Happily ever after

As kids, fairy tales con us into thinking life is a package deal with ‘happily ever after’ at the tail end. We aspire to meet our prince and ride off into the sunset with our knight in shining armor, and our anticipated worst case scenario is the potential need to kiss a couple of frogs before our dreams come true.

Reality kind of sucks. In my case at least, the tales I’ve had to tell made grown men cry. I had to put myself out there, over and over again, for years. My ego was bashed by words, actions and apathy. From cyberdating to singles events to blind dates and pick-up bars, you name it, I tried it. And when nothing worked, the alternatives were also plentiful – some entailed eating copious amounts of chocolate until I felt ready to get back on the bandwagon, other more effective solutions included group life coaching and long conversations with wonderful friends.

The advice never stopped, including: “Have you thought of losing a little weight?”; “Stop trying so hard and it will just happen”; “Do something with yourself. Wear some make-up" (and its corollary: “Try being yourself and a wear less make-up”). “Go and study something” (I have a diploma and two degrees, spent 8 years at university, and I should GO AND STUDY?????). “Make it well-known that you’re single” (at times I wondered whether there was anyone left in the western world who didn’t KNOW that????). And, of course, the final nail in the coffin on my dreams for love and marriage: “Just come to terms with fate and have a couple of kids on your own (A serious consideration but I have seen friends do the single mother thing and I think they are worthy of more respect than the Pope!). Yet I seriously considered each and every one of these options, even trying a few of them on for size along the way.

This blog was one of the more therapeutic ways of dealing with my dating experience. I reasoned that if I could make other people laugh at my own experiences, that might make the experiences more worthwhile and seem less serious than I felt they were. I must admit, however, that I only had the courage to start publishing the blog when I found myself in the first healthy relationship I’d been in in years, and had a glimmer of hope on the horizon.

So six months ago I put together the first entry of Jaded Date, and almost religiously I sat down each Saturday after that and put a different experience down on paper. Months later I could not believe that I still had anything to write about, especially considering that my relationship was still bounding along and I certainly had no new material to draw upon. And then, just as I had been inspired to start writing, three weeks ago I woke up one Saturday morning and found I no longer had anything to say on the subject. Like Forrest Gump when he stops running, ‘just like that’, I ran out of steam and left my blog dangling in the air. I had a big trip coming up – my boyfriend and I were going abroad together for the first time - there was a lot to organize, and a dating blog just didn’t have the same pull it had had for the preceding months.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that when I came back from the trip, my boyfriend would no longer be my boyfriend.

He would be my fiancé.

In an uncharacteristically romantic gesture, a beautiful diamond ring was handed to me on the first day of my trip, and I’ve been wearing a monster-sized grin ever since. I now know what it feels like to walk on air, and I am hugging every moment of this joyous time as if there’s no tomorrow.

This is my last entry of Jaded Date. This journal allowed me to exorcise the demons left by dozens of disastrous dates interspersed over the last 15 years. It did not give voice to many of the wonderful experiences I had along the way, or to the truly meaningful and life-shaping experiences (good and bad) I had with significant people over the years. Some things are better left unpublished, even though I have no doubt they played a more significant role in shaping the woman I’ve become than the one-off experiences logged on this blog.

One thing I’m certain of: I am truly grateful for it all. For the bad dates, the failed relationships, the coaching, the friends who experienced this all with me, the friends, acquaintances and strangers who constantly wanted to introduce me to new people, and to the wonderful prince charming who showed up at the perfect time in my life and allowed me to crawl into his heart and get truly comfortable.

Perhaps happily ever after is possible after all……

Age Matters

A friend asked me this week what the biggest deterrent of dating online was for me. She is about to join the world of cyber dating, and has the tactic that forewarned is fore-armed.

I cannot lie – the range of put-offs I could mention is extensive. But most fall into the category of false advertising: the profile photo that was taken at least 15 years and 15 kilograms before the date; the guys who tell you they have to leave the date after 10 minutes because their mother is sick, only to mysteriously pop up on the dating site 20 minutes later without bothering to hide their profiles first; the guy who writes that he has brown hair but fails to mention that the last time he could prove that statement and discern his hair color was a decade previously. The liberties people take with their profiles are so wide-ranging they warrant a blog entry all of their own.

But pressed to come up with the number one offender in the cyber-dating arena, I had to focus on the primary disincentive of all time – failure to respect the age gap.

Now don't get me wrong – age gaps are problematic both ways. I have friends who deliberately advertise the wrong age on websites to ensure that a younger crowd get access to their profiles, and there are a few who never actually reveal the few years that were shaved off their 'sheet' when they meet the unsuspecting prospects in person. I have never been one of those people, and while I never put in too much detail on my dating profiles, what I did insert was accurate.

While age was never a major issue for me one way or another, there is a limit to the age gap that I think one should respect. One thing I learned early on was to listen to my instincts as far as age is concerned. For example, when I thought a guy was too young for me, he WAS too young for me. I learned this the hard way...

I met a man (and I use that term very loosely) through the web who was more than 5 years younger than me chronologically, and at least 15 emotionally. While I expressed reticence about dating someone who could easily be my baby brother, I admit to having had just a little curiosity as well. And when he insisted on meeting me despite the concerns I expressed, I obviously couldn't help but feel flattered by the insistence and attentions of someone who was still in his twenties. However, my curiosity was piqued for all of a minute after we met, following which I literally watched myself transform in his eyes from sex kitten into the equivalent of a predatory grimalkin. While in theory an 'older woman' obviously sounded appealing to this kid, in practice he was distinctly, palpably, uncomfortable. The date was so short it would have taken him more time to blow out the candles on his next birthday cake!

