The Taming of the Jew

Hairdressers sometimes make the best confidants and have a knack for understanding whatever it is their clients want to talk about.  My hairdresser, Amy, knows how to make me feel my best while helping me to look my best (tall order, I know).  Not only does she give the best blowouts this curly haired girl has ever had, but she has dated all of the other losers and ass clowns that I just haven’t gotten around to yet.   Between the two of us, we have experienced the best disappointment that Portland has to offer.  Last Saturday, I am in Amy’s chair, and we decide that we should end the Blonde Ambition Tour and go with some Like a Prayer Hair.  Plus, she thinks that going a little darker would make my blue eyes really stand out, and this can’t hurt on the dating front.  After we decide on the exact tone, she mixes the color, breaks out the foils, and we begin our time honored ritual of comparing horror stories. 

Amy's excited to tell me that she has been dating someone for the last couple of months that she met on this site called Tinder.  I've been so tangled up in eDiscord’s 39 levels of incompatibility, that I have apparently missed this craze sweeping the nation.  I am amazed at the instant gratification of this site; you create an account via a Facebook connection (this takes about fourteen seconds total), and then are matched with people within a certain geographic radius to you.  You can see some of their Facebook pictures, and the site provides something like 500 characters of space to write anything your little ironic heart desires.  There is a pretty even mix of stupid Ron Burgundy quotes and inspirational Dali Lama crap.  If you like them, you swipe to the right; if you don’t, you swipe to the left.  Fascinatingly simple and fast-paced!  Now, if you swipe to someone to the right, and they do the same when they see you, then you are “matched” and can chat with one another.   After a little tutorial on Amy’s phone, I am amazed by this, and I download the app while I’m under the dryer and start to play. 

Instantly, I feel liberated.  It’s so refreshing not to have to sift through a mound of profiles that all read the same way.  I promise you, I don’t care what service you use or how much science is behind it or how clever someone may think they are, everyone has the same cliche profile.  Trust me dudes, I get it, you like to hike, your friends describe you as easy going, you like trying new restaurants and travel and you're "up for new adventures."  You’re going to post a picture of you on top of a mountain or by some body of water, and there's a selfie that you took in your car.  You are looking for a girl that is active, "drama-free" and fun-loving that has a good sense of humor.  I've seen hundreds of these online dating profiles, and they are all the same.   Every. Single. One. After a certain point long ago, I stopped giving a shit about the last book you read.  And I know that when you say it was a book by Stephen Hawking it is a lie.  You’re a liar.  If you say you’re 5’10” you’re also trying to convince me that you’re not a little Polly Pocket, but I know better.  You're a fucking tater tot.  Own it.  Now, I look at your pictures and check for proper punctuation and capitalization.  That’s it; anything else may make me vomit.  I think I would actually be intrigued to read a profile of a man that wanted a boring, bitchy couch potato that doesn't like to laugh and refused to eat anything other than Easy Cheese or leave the house.  I’m not that girl, but I still might cling on to that dude just because he’s so deep. 

So, Amy’s styling the new do, and we are both scrolling through the closest in proximity that Tinder has to offer.  I’m getting lots of matches, and the minimal investment on my part brings me great hope and joy.  Look, swipe, forget; repeat.  It’s not very long (I mean just a matter of minutes) before I snag an attorney, 36, with a one line reference to Woody Allen in his clever-quip section of his profile.  Well, I Love Me Tinder!  We start chatting, and it goes very well.  After about 20 minutes of chatting, he does ask if I would like to meet the following day to watch a football game at a well-lit, very public BridgePort Brewpub.  There is also a parking garage across the street for when the parking gods don't have my back.  I accept this meeting; what’s the worst that can happen?  It’s not like he’s going to set himself on fire, right? 

We meet on Sunday to watch an NFL playoff game, and we immediately engage in great conversation.  He’s witty, not unattractive (I generally close my eyes when I kiss, so I can be forgiving in the looks department provided that everything else is in order), and we are having a fun time.  After about an hour, we decide to order food, and he tells me that he can’t eat pork or shrimp.  Now, I’m not horribly oblivious here, but I figure it’s better to ask than to assume.  So, I ask and he confirms.  My lawyer is Jewish; totally fine with me, but I must admit that having grown up in the Bible Belt, I am not very familiar with Jewish culture and customs.  I’m always up for learning new things, and this is actually one of the things I love about Portland.  There is so much more cultural diversity than in the South.  Back home, we have Baptist, Methodist, and Other; other means Presbyterian or Pentecostal, by the way.   Also, the South is not really the best place in the world to keep kosher.  This is where people fry their shrimp in bacon grease.  In fact, I am having a hard time even imagining a life without bacon.  I mean, isn’t bacon proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy?   All joking aside, I’m open to dating someone from a different background, bacon or not.  Let’s just see what happens here. 

At some point very early in the conversation, we talk about James Bond, and I tell him that Roger Moore is my favorite Bond.  He asks me to marry him.  Today.  After the game.  At this point, I assume that he’s joking and being playful, and I decline the offer based upon the fact that he owns a cat.  I’m allergic, and this seems like a playfully reasonable cause to decline a first-date wedding.  We chat some more, and he tells me that his dad is going to love me, although we will have to ease him into the fact that I’m a Gentile.  He actually uses the word Gentile, as if we are reading from Exodus.  Also, his father can never see a Christmas tree at our house.  Our house?  Easy there, cheetah.  This guy is a divorce lawyer, and I am wondering if so much exposure to sad and contentious relationship endings has something to do with aggressive need to be betrothed.  (I moonlight as an armchair psychologist, and I’m now very much looking forward to googling attachment disorders when I get home).  Again, I am coy and say something to politely postpone his rush to the huppah.  We discuss restaurants and whiskey and The Blues Brothers.  He then tells me that at our wedding, I’m going to have to sit in a chair while people lift me up and we have to hold on to some sort of handkerchief.  While I’m thrilled for my free seminar in Jewish studies, this marriage talk is starting to make me a little itchy.  I tell him that I’m a simple girl, and I am more into the Rose Garden on a Tuesday sans guests; I’m also not very religious.  I hope that if I throw up some objections with a serious face that I can create our first lover’s quarrel, and he will call off the wedding.  On the other hand, I could play this one out.  I now know that this dude is the mayor of Dysfunction Junction, but I do think I can get enough material here for a new blog post (horrible, I know).  He then says that we must move forward with a Jewish ceremony, but maybe we can limit the guest count.  I've known the Jew for about 2.5 hours, and this is the third or fourth reference to marrying me.  Not just getting married in general, but marrying me specifically.  I guess he just loves my Hebrew name.  I know I’m charming and funny and a total catch, but slow it down Speed Racer!

 

Sometime late in the second halfover, he comments on my pretty blue eyes.  (Thanks to Amy for my Like a Prayer hair; maybe it is helping my eyes to stand out after all).  At this point, I oh so innocently step in it. And by “it” I mean a big pile of un-kosher shit.   I mention that I wish my eyes were as blue as my mother’s, but I suppose the mix with my father’s brown eyes yielded more of a blue/grey mix.  This is something that I have said many times in my life because my mother seriously does have the most beautiful blue eyes I have ever seen (it is true of her sisters as well).  I comment that they are powerfully blue, and I wish that I had inherited that trait of instant entrancement.  However, by power, I do not mean white power, or the power to create a superior race.  And when I said entrancement, I didn't mean encampment.  My future ex-husband proceeds to tell me about how he has heard the whole supreme race story before.  Blonde hair, blue eyes, Hitler, Holocaust, etc etc etc.  Jesus, help me.  I just got off the Blonde Ambition Tour, and now he’s accusing me of being an anti-Semite. Can we not talk about genocide on the first date please?  Christ Almighty,  I love Jewish people.  I am friends with Jews.  I've had Jews over to my house (wink, wink, Kramer).  At no point in my life have I ever considered anyone outside of my mother, my father, and myself in this Crystal Blue Equation about my eye color, but my little lawyer is arguing a case that somehow this involves him and his people. Boy did I just step in some shit here.  Seriously, I can understand why blue-eyed WASPs might be a sensitive topic, but wishing I had eyes more like my mother's has nothing to do with him or his people.  Get off the cross, dude.  Not all bad though, maybe he will give up on wanting to marry me before the fourth quarter. 

No such luck.  When the check comes, I say something funny (it's a curse), and he talks about "breaking the glass" again.  In my kindest bitchy tone, I tell him that I don’t think he could afford the ring I would want, and I refuse to settle for less.  Doesn't work.  He pays the check and gives me a kiss. Relatively innocent little kiss, but then my little Jew tries to show me his Roman hands (I am quite enjoying writing this Judeo-Christian shtick, I must say.  If it offends a reader, just click here).  I tell Handsy McGeestein to cool his jets, and he apologizes profusely.  He begs me to let him make it up to me next week; he’ll show me he can be a gentlemen.  I have my doubts, but I do need good stories for my blog.   I tell him that I agree to give him a mulligan, but he has a lot of ground to cover.

 

Later that night, I get a text that he has started falling for me.  Fuck.  Then I get a Facebook friend request from him.  Shit fuck. The next day, he asks me if I can meet him in the Rose Garden next Tuesday.  Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.  Maybe turning this into blog research was not such a good idea after all.  Thankfully, I have a trip to go out of town, so I can use the time change and distance to my advantage here.  On my flight out of town, I get a message from my little Jew that he has a great idea for us when I get back.  Instead of that gentlemanly date that he promised, he offers to grab some champagne and come over to my house with it.  Who is this guy?  Are you kidding?  You don’t know me.  I don’t know you.  You cannot come over to my house because I don’t want your crazy, clingy ass to know where I live.  I don't want to meet your father Abraham or have men bounce me above their heads while I'm wearing a dress (in the South, that's how girls get into trouble).  None of this sounds good to me.  None of it.  I reply to the email and tell him this sounds like a skeezy proposition, and I find it to be presumptuous and inappropriate.  He replies and says "I'm sorry that you misinterpreted me."  Now you're blaming me for the fact that you're loony tunes?!  Pretty sure I'm interpreting this one just right.  I tell him that we can finish the conversation later when I get back from my trip, mainly intending to never speak to him again.  The next day, I get this email.  It’s so fabulous and psychotic, that I felt inclined to post it verbatim. Truly, this is a copy/paste, typo and all.  

  

“Couldn't sleep, and I was thinking that you are great, really.  But this is moving a bit too fast for me and, well, the fact that we "needed to talk" so soon is too much for me.  I was in a relationship recently where we dove in too fast, and I don't want to make that mistake again.

I don't want to go too fast, freak out, and then leave emotional rubble.  I want you to go out and meet a great guy who can move the pace you want right now emotionally, and doesent have a cat.”

Someone needs to have some Prozac with their Manischewitz.  All I heard about on this date was how Jewish he is, and how he wants to marry me even though I'm not Jewish, and how we will have to hide some of my non-Jewish traditions from his parents.  So how am I moving to fast here?  Crazy Town. If anyone needs an emotionally unstable divorce lawyer, or if anyone would like to divorce an emotional unstable lawyer, I know just the  Jew for you!!!  Hallah …