My body is ready. Marriage and family is the divine plan. It's what everyone around me is doing. We're almost done with classes. I want it so badly." 

"Which is not the same as being ready," Jill pointed out quietly, so quietly that Katie looked up suddenly, realizing it wasn't an idle musing. 

"What do you mean?" 

"I mean maybe you aren't ready. . .You don't get things just because you want them. Just because you want them doesn't mean you're ready for them. Love and real relationships are a huge responsibility," said Jill. 

Segment 2: 

The next day, Katie had a plan. 

"I have figured it out," she said happily over breakfast. 

"What's that?" 

"I will pray for husbands for all my friends in church. And they will pray for a husband for me. That way, it won't be me asking for something for me. It won't be me wanting a husband so much. What I will be wanting so much is happiness and husbands for my friends. Not selfish. No obsessing. Outside myself. Very mature I think." 

So this was how Katie circumvented her narrative. She realized from what Jill said that it couldn't be about her wanting so badly to fall in love and get married. She realized . . . that she was being selfish worrying only about herself and had to help her friends first. So she became a Jane Austen heroine, so genuinely committed to the love and happiness of those around her that she forgot all about herself while love ripened all on its own in the background as she unknowingly readied herself. All of the outcome with none of the embarrassingly obvious effort. Or all the loopholes without any real change in attitude, depending on how you looked at it. 

—From Laurie Frankel's novel The Atlas of Love 

The Katie character is very religious (Christian), in case you didn't pick up on that. 

One of the basic tenets of faith is that we are not in control. That we don't always get what we want, when we want it. Yet what I have learned is that it's actually a very high madreiga to have actually absorbed this foundational belief. 

Katie's thought process is no different than the thought process of many a dating frummie, and I am including myself here. Girls are presented with a neat, linear timeline of marriage at 20, at 21, the latest. When that doesn't happen? Well, they kinda unravel. 

They (as was I) are gripped in torrential emotions such as disbelief ("but I'm not even picky!"), betrayal ("I followed all the rules!"), shame ("there's nothing wrong with me, I'm telling you!"), and anger. Lots of anger. Anger that they want something, and they are not getting it. 

So let's find the cosmic loophole. The segulah that'll make Hashem say, "OK, I see now what a good girl you are. Here's your groom!" (I was no different, at times.) 

In this day and age, the first time young things become aware of their own lack of control over the universe can be in their early 20s. And it's a shocker. 

Oh, we learned all the stuff in school what we believe in. But we never had much opportunity to put it into practice. There's a big difference between academics and application. 

It's letting go. Letting go of control. Letting go of finding a way to get around divine timing. Letting go of anger toward the universe. (Although, you can hold a grudge against the person who makes bitchy comments to you. That I'll allow.) 

I know of someone in her 70s who still hasn't learned. She thinks that every obstacle has a work around. That if she just works and searches hard enough everything will turn out the way she expected. She refuses to see that maybe Hashem just said no. She has no peace.  

It's better to learn earlier rather than later.  

Taxi!

Yet another dating term is making the IG rounds: the "taxi cab" or "yellow cab theory." First voiced by Miranda of that tv show, the premise is that a person (man) will commit to whoever is standing in front of them when they decide they are ready for a relationship. Meaning, it's not about the connection to the person they're committing to, it's about their own state of readiness. 

I don't deny that this definitely can happen, to some extent, but I believe it actually applies more to women than men. 

Women are, stereotypically, more geared towards commitment than men. I don't like claiming that one gender is a monolith, but little girls are raised with Bride Barbie, visions of their wedding, and awareness of their biological clock. Their purpose is to walk down the aisle, end of. No little boy dresses up as a chosson on Purim. 

Which does lead females to ignore red flags and overlook problematic behaviors. While there are an assortment of red flags and problematic behaviors, I really mean here is: he's just not that into you. 

Some men (I will not say all men, people are different) might drift along with a determined woman. She's willing the relationship into being, she's planning their future, and she's ignoring his lack of enthusiasm. Eventually, matters come to a head, and they part ways. 

The man then gets engaged to another in a matter of months. His ex, infuriated, may invoke the taxi cab: he's ready now, that's all. It wasn't about me.  

My take though, was that it was about you. He met someone else and ah! He's into her! You wanted him to be the One, but he wasn't. 

Note also that relationships require two people. Just because one person decides they are ready doesn't mean the other party will reciprocate. So this idea that a man is ready and suddenly he gets married—like, all women are falling into his embrace? Just by virtue of his readiness means that the next woman he trips over will automatically return his interest? Are all women just willing to marry any rando just to get off the market?   

Google "taxi cab theory" and hoo-eee, there are a lot of results. Apparently, a flippant line of dialogue ascribed to a character but obviously thought of by a script writer has been analyzed, debunked by experts, yet upheld by others.  