But putting off youngsters is not something I have ever had to deal with on a regular basis. Their fathers? Now that's a different story. Perhaps the font size on the web is too small for older men to see the 'what age group I'm in' area, or perhaps due to their accumulated life experience they just think they know what we need more than we do. But I want to state this for the record: I am not a care-giving society for the geriatric single.

When I was in my early thirties and dating up a storm via the internet, on any given day I was guaranteed to hear from a representative of the elderly. In fact, so many post-50s contacted me I felt like changing my profile to read as follows:

If you think you are too old for me, you ARE too old for me! This is a simple equation, gentlemen. If you and my parents could have gone to kindergarten together, you are too old for me. If you asked one of your kids to teach you to surf the Web in order to join a dating site, you ARE too old. And if I specify that I am looking for a man between 35 and 40 on my dating profile, and you are between 55 and 60…you guessed it…you ARE too old for me.

So, if you think I'm cute, you're close to 70, and you see potential in me that you'd hate to overlook - I recommend you fix me up with one of your age-appropriate children.

It's not me, it's you

Learning to cope with rejection is just part and parcel of dating survival. If I had a dollar for every time I'd heard the excuse 'it's not you, it's me', someone would have married me for my money years ago. Other classic - yet over-used - let-downs include 'I really just want to be friends', 'My life is too full for a relationship right now', and the oldest one in the book, 'I thought I was ready to date again but now I realize it's too soon'.

The rejection one faces can happen way before ever meeting. In fact, with Internet dating one is forced to become painfully aware of how many people choose not to 'date' or 'contact' one just by seeing the difference between the number of people who check out a profile compared to the number of times one's approached. That said, I'm also aware of how many profiles I would go into with no intention of ever contacting the man behind the snapshot, for many reasons that have nothing to do with attraction, rejection, interest or lack thereof. With the Internet in particular, if you don't have thick skin it's not the place to look for a match.

And then there are those who prefer to dissipate into thin air rather than dealing out a face-to-face rejection. Dating etiquette dictates that after a first date, there is no obligation to call again. Personally, I have always appreciated a call after a date, even if it was just to say 'you're nice but not for me'. However, I also understand that people who are dating constantly may get tired of constantly rejecting their dates or having to explain themselves, so when the call didn't come I never took that personally. What I find incredible, though, is that some men choose to not call again after several dates. I dated one guy six times – including a visit to his parents one weekend – before he decided to call it quits. He just didn't tell me. In the week after our last date, not knowing we'd met for the last time, I called, sent a text message, got no reply and gave up. I wavered between worrying whether he was dead, and wishing he was. Eventually I saw him pop up on the same dating site we'd met through, and simply wrote him off as a loser.

For a while, what seemed to be my personal forte was preparing potential partners for marriage and opening them up to true love. Unfortunately, much of the time it was not me they actually married or fell in love with. There was one phase where three men in a row realized how much they loved their ex-girlfriends as soon as things started getting serious with me, and by the time the third one got engaged I was ready to advertise my services to desperate women who couldn't convince their guys to tie the knot. It got so bad I found myself interrogating potential partners about their ex-girlfriends before we started dating, just to assess the reconciliation risk before getting myself in too deep.

Admittedly, the easy letdown is certainly not my strong suit either. In cases where direct attempts at a pickup are made, when perfect strangers make a move, I have always tended to say I have a boyfriend but thanks anyway, regardless of how true that response has been at the time. For some reason, men I meet in all sorts of everyday situations often mislead my big smile and friendly persona for some kind of romantic interest, and I've got the 'thanks but no thanks' response down to a fine art. However, in dating situations this excuse obviously doesn't hold water, and on more than one occasion I have found myself dating someone several times, not because I was in the least bit interested, but because I just didn't have the heart to let him down.

So it seems that to date well today, skills need to be honest both in dispensing the rejection and coming to terms with it when it comes your way. I am not an expert – both areas are a personal weakness, and I turned to a world-class expert on this topic for tips. Cynthia Heimel's books are highly recommended for daters and non-daters alike, and their titles can really be used as back-pocket cheat sheets for desperate daters. So if you're reading this and need some new rejection material, some ideas for good let-downs, or just want a good laugh, check out the following great guides and use the titles as your own:

• "If you can't live without me, why aren't you dead yet?"
• "Get your tongue out my mouth, I'm kissing you goodbye"
• "If you leave me can I come too?"
• "When Your Phone Doesn't Ring, It'll Be Me".

You might end up on your own, but at least you'll have the last laugh

Rules aren't meant to be broken

Anyone who ventures into the murky waters of modern dating should be equipped with a guide for the wary companion. There are more rules in the dating world than in any other sport I know. And to succeed in dating I firmly believe one has to have a sporting approach – go out there prepared, practice between dates, be aggressive but fair, and more than anything: know the rules, choose when to play by them, and more importantly, know when they should be broken.

There are some basic rules of chivalry that one cannot and should not take for granted. Dating in Israel made that blatantly clear to me, very early on in my courtship career. If I had to wait for my dates to open car doors for me, I would have spent more time waiting than dating. Even the obvious – such as having the door of the restaurant opened for you – is far from clear in the holy land. On one of my first dates ever in the country, I almost had my nose broken when I followed my date into a restaurant without considering that he would close the door behind him. It simply shut directly on my blower. I've taken precautions ever since.

And then there are the rules of engagement – whether to a do a post-date summary, announcing your desire to meet again, or your reason for not wanting to. This tends to be a woman's dilemma, as every man I've ever dated, regardless of what he was really feeling, said 'So we'll talk' at the end of the date. One has to wonder whether they even realize that they are saying that, or whether the phrase has become as natural as asking 'how are you' when you serve someone in a restaurant or shop, with no expectation of getting any kind of genuine response. So on occasion, the woman may choose to bite the bullet at the date's end and respond honestly. Examples include "I don't think we SHOULD talk", or "You know what? You're nice but not for me". Or my favorite let-down line of them all – "You may be Mister Right, but you're definitely not Mister Right NOW…".

Should this not happen, or even worse, should you actually WANT to see the guy again, the waiting game starts the minute the first date ends. There are so many rules here, and so many more exceptions to the rule, that it's all-but-impossible to know what to anticipate at this juncture. There are some schools that dictate a grace period of two days between the first date and the follow-up call. Sooner could be interpreted as clingy, desperate or plain obsessive. This is true except in situations where you're also truly interested, in which case he could call five minutes after the date ended and you'd be delighted. Of course, everyone who's ever dated also knows that if he doesn't phone back after three days, it's a lost cause and you should move on. Again, that rule can be bent if you're really interested, and any excuse under the sun would be considered reasonable when he makes a half-hearted plea for date two even weeks after you first meet.

For a few lucky people who are introduced to one another by mutual friends, there's the possibility of receiving post-date follow-up insight from the matchmaker. These rare situations may even elicit constructive criticism on dating technique or personal style, and they should be welcomed or even cherished. One of the funniest stories of post-date feedback was related to me this week by a friend who had gone on a mediocre date with a man who left her fairly apathetic. In fact, he seemed far more interested in his new cell phone and her job in the cellular industry than he was in her during the evening, and she had no expectation – or inclination – to hear from him again. So she was surprised when his number appeared on her ringing phone at the crack of dawn the following morning. A few seconds after she answered, she realized he had not intended to phone her at all, but for some reason his new cell phone was calling her number. She hung up, only to get repeated phone calls from him throughout the day. She stopped answering the calls, but her cell phone recorded his casual conversations until it ran out of space. She was shocked to find that for much of the time, she was the topic of his banter. She had a live recording of his play-by-play account of their date, heard a dissection of her personality and dating techniques, and to add salt to her wounds, had to hear him tell more than one fellow passenger in his car how obvious it was that she was more interested in him than he was in her (a clear case of mistaken date autopsy). While we all seek feedback in one form or another at one time or another, this recorded testimony of the bad date was just a little too much for my friend to take, and thankfully the ex-date soon learned to lock his keypad and the repeated calls stopped coming.

What does not offer much flexibility in Dating 101 is the issue of who pays. It's very clear, regardless of how liberated you are or the society you live in is. Men are burdened with payment obligations on date one, and they should take that into account when recommending a place to go. Personally, a drink or cup of coffee has always been my chosen form of blind date – making it a cheap date for whoever paid, and preventing long evenings waiting for a creepy partner to gnaw his way through his entrée before I could leg it out of the restaurant. Of course, any girl worth her salt would offer to pay half at the end of the date, and any man worth dating twice would refuse. At the most, the girl pays the tip while the guy foots the bill.

This ritual gives a lot of leeway for people who'd like to indicate their level of interest. For example, on a few occasions where I wanted it to be crystal clear to my date that I was not interested in a second date under any circumstances, I found myself insisting quite vociferously that I pay my share of the bill. It seemed to be the only fair thing, considering there was no chance of a return on investment for the poor guy across the way. Similarly, when I was interested in a second date, his refusal to take money for the bill gave me an opportunity to suggest that I'd pay next time, giving him a clear indicator that there'd better be a next time.

Which leaves us with the poor guys who, on occasion, leave their means for payment at home and are placed in that super-awkward position of having no money at all on their first date. A friend of mine told me recently that she had gone on one such date, where she ended up footing the entire bill because her date had no wallet with him. The fact that she never heard from him again didn't make her any more sympathetic to the guy. When discussing this at home, it was pointed out to me that this could be the ultimate dating test – pretend to leave all means of payment at home, resulting in a win-win situation. Either you have a bad date but it doesn't cost you a thing, or you have a good date and a great excuse to see her again under the guise of repaying the favor. And simultaneously your date's reaction to your 'tale of woe' will serve as a clear indicator of her generosity and understanding. In fact, the idea seemed so ingenious it made me wonder why it doesn't happen more often.

What is crystal clear to me is that these rules are ridiculous. There are too many to remember, they are restrictive and frustrating and make dating feel like one long complicated game without a referee or line judge. But what is even more clear is that when both of you are really interested in the relationship, none of the rules matter. Whether he calls you in a minute or a day, he pays or you pay, when it's right, it's right, and none of the regular rules of play come into the equation at all.

Love on a conveyor belt

On a recent trip abroad, while waiting for my luggage to arrive on the conveyor belt, I was struck by a tangible sense of déjà vu. The experience was particularly powerful when my luggage took a long time to arrive, and the thought crossed my mind that it might not arrive at all. The déjà vu I referred to had nothing to do with luggage at all, but rather the feeling most singles I know have - that they may have missed the boat where finding a life partner is concerned.

As the luggage goes around and around on the belt, one is often tempted to pick up a case that looks exactly like the real thing. How often do we even pick up the wrong bag, only to realize our mistake and return it to the carousel and its rightful owner? And on the rare occasion, someone else's case could be taken home accidentally, resulting in all sorts of inconvenience to get it back to whom it belongs. The same thing happens with dating. More than once I hoped I had found 'the one', only to realize sooner (or later) that I had been mistaken by good looks or hypnotic charm. In those cases, delving a little deeper made me realize that the contents of the case didn't fit me at all, and I had to put the relationship aside and keep looking for the right thing.

With the baggage carousel, the experience almost always ends well – even when one's luggage does not appear immediately, it either arrives late (sometimes a little worse for wear), or it gets sent to you later on. The search for the perfect partner does not come with the same kind of guarantee – and the vague sense that your partner may never arrive on the 'conveyor belt' underlies almost every dating experience there is.

The analogy of baggage and dating does not end at the carousel. Baggage is something we each take with us, to some extent or another, into the dating relationship. I certainly cannot claim to be baggage-free, and doubt whether anyone has ever left a relationship without a few 'take-aways' from the experience. I often find myself analyzing my reaction to situations in light of the personal baggage I bring with me from previous connections, and I've spent many first dates trying to work out the extent of my dates' baggage as well. There are some giveaway signs in this regard. The guy who spends the first date going on endlessly about his ex-girlfriend is a clear example of someone who needs to put his bags back on the conveyor belt. Other clues can be found in the man who's over 35 and still lives with his parents, the guy who declares eternal love after a week (you can be assured that he'll change his mind after two), and the divorcee who wants you to meet his children the same day he meets you, cause he's "just sure you'll hit it off". Stay away from all of those – they are usually not just carrying luggage that is overweight - they are also often emotional time bombs just waiting to explode.

Another similarity between the luggage carousel and dating is the never-ending cycle of bags that keep arriving. We are expected to identify our own bags out of a range of hundreds or thousands of other bags that appear constantly. Dating today feels the same way – with countless ways to meet people and a never-ending supply of singles available at the click of a mouse, one is often overwhelmed by the variety and the temptation to stay at home and have intimate relations with a tub of ice-cream can be quite overwhelming at times. But that feeling of spotting your bag on the conveyor belt, of recognizing that it's yours with absolute certainty, the relief that it has arrived and you can go home and get on with the rest of your life, is well worth the wait. And THAT'S the feeling to hold on to when preparing for the next date, or making that call when you're given a number, or writing that email on the dating site of the day. The feeling is priceless – at the end of the day, you could end up finding your perfect match out there, but you have to stay at the carousel until it happens.

Beware of anticipation

One of the most profound dating survival books ever written is Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo's 'He's just not that into you'. These dating gurus shed light on many of courtship's mysteries with very simple, logical explanations. They help daters understand why what seemed like a perfectly reasonable first date never culminated in a second, why men can be sexual even when they aren't attracted to the person they're sexual with, and more importantly, why not to take rejection too personally. It's an absolute must for anyone who's in the dating jungle.

What the book does not do, however, is guide hapless pre-daters. There is clear market demand for some niche material on how to limit anticipation before the first date, and, even more importantly, how to make educated decisions regarding whether you WANT to go on that date or not in the first place.

When friends introduced me to men in the past, it was clear that the first phone call had a single objective: to set up the first meeting. As such, there was no burning need to impress or spend time getting to know one another on the phone before going on the date. That's not to say that the first call isn't important – I was recently told that it was my chatty, friendly phone manner on an initial call made my suitor far more eager to meet me than he had been before we spoke.

But with Internet dating, things are not nearly as black and white. The phone call is the last 'test' left before making a decision to take things a step further and actually meet. And many a good potential dater has fallen at this critical phase. Yet even getting to a point where there IS a phone call is a fairly advanced stage in the Internet dating relationship.

First you need to make contact on a site. Then you need to get a response (certainly not a given thing – I would estimate only 10-15% of people respond at all, and at least a third of them just respond with a polite "just-not-that-interested" email). Once the 'reach-out' and 'initial response' phases are through, there tends to be a period of varied length where emails or text messages are exchanged. This is often the phase where candidates drop like flies. Bad spellers, incoherent authors, even people who take so long to respond you can't remember what their profile looked like – all can easily result in elimination from the dating game. And then someone pops the question: "Can I have your number?".

This is the point where my first warning is definitely called for. When initially embarking on the journey of Internet dating, the email phase can take weeks or months. Certainly for me, this was the most intriguing phase of the cyber-dating process, where witty writers sent short, funny notes all day long and there was an excited sense of being wooed constantly. The anticipation grew and grew until you simply HAD to meet, and often it just took an initial glance at one another in person to realize that there was absolutely no chemistry and that all the writing back and forth had been in vain.

I clearly remember a vacation I took in South Africa where I met someone via computer just before I left. Since there was no time to meet face-to-face before my vacation, we chatted on messenger while I was away, with the intention of meeting on my return. The chatting rapidly progressed from the exchange of a quick note in the morning and night to constant emailing and obsessive checking of the messenger throughout the day, not to mention enormous phone bills due to excessive trans-Atlantic text messaging. We communicated beautifully, he made me laugh out loud with his witty retorts, and the anticipation was so intense by the time I returned from my trip, I almost asked him to meet me at the airport.

One of the funniest things he did at the time was his response to my request for a photograph (While I'm not obsessed with how my dates look, I do like to be able to recognize them when we meet). His response was to send a picture of himself from thirty years before - the cutest four year old I'd ever seen. That should have set off alarm bells rather than butterflies deep inside, but in my naïve way I simply thought that if he had been such a cute kid, he surely couldn't have changed that much.

Alas, all it took was one face-to-face meeting to realize that not only had he not grown up into anything to write about, but I strongly suspect that even the picture of the four year old was not of him but of some other child. Three weeks of anticipation were extinguished with three minutes of personal contact, and we parted ways so I could rush home and delete all the needless correspondence that had preceded the disastrous date.

This leads me to the next warning – people who refuse to send photos don't want to be seen. Of course, you could interpret their reluctance as them being so good looking they don't want people to date them for their physical appearance alone. I'm sure that happens once in a millennium. However, the likelihood is far greater that they don't think you'll date them if you see how they look. There are many excuses for not sending pictures – they just got a new computer so they don't have a photo; they really aren't photogenic so they refuse to have photos taken; or my favourite, they will only send a photo once they've seen YOURS (then you never hear from them again). I don't really get this one – surely if you intend to meet in person anyway, and you don't think they'll go for your look, would you prefer to be rejected via email on the basis of your photograph rather than in a face-to-face meeting, where your actual personality has come into the equation as well?

And now for my final warning: ignore the little voices that arise in your head after a good phone call, whispering 'he's the one' in your head before you've even met him. Those little buggers are there to mess with you, and you can never know that someone is the man of your dreams until you've spend time with him. Overblown anticipation for a first date is a sure-fire way to kill any chance you had in the first place. No first date can live up to the expectation that the one meeting will be the beginning of the rest of your married life. Take your anticipation and crumple it up into a little ball of interest, then stick it in your back pocket till you've gotten to know your mystery man. And don't worry, that little bundled ball will not go away all together. It won't even crease – it will simply pop back up again when the time is really right.

16,378 eligible bachelors are online now

Internet dating is probably one of the most interesting social revolutions we've witnessed. Certainly in the dating world, the advent of the online matchmaker has turned blind dating from a random act of faith and human kindness to a very focused, studied, formal act of guided navigation. To do it well, one needs fine-tuned skills, both in the way one projects oneself in a profile and in the way one sifts through the dozens of inappropriate potential suitors to find those who wouldn't constitute a complete waste of time. The term 'searching for a needle in a haystack' has never been more appropriate than in cyber(dating)space, except that in this case the 'needle' is constantly on the move, looking for a find of its own. The fact that Internet dating EVER succeeds is really a miracle, when you think about it.

Yet it does succeed. One of my best friends met and married the love of her life through the Internet, and I hold them to blame for the many years I persevered in my own quest for love via computer. If it worked for people I know, surely it could work for me too?

The issue with Internet dating is that there are thousands of people 'playing the game' simultaneously, all the time. That makes the need for quick decision making an imperative – nobody has time for three or four dates before they decide whether to become a couple or not; not when they know they can go home and find one of 20,000+ eligibles just waiting to wink, nudge or shoot them with cupid's arrow. So meeting someone from the Internet has an unsaid rule that by the end of the first date you have to be in deep infatuation if you're going to see one another again.

I remember one particular date that seemed to go very well right until the end. He was a busy lawyer who lived near the ocean, and we met for a walk on the beach near his home one evening. It was a busy beach and I was comfortable with his company. The date was fun, he had a good sense of humor and we seemed to have quite a lot in common. Had friends fixed us up I would have given them bonus points for the good match, and in this case I felt like I had finally navigated well through the dating site I was on at the time. At the end of the date, we came up from the beach with sand up to our knees, and when he took my hand to help me up over the rocks we'd sat on, he didn't let go. But when he asked whether I would like to wash my feet off at his apartment, I felt like agreeing could give him mixed messages, and thanked him but declined his offer. I had a towel in my car and preferred the idea of going home sandy than going to his home at all. It was at that point that he told me that he would not be calling me again. I was really surprised – we'd had a nice time, we seemed to get on very well, yet when I turned down an offer to wash my feet at him house, he was put off? I asked him straight out what made him so sure we shouldn't meet again (another side effect of cyber dating, where you allow yourself to be as frank and direct as you like, since you know there is no way you'll meet your date again). He also gave me a very direct response: that he was not prepared to invest time and effort in dating someone if he hadn't checked out the chemistry in bed yet. It seemed like a true waste of resources to woo someone and find out too late that the intimate side of the relationship required work, so he preferred to 'nip the courting in the bud' as it were, rather than take a chance on bad bedding. When I recovered from my shock and gave this some thought, I realized that this was just another characteristic of the cyber dater – the need to condense weeks or months of relationships into the smallest amount of time to ensure your return on investment in the dating site was worthwhile. Makes me think we should call it 'microwave dating' instead.

Yet another feature of cyberdating that bears mentioning is cyber-amnesia: The forgetfulness of the serial dater who approaches the same person time after time, with no recollection of having made a move previously. One of my friends who's a guru of online dating told me he has a very specific technique – he makes dating a project, whereby at the beginning of the month he sends the same general email to 30 or 40 women on a site, without looking at their criteria at all, and then he waits for responses. He takes the profiles of all the women who respond and only then does he take the time to look at their profiles and see whether they are interesting or not. So for those women out there who have been contacted by someone who caught your eye, yet didn't hear back when you responded to their contact, that could be the reason you've been looking for.

I also had to learn not to take things personally when I was dating on the web, otherwise the exercise could turn into an ego-bashing episode of note. One guy corresponded with me for weeks, seemed to be very interested, yet when he asked me to send a photograph he quickly responded that I was not his type and that I'd not be hearing from him again. Since we'd never even met, I didn't take it personally, I simply expected just that: to never hear from him again. And if nothing else, the incident got me to post my photograph on the site for all to see, just to avoid a similar incident in the future. Much to my amusement, he did contact me again, using the same witty first email he'd caught my attention with months before. He'd forgotten we'd been in touch, and he also seemed to have forgotten that I was not his type, since my photograph was now available for him to see and he'd approached me anyway. I replied to his email by copying and pasting his response to me from months before, and that seemed to really do the trick – this time, I really did not hear from him again.

Even more extreme was the guy I actually MET a couple of times, went on some mediocre dates with, before making a mutual decision not to pursue a relationship with one another. Within 6 months he had contacted me twice more, on two different sites, with absolutely no recollection of having contacted me or met me previously. It made me wonder if he's actually dated so many women he couldn't keep track any more.

The moral of the story? That may be as elusive as the cyber dating industry itself. I would say keep things in proportion, don't take rejection to heart, meet in public places, and most importantly, have an escape route in mind. After all, if your next date doesn't work out, there are still 16,378 more singles online right now….

Caught (almost) in the act

This story usually comes up in conversation when I've had one-too-many drinks or am spurred on by one-too-many friends who enjoy basking in my humiliation. It is a classic response to the 'most embarrassing story' subject that inevitably comes up at the end of a good party, and its subject matter is essential for any dating diary. The topic is 'dating at the office', and the event took place a number of years ago but nevertheless remains relevant to this day. That is my subtle way of making it clear to the people I work with (who read this blog) that this incident did NOT take place at my current place of employment and that they do NOT potentially share an office with my partner in crime.

So, 'the incident' took place a number of years ago when I worked in a fairly small company that had offices in a very large, high-rise building. I had worked closely with a certain male (single) colleague for a number of months, and was aware of some underlying sexual tension that could not be expressed, as we worked together and I am far too professional to consider a liaison with a co-worker. However, when he took a new position in the organization that no longer required any professional interaction with me, my stoic principles took a bit of a backslide and I found myself wondering how long we would have to wait before acting on the obvious attraction. On the one hand, the workplace is the workplace and one should not mix business and pleasure. On the other hand, chemistry is chemistry and there is only so long one can delay the inevitable.

The problem became more pressing when we met for an informal drink one day and acknowledged that the attraction was mutual. It was clear that we both wanted some 'one-on-one' time, but as we discussed the logistics of our 'get-together' we realized that finding a private location would not be as easy as one would imagine. Between us, we both had family staying at our apartments for the next month, following which one of the two of us would be traveling overseas for at least the following six weeks. So when we did the maths, we realized it would be up to 8 weeks before we could create any 'alone time'. And we were certainly not going to start 'dating' publicly when we worked in the same company and wanted our private lives to stay that way.

After some serious contemplation and some very flirty emails, we came to the conclusion one afternoon that it would not be worth waiting the required two months to get together without at the very least testing that our basic assumption was correct. What had to happen was that we had to find just a few minutes alone where we could check out the chemistry and make sure it was not a false call.

He knew a private location in the very tall building we worked in (I didn't ask how; some things are better left unsaid…). He took me up to one of the upper floors, with access only to the elevator entrance and the stairwell. It was impossible to enter the rest of the building from that zone, which ensured very little passing traffic and a perfect place for a first kiss. He led me to the stairwell on the 26th floor, we enjoyed our first kiss, and after ten minutes or so we decided it was time to make our way back to our office. Needless to say, we both looked slightly flustered while waiting for the elevator to arrive and take us back to real life, and we straightened up and shared a little giggle in the interim.

Imagine our surprise, then, when the elevator opened and two security guards came out and insisted that we present identification. I blushed like a tomato on a summer's day, and from the side of my eye I noticed that he, too, was a bright shade of red. He did ask the guards what the problem was, and they informed us that an alarm had been activated on the floor and they needed to check that we had not tried to access a high-security area in the building. Of course, we couldn't come out and declare what WE were doing there, so we must have looked like ideal suspects for breaking and entering. Just my luck, 30 floors to choose from and 30 years of playing it safe, yet on the day I decide to do something slightly daring, we got for the wrong location and I end up in a high-security zone being scrutinized by the authorities.

Luckily, my 'friend' knew a few of the people who worked in the security team, and when the guards asked us to accompany them to their main office in the basement of the building, he managed to convince them that I should be permitted to return to my own office and he would go wherever they needed him to. I returned to my office in full blush, mortified at being almost caught by security snogging in the lift shaft, and wondering how I would get into the building in the future without having to face the witnesses of my humiliation.

Close to an hour later, I got a call from 'Mr Kiss', to inform me that the inquisition was over and he'd been released on his own recognizance. He also informed me that he had good news and bad news to share regarding 'the incident'. The good news? We were off the hook and security knew we had not tried to break into any area at all in the area.

The bad news was HOW they knew. Since a high-security zone will not rely on alarms and sensors alone, the entire floor had been fitted with closed-circuit television, and the entire security team had both watched and recorded our 'chemistry test', only to re-play it with my not-to-be-next-boyfriend. To this day I check You Tube regularly to ensure nobody posted any evidence of my misdeed.

When a bad date would be better than no date at all

I have been a bridesmaid at more weddings than I care to remember. Following the obligatory role that had to be performed at my siblings' weddings, there ensued wedding after wedding of friends and cousins who all insisted they couldn't possibly get married without me walking behind them down the aisle. At first, I thought they might all be asking me just because I look spectacular dressed up as a meringue. But it didn't take long before I realized the happy couples thought THEY were doing ME a favor – somehow they seemed to think that by including me in their retinue, attention might be deflected from the fact that I was the one person at the wedding without a date. It made me think that any date at all might be better than NO date at a wedding.

The issue became particularly obvious when I started to refuse to dress up in taffeta at weddings. I was faced with ultimatums by the bridal pair: either I could be master of ceremonies, or I could be fixed up with one of the other singles. But there was no way I could come to the wedding dateless without playing an official role: where would they possibly seat me? And then, of course, there is the humiliation that matches no other: the concussion that can be incurred when the bride makes no bones about aiming the bridal bouquet directly at your head.

One wedding in particular comes to mind when I think of occasions where I'd rather have gone with any date at all than with no date to a wedding. The wedding couple was a favorite – a cousin I adore and her childhood sweetheart, who had a love story their children will write about and a wedding I wouldn't have missed for the world. I flew overseas to be there, and agreed to walk down the aisle in a beige crimplene number, flanked by two stick figures, and feelings of dread shrouding the experience for the weeks running up to the event.

What I had not counted on was the run-up events before the wedding. When busy with dress fittings, hair trials and experimental makeup rehearsals, one tends to forget about the other fun and games that adorn the traditional wedding ceremony. But in this case, I was not to be let off the hook. My cousin called to ensure that I would come to town a couple of days early for her 'hen party'. I agreed, of course, and then called my married friends to ask what a hen party was. The explanation I got sounded like a lot more fun than I anticipated having at the wedding itself. A hen party, according to my sources, is a female version of a bachelor party. You dress the bride-to-be up in embarrassing attire, everyone gets drunk and then you embarrass her with public displays of raunchy lingerie and gifts in the form of sex toys. And as this was a party for girls only, it would be the one occasion where not having a date for the wedding would be a non-issue. I couldn't wait.

Since I came straight from the airport and had no time to get anything particularly 'naughty', I was forced to resort to the lowest form of erotic souvenir – to my relief, I found a pornographic novel at the airport bookstore that looked like it could make even the class slut blush. I couldn't be sure, as the book had been tightly wrapped in cellophane to ward off perverts looking for a free thrill, but I figured if it was dirty enough for cellophane, it would certainly be dirty enough to make my cousin flush at her hen party, and I bought the book while avoiding eye contact with the shop clerk lest she think I was buying the smut for myself.
My biggest joy was that my cousin had elected to go for a fun bachelorette do, rather than the more traditional kitchen tea that usually precedes weddings of my generation. The thought of having to sit through an evening of tea and oven gloves left me cold, but a night of drinking and raucous behavior was something I could definitely get into. I admit I felt just slightly uncomfortable when we arrived at the venue and I found myself seated between my aunt and her mother – I couldn't help but wonder how they would react to the sexy undies and dirty toys that were likely to be unveiled during the evening. But I decided not to make that my concern, and got busy looking for alcohol to start the evening off on a good note.

Before long, I realized the first game of the night was underway, and was pretty horrified to realize that once again, my lack of date was going to be held against me. All the attendees recanted, one by one, how they had met their life partners and when they had tied the knot (or at least, when they were intending to). In a cruel game of odd-man-out, I realized that other than the widowed granny, I was to be the only dateless representative of my cousin's close circle of friends. So when it came to my turn to tell 'my story', I could either tell everyone I was a bridesmaid to compensate for being still single, or I could change the topic. I chose the latter, and suggested we get going with the gift opening ceremony.

Everyone responded enthusiastically, and I started to giggle at the thought of how my gift would make my cousin cringe. As the girl sitting next to my cousin volunteered to be the first to present her with her gift, everyone told her that she had to guess what was in the long box. I actually wanted the earth to swallow me up whole – here it was obvious the box contained what must be the biggest vibrator my cousin would ever lay her eyes on, and I was going to witness her mother and grandmother's exposure to the joystick. I almost wanted to distract them so they wouldn't notice. I was so focused on how embarrassing this would be for them, that I didn't pay attention to the gift opening, until I hear my cousin's gasp of joy as she uncovered the big box and revealed nothing less than a big, electric, hand mixer.

And I realized that I'd been had. This was no hen party, but rather a good old-fashioned kitchen tea in the guise of a bachelorette party. And there I was, the sole representative of single women everywhere, toting a pornographic novel at a conservative congregation. Thank G-d it was wrapped – by the time it came to my turn, I simply raised the book in the air, announced it was the latest and greatest recipe book that was all the rage, and handed it over to my cousin while whispering in her ear that if she opened it in this forum she wouldn't live to see her wedding day.

It was several years later that I told her the true story of what was in the book I reclaimed as soon as the gift ceremony was over. And while I couldn't get out of weddings all together, I have managed to avoid the hen parties ever since.

To pet or not to pet, that is the question

A good friend of mine told me recently that his most traumatic first date took place on a busy street in Tel Aviv. He had met someone he was attracted to on a train ride, and after a few phone calls they decided to meet at a coffee house. The first part of the date seemed to go very well, but he was horrified half-way through when a street cat passed their table and his date reached into her bag for a tin of tuna, which she didn't hesitate to open up and give to the feral creature. Needless to say, this raised some obvious concerns for my friend and he hastened to end the date and the short-lived romance as soon as he could.

He may or may not have remembered that I am a true animal lover when he told me that story. Not that I would ever consider feeding a stray animal on the street, but I grew up in a house with pets and I am pretty fond of just about all of G-d's creatures.

I also have two cats at home, and am extremely fond of them too. Not only are they clean animals, but they require very little taking care of – feeding once a day and a bit of affection is all they really need. Just as importantly, cats have also helped me (on more than one occasion) to get out of a couple of fairly awkward situations without having to take personal responsibility for my actions. Allow me to explain…

A colleague at work asked if he could give a friend my number. I agreed, and was given a little background about the friend – he was a scholar, with a PhD in physics, played basketball and came from a nice family. Sounded good enough to me, until our first conversation, where we literally could not find one thing to talk about that would last more than a couple of words. Yes/no answers seemed to be the name of the game, and had this been a meeting via the Internet, there's no doubt I would have politely explained to me that it seemed we may not have much in common, and left it at that. Unfortunately, the etiquette of dating via friends is a little more complicated than that, and I found myself in a very awkward position. I'd rather have gone for root canal than have to spend an entire evening trying to make conversation with this stranger, yet how could I not? Until he called again to set up the date, and I asked him how he felt about animals. This was not a setup, just a desperate attempt to find something the two of us could possibly discuss. And he explained that he's super-allergic to animals, in particular to cats of any kind. In fact, he just THINKS of felines and starts to sneeze. I grasped the moment, and explained that not only do I actually like cats, but I have two of my own, and perhaps it wouldn't have been the best idea for us to meet. Neither of us would want to have to deal with a situation where he could never visit my home, now would we? And if he was THAT allergic, I would surely carry the allergens around on my clothes and we'd have hated for him to sneeze every time he saw ME, wouldn't we? I'm not sure whether he was as eager to get out of meeting me as I was to avoid meeting him, but he took the bait at first chance and agreed that perhaps we should, regrettably, agree not to meet up.

The thing is, cats are often a deterrent for potential partners. And sometimes one simply needs to take advantage. The other time I used cats to aid a great escape was when my parents' friends gave my number to someone they thought was nice (usually that means – he was also single, so let's just fix them up, surely they'll find SOMETHING to talk about…). I was not given a choice in this one – I got a call from this guy without any prior warning from the matchmakers. I felt extremely uncomfortable about the whole thing – I knew absolutely nothing about him, had no way of contacting the people who'd fixed us up (they'd gone on a cruise the day after dispensing my personal contact details), and felt a sense of obligation to my own parents not to embarrass their friends by refusing to meet their friend. So we planned a meeting at a bar in the area, and I arrived to find someone who, believe it or not, was missing a few essential facial features. In particular, there was a distinct lack of chin, which may have been deemed acceptable by some if it was not complemented by the total absence of top teeth. OK. I exaggerate. After some very close staring (I just couldn't help myself), I realized that teeth did EXIST on the top gum, but they were very very small. How small? I think it would be fair to compare them to the underscore key on a word processor. Short white lines protruding from the upper gum, with a lip literally falling over onto a non-existent chin. Get the picture? While this did not make for great viewing (and neither did watching him try to drink coffee), it also made understanding him a bit of a chore. And I had been down the road of trying to converse in Hebrew with someone who had a speech impediment before – not my strong point.

My patience had run out. Manners should only have to take one so far. So half an hour into the date, I told him that I had suddenly realized that I had forgotten to feed the dozens of street cats who live under my building (yes, desperate times call for desperate actions), and that I would have to run. I took a chance on him not being a cat lover, and was hoping to ensure that a second call would not follow. The bet paid off and I never heard from him again. Although there really weren't really dozens of cats under my building, my own house pets got a special tuna treat on my return.

Be careful of what you wish for

A few years ago, while visiting Tzfat in the north of Israel, my sister insisted that I visit a specific holy area she'd heard a lot about. This site, by the name of Amuka, is the burial ground of a great rabbi who was known to have special powers. In particular, hundreds of people go in droves to his grave each week to pray for health, fertility or marriage. It was recommended I go for the latter.

The experience of visiting the grave in Amuka was nothing less than surreal. I was told to buy candles at the entrance and then was instructed to pray at the grave, light the candle outside while saying my prayer to meet my life partner, and then circle the dome that sits on the roof of the grave 7 times. This resembles the Jewish tradition of circling one's groom during the wedding ceremony, and I took the entire process very seriously. My good friend, who came with me for the journey but was not prepared to partake in any of the humiliating rituals, simply stood at the side and laughed. All she could think of was how she would describe my antics afterwards to our friends at home.

Imagine both of our surprise, then, when I got a phone call as we got back into the car, from someone who wanted to fix me up. We both went a little pale. Could this be it? Could it be that just one visit to a grave in Tzfat was all it would take to get me together with fate's intended partner?

The call was from a cousin, who had given my number to a friend, who was going to give it to her brother. The down side of this was that my cousin had never met the guy. In fact, all she knew about him was that he was apparently a great guy. The up side? I was in one of the most beautiful places in the world, I had just made a special prayer for a partner, and the timing couldn't be better. I was convinced that this was a date with destiny.

All my cousin could tell me was the potential date's name. However, with the advent of the Internet, that was more than enough to go on to find some of the all-too-important info I sought before going out with someone. I googled him, and was a little intimidated to find hundreds of search results come up. It seemed my potential date was a very well-known Israel journalist who specialized in political commentary. This did not bode well for me. With a pre-disposition to nightmares and an idyllic approach to existence, I take a clear ostrich (head-in-the-sand) approach to life. The daily news is not something that appears on my list of priorities for any given day.

So I spent the next week reading up on actuality, with a strong desire to hold my own in a conversation with someone who was a clear intellectual. Yet when he eventually called, he sounded shy and quite introverted. Making conversation was not easy, and it made me wonder how he could be such a successful journalist when he could barely string a minute of small talk together. Soon after the call began, it ended, with us agreeing to meet the following night in a central location.

The date took place on what was possibly the hottest night in the history of the state of Israel. It was so hot that getting dressed was a chore, and I regretted agreeing to meet this virtual stranger at all. I use the term 'getting dressed' loosely – it was too hot for real clothing, so I elected to wear a t(iny)-shirt with spaghetti-thin straps and some loose cotton pants with sandals. Imagine my shock when my date got out his car wearing a long-sleeved white shirt and black jacket. Did he have poor circulation? Bad skin? Was he albino? As these questions raced through my mind, he turned his back to lock the door, and I spotted what might as well have been a luminous yarmulke clipped to his head. Could it be? Could my cousin have been so desperate for me to meet someone that she forgot I was secular? When she told me his name, did she forget to mention the 'rabbi' first?

He hid what could only have been horror like a true gentleman. I doubt he'd ever seen a woman as naked as I was on that steaming night, and it took every ounce of good manners for me not to get back in my car and bolt it out of there. I'm sure the feeling was mutual.

We went to a nice kosher restaurant, which I found kind of ironic considering that I was clearly not