Dating Like A Boss

You know how they say that confidence is one of the most attractive traits? Perhaps there is a median here. Sure, confidence lends people poise, charm, assertiveness, and those, by definition, draw people to someone. It's also about if you are self-assured and you like yourself, it's easy for others to like you. However, arrogance and cockiness is not attractive in the least bit.

Having confidence about something that is not true, like when someone thinks s/he's smart, attractive, with-it, etc. and s/he is not, that is the quintessential turn-off. Also, many arrogant people operate from a place of ego. Under their mask, they aren't really confident, so they work hard to make up for it.

Not everyone finds confidence so attractive though. Many people are intimidated by it. Either they question what the confident person sees in them, because that confident person seems to have it all together, or they wonder if they will ever be able to measure up. 

There is an added element with dating. Confident singles are direct, smile, make eye contact and speak with warmth and interest. They make it obvious that they’re interested, and so it's easy to like them because you know where you stand with them. 

Interestingly, in a study done at Webster University, the researchers found that the girls who got more attention at the bar they were camping out in were the ones that made eye contact and were direct, versus the ones who were shy and barely talked. It didn't matter what they looked like!

Please just keep in mind that condescending arrogance is not confidence...

Temporary Friendships

The struggle, perhaps more on the female side of of our segregated communities, of staying friends with those people one was close with prior to getting married...

There's a certain connectedness people feel bonding over a shared circumstance and hardship. These are the friends that one develops when all her other peers have waltzed off into the sunset and left her behind in that stuck stage of life attempting to relate to those that have already caught their bus. It's difficult to relate when those cohorts, who once sat beside you and joined you in your worst worry about passing the Chumash final the following day, now they're fretting over tuition and a mortgage, while you cannot identify with those headches at all.

Does this mean that these relationships are less real or more temporary?

Perhaps one would never have chosen these "stand-ins" at some other stage in life, be it because of age, social, hashkafa, whatever, differences, but does this make the relationship any less real? Does this automatically mean that these friendships disappear when one finally has a ring on her finger?

There is a chance at that, for sure. We need people who can understand what we are going through to get through life. It's a shame if those relationships fall apart when one is no longer in the shared difficult situation, because perhaps it makes one believe that it's a less genuine relationship. Does that really have to be the case though?

Perhaps when two people really have very little in common and the only thing they connect over is the fact they are single, for example, it stands to reason that once one of them gets married their friendship will dissolve. However, motivating circumstances may be the thing that brought said people together, but once they get to know each other, they can become fast friends - a relationship that doesn't disintegrate when identifying factors change.

I have had a number of these friendships, the type where once someone no longer finds himself/herself in a challenging situation do they value the relationship the same. It hurts the most though when they cannot remember what it feels like. I guess forgetting that fast is a bracha, really.

Someone once shared with me a poetic essay comparing people to bridges and how someone can help get you somewhere, yet disappear behind you once you've "crossed" it. Her point was really how to leave an ex in the past but still learn from him/her. This concept, though, works here too. I'm not suggesting that we ditch our friends when we no longer are in the same stage, but there is something to be said about finding those connections that help you get through life at that particular moment based on what you are going through.

Ghoster

You promised me the world
Then took off and ran
Why you left so abruptly
I still don't understand

Maybe you thought you couldn't be
Good enough for me
But it's not about "worthy"
You're great as is - honestly

You threw me away
Like a used plastic bag
I really want closure
But I won't be a nag

I know this has got
Mostly to do with you
But why is it that what we had
You now totally eschew

I don't know where your head is
If you think about me at all
But I still wonder about
What specifically was our eight ball

I'm stuck at getting through the day
With a fake smile on my face
Trying so desperately
This pain to erase

As far as broken records go
This one is stuck the most
I continue to think about you acting,
For all-intents-and-purposes, like a ghost

As much as I can rationally understand
That it isn't anything that I did
It still really hurts that one day we were great
And the next you were totally off the grid

Maybe it's wishful thinking on my part
That you'll contact me one day
But without some sort of ending
Closure for me is faraway