The reel that popped up in my feed was of a woman claiming that this theory is true because that's what happened to her: her long term relationship ended, the ex married shortly thereafter, then he called her up years later saying she was the one that got away. That doesn't mean the taxi theory is true. She doesn't know what his marriage is like. Maybe he's going through a mid-life crisis and decided to call up all his ex-girlfriends and sigh how unfair life is. 

I'm a reformed un-romantic. I used to think that marriage was about two people deciding to marry on a logical level—like Vulcans. But now, I believe that relationships are more than that, ideally. 

And your person, your specific person, is not a taxi.  

Logic and Love

This WSJ headline caught my eye, of course: Singles Are So Burned Out They’re Letting Spreadsheets Evaluate Their Dates by Molly Reinmann. 

The problem with dating apps is that there's no discernment; everyone is a possibility! From personal experience, that can get exhausting very quickly. 

"You become a little more willing to make compromises on things that you might not usually compromise on, just because you're so tired of searching," said Alyssa Tracy. 

Like I've been saying, frummies are not special in terms of our dating experiences.   

Former matchmaker Lily Womble says she has seen daters over-emphasize the data, causing them to minimize or numb the feelings they get in the presence of a potential partner. "Rigidity can actually be a shield against vulnerability," said Womble. 

It's not about being dogmatic. Frummies date for one purpose: marriage. But even so, a number of us can be let astray by a number of factors. The secular dating world runs by a very different timeline, and initial attraction can be mistaken for compatibility, while the relationship itself was on shaky ground to begin with. By analyzing data, singles are trying to make more intentional choices rather than letting one factor such as hotness run the show. 

For Peyton Knight . . . the rigidity shield is the whole point. "Spontaneity and fun is cool, but if you don't align with someone on basic core values that relationship is inevitably going to come to a halt," she said.  

There it is. 

The Invisible Woman

About a year back, I was in the park with Anakin on a beautiful fall day. I was in my typical underslept attire: hair shoved under a baseball cap, sunscreen but no cosmetics, a badly abused hoodie dress, comfy leggings, battered sneakers. 

Then, the park was invaded by a small army of high school girls, posing for yearbook pictures. Hair? On fleek. Makeup? Stunning. Physique? Well, they're high school girls. Fashion? On point. So many smart moto boots . . .  

I watched them simper and giggle and flip their glossy, perfectly styled manes, lip gloss glinting in the sun, and the unbidden thought popped into my head: I do not envy them at all.  

This was my inner voice talking, so no, I wasn't overcompensating for jealousy. I really did not envy them at all. 

What I saw was the cliques neatly divvying up and isolating others. I saw the Queen Bee being fawned over by her drones, clueless in her curated existence. What I saw was crippling insecurity, as some girls tried so hard to look so right for this "important" moment, yet believing they still fell short. For them, this was the high point of their existence to date, but in short order, it won't matter all that much. 

Television and movies nowadays are bemoaning how older women are "invisible," even when the main character is smokin' hot. Kathy Bates has sighed on interviews how women of a certain age are overlooked and disregarded. 

Mireille Silcoff expressed her befuddlement in a NYTimes Op-Ed, I'm a 53-Year-Old Woman. Stop Telling Me I'm Invisible. Besides for the fact that it's not true, or at least not every older woman's experience, she notes: 

Recently I canvassed a number of my middle-aged female friends and asked: If you could drink a potion and become 22 again today, would you do it? 

A few waffled, but after some thought, not one of them said yes. 

Today's culture idealizes youth, but that doesn't mean that anyone over the age of 35 simply vanishes off the earth. Nor does it mean that everyone wants to stay perpetually young, stupid, and unaccomplished.  

If you feel unheard and unseen, announce your presence. It's not about age. It's about confidence.   

Never Forget

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana, The Life of Reason, 1905

I have a theory. 

Vaccines are a contentious topic nowadays. There are many parents who are refusing to vaccinate their child based on . . . well, not much. One bogus study 20 years ago blew a hole in preventive immunity, and horrific diseases that were dying out are making a comeback. 

During covid, there was an article in The Wall Street Journal about an outbreak of virulent flu in 1957. A vaccine was developed in a couple of weeks, the military's resources was hauled in to New York City to disseminate it, and the virus was stopped in its tracks. The author was wondering what changed to today. 

My theory? The Spanish Flu killed millions. That had been only 40 years prior. The population remembered all too well the loved ones that had died, the suffering it caused. 

The same premise holds for the rise of antisemitism today. Some complain that it's synonymous with the antisemitism of 1930s Berlin, but Alan Dershowitz amends that to say it's like the antisemitism of 1930s America. I've read novels that take place in 1900s New York City, and just because someone was white didn't mean he wasn't discriminated against. All forms of racism was rampant, against Italians, the Irish, anyone of color, and yes, Jews. 

Yet what why did that antisemitism ease? The Holocaust. Many in the world were horrified by what the Nazis did, even if they were antisemitic. And we, by extension, became complacent. We forgot how it once was, how baked into the general psyche antisemitism can be. Then time passed. Survivors died out. People forgot. 

Han says the same thing regarding terror attacks. It breaks my brain a little to realize there are voting adults who were born after September 11. They didn't even exist at the time of that national trauma. They don't know what life was like before terror came to America. They just think the TSA is a pain in the ass.  

That's why it's important to remember the past. Yes, I happen to have a fascination with history, and it provides me with a framework to roll my eyes whenever I hear lines like "The world is burning." Babe, you've got air conditioning. Your great-great-grandma did not have a climate controlled living space or indoor plumbing or basic hygiene or a guarantee all her babies would, well, live. 

When we say, "Never again," we are also saying, "Never forget." Because history is important. All of it. 

No Reason

One day in the office, Han overheard a conversation, and intrigued, drifted over. 

A fellow had explained to a female co-worker that he had gone on a date, but decided not to continue for a number of problematic red flags. 

The woman was poo-pooing his choice, saying he was being too particular, questioning his judgement. 

Note that Han is the only observant Jew at work, but these two weren't even Jewish. As gentile as they come.  

There's this phenomenon I've noticed when people seem to think that their situation is unique, and ascribe it to certain circumstances. 

Like, "I'm single because my family is fruity." 

There are plenty of young marrieds with fruity families. 

Or, "I'm single because of my health condition" (meaning "no one wants to date me because of my health condition")

There are plenty of young marrieds with health conditions. 

Or, "I'm single because I'm frum." 

There are plenty of single gentiles and frei Jews out there. I didn't watch the entire Bridesmaids, but the opening scene hit so hard. Annie (Kristen Wiig) nervously enters her friend's engagement party, only to be bombarded on with snide comments about her lack of partner and fending off nebachs. 

Look, I get it. It's human nature to try to find the reason why our desires aren't fulfilled. We want to blame a specific circumstance for our singlehood, because enough people do blame singles for being single. But It's not my fault! I can't help this! 

Yet that path leads to anger and resentment. One starts railing at the constructed reason, rather than finding joy in other avenues available. 

There are plenty of people who are single and there is no reason. 

The fun part about being frum is that if you leave it to His timing, that does take the pressure off.   

Anti-Segulah

I've always had a problem with so-called "segulas," then Rabbi Natan Slifkin sucked whatever residue of mysticism out of me. So far in our marriage, Han's more mystical in outlook than I am, but now he's also reading Rabbi Slifkin's book and I (wiping away a tear) am giddy that he's come (somewhat) to the rationalist side with me. 

Han noted that one of the differences is that mysticism believes in the ability to manipulate spiritual forces to achieve their own ends—which sounds a lot like segulos. Segulos tend to be on the woo-woo side: visiting various dead sages, lifting havdalah candles to a specific height (never lifted mine, still got a tall guy), lighting various candles for unknown reasons, etc. etc. 

How come no one says, "I'm giving tzedakah as a segulah?" 

"I'm visiting a lonely elder as a segulah?" 

"I'm buying groceries for that struggling family as a segulah?" 

Segulos tend not to help anyone. 

Hashem doesn't need your candle. The dead sage is not sitting around his grave waiting to take a sack of requests up to his Manager. The havdalah candle has no correlation to one's bashert. 

Instead of a segulah, help someone. Hashem likes it when we help others. It doesn't matter what your motivation is. Ma would say, "As long as the poor man gets to eat." We know motivation doesn't mean much in Judaism; action does. 

So instead of spending money in the name of "segulah," give that money to tzedakah instead. 

Rationalist out.  

Zipper-Mouth Emoji

I was in for a 45 minute drive, so I pulled up the YU Torah app and punched on a shiur at random. Surprise me. 

I had never listened to this rabbi before, and . . . well. 

He was discussing a writing of the Rambam, specifically his take on "Do not hate your fellow in your heart." 

The Rambam wrote there is a simple solution to this. So you don't hate your fellow in your heart, the remedy is to tell them in what manner they bug you, they'll correct it, and problem solved! 

I thought he was joking, but no. He repeated this "solution" numerous times, including a separate example of rebuking someone who is violating halacha. Apparently, that person will also be glad to be "rebuked," because obviously he knows it's for his own good! 

Um . . . 

Look, the Rambam is my man. Seriously, I refer to myself as a "Rambam Girl." But, sweetie, no. This isn't going to fly. 

There is a very good reason why most of us prefer to keep our mouths shut even if resentment is percolating away in our chests. Because if telling another that a behavior of theirs bothered us was simple and straightforward, we wouldn't be dealing with ulcers. 

I do believe that the biggest problem in relationships is usually communication. Yet there are many barriers to effective communication. One of which being that none of us like critique. Sometimes, honest feedback can destroy a relationship.  

I told over this shiur to two people, and they both found it unintentionally hilarious. 

I'm still Team Keep Shtum.