I'm so done with this.
Warning: female venting ahead
At least my trip to NYC and environs has led me to some conclusions. Let's call them the
Modern Midwestern Girl's Guide to Shidduch Dating:
1) It costs a huge amount of money, time, and effort to travel to NYC for a date - not only for me, but for my friends who hosted me at their apartment for five days.
2) As a female, traveling in for a date made me feel nebby and desperate - definitely not beautiful, talented, and worthy.
3) In the Jewish world, women don't pursue men. I am a product of modern times, but even I feel in my gut that it's wrong for a girl to travel to go out on a first date with a guy. Is chivalry dead when it comes to out-of-town girls?
4) Unless circumstances are extenuating, I will no longer travel in for first dates. However, I will willingly split airfare with someone so he can travel to me.
5) Make sure that you have adequate physical expectations of each other before you go through the time, expense, and stress of going out. I spent $250+ for the Israeli to take one look at me and decide I wasn't his type (nevermind his chipped front tooth and beer gut). I know, I know - don't lecture an anonymous blogger about loshon hara or ahavas yisroel. You don't know him or me - what do you care?
6) A friend and I were discussing the difficult dating circumstances for ba'al teshuva guys who are kohanim - they can only marry women who have never been married, haven't slept with any non-Jewish guys, and who aren't converts. This narrows the ba'alas teshuva field down to very few girls. My friend had some wonderful words of wisdom as I was saying, "poor kohanim guys". She said, "H-shem makes sure their bashert meets all the criteria. He wouldn't make my bashert a kohen."
The moral of the story is: Hashem wouldn't make my bashert a selfish bastard who would refuse to split a plane ticket to fly in to date me.
7) It's okay to vent to keep the bitterness from building up. In the morning, you can approach ahavas yisroel with renewed energy and focus. Keep a blog for these purposes.
Venting complete.
posted by Sarah @ 16:33
2 comments
2 Comments:
Firstly, AFAIK its only NY that has this attitude that the whole world revolves around them. (admittedly there is more to do in NY.) So no matter if you are a guy or girl, if ypu want to date someone from there, you must conform ( & foot the bill?).
If you are going to date someone from another place which will involve time and expense travelling, seeing/sending a picture first would be wise.
Travelling for a first date also makes me feel a bit desperate, but who said your bashert is living nearby. Sometimes you got to put yourself out. Even though it maybe the guy who travels for the first date, the girl will also need to travel to see him on (some)future dates. You actually get a better idea of a person when they are on home turf anyway.
You stay strong and you'll meet your bashet at the right time.
Hatzlocho.
Points taken, Karl.
Trust me, pictures were involved from the very beginning.
I still disagree about the girl traveling to the guy first. For example, if I were dating somebody closer to home, would I go pick him up? No way. He would pick me up or we would meet there. It's the natural order of things. Men court, women are courted.
As this point, I'm willing to sacrifice dates who refuse to fly in (and split expenses).
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