Perhaps it will take another
Who will take your place in my heart
But even then I will wonder
What caused you to depart

Where are you now
And where are you headed
How will I extract this piece of you from within me
Where it is so deeply embedded

How is it that you
Affected me so
But you could simply, without goodbye,
Head out and just go

Do you think about me at all
Remember what we had
Or doesn't your life leave room for that
Are things really that bad

You were the one to start all this
To say all these things that I believed
Why is it that now I'm the one
That is left feeling so aggrieved

Am I ever going to know
What went through your head
Am I ever going to know
Why it is you fled?

Shavuos - Making it Personal

I remember last year having a bit of a hard time with Shavuos. I'm not sure why I thought it would be a good idea to listen to and/or read over shuirim given by my seminary teachers talking about the zechus of supporting Torah, etc. etc. 

We paint this idealistic picture of life and its projection, but it doesn't always turn out like that. Not every girl comes home from sem, meets her bashert right away, and penny pinches to support her family in kollel. Where does that plan leave the rest of us?

I think it's hard for me too, because at one point I really wanted to be that woman, supporting a husband sitting and toiling in learning all day, but somehow right now I don't see myself doing that. Because Shavuos is all about learning, it rubs this in my face.

I think it behooves us to remember that this yuntif's essence is about our connection with Hashem, our own personal kabalas hatorah. It is really a misconception that it's all about learning, that would make it an exclusively a male yom tov (excluding anybody that isn't a mitzuveh v'oseh). It isn't necessarily about learning Torah as it is about accepting Hashem and His commandments. Learning is one way to express this connection and acceptance. The central theme is "naaseh v'nishama." It is about realizing that everything in the Torah is for your best, and everything in your life is meant for your good in some way. Shavuos is about accepting your unique mission in this world and doing your best to live by the Torah as your blueprints. What does Hashem want from you right now? Na'aseh v'nishma... Maybe we need to do more and then we can "listen," listen to all our own rationalizing and things that hold us back from doing Hashem's will...

And Life Goes On

This was written by a friend. I think she hit so many real sentiments I had to post it.

When you settle into married life
While I'm still looking for the one man who will call me his wife

When you hear you're expecting you're thrilled to finally almost have it all
While I'm still waiting for a reference to return my call

When you give birth, a family at last,your heart is filled with joy and song
While I'm hopeful this boy will be the one that will make me belong

When your life becomes busier than ever and your baby keeps you up late
All while I'm still waiting to hear back from the shadchan after another first date

When you rejoice that he has finally learned to crawl
While for me it didn't work out and I don't have the tears left to bawl

When the years fly by you can't believe it's time for his first day of school, it can't be so
While I'm still back, or so it sometimes seems, where I started more than a decade ago

When he gets up and leins at his bar mitzva, you cry, your big boy, an adult, you can't believe it's your son
While I'm trying so hard not to give up and say that I'm done

When everyone wishes you mazel tov your heart swells with the nachas you are reaping that you know can't be fulfilled any other way
While I wait and wait and just continue to pray

Rerouting...

On a Chol Hamoed jaunt, circling one of the busiest cities on the East Coast searching for a parking spot, it seemed to be taking hours. Finally, after several failed attempts –– ("Look there's a spot!" "It says 'No Parking 7am-6pm,' "How about there?" "Too close to the hydrant," etc.), a space was spotted (no pun intended). It was a "Back In Angle Parking Only" spot, so in order to park it was required to go around the block or turn around. Just as our car was coming back around, angling to park, another car pulled in. Shoot, that was my spot, or so I thought. And so the search continued. But, right around the next corner a car pulled out, and that spot was perfect. It was an easy, smooth park and it was not even pay-to-park like the other had been.

This is life. Sort of like Waiting For My Bus. Maybe your parking spot is right around the corner...

Life in Limbo Repost

This deserves a repost. Living and learning, metaphors for life –– how the Pesachdik pre-Pesach days relate to the in between feeling of being single.

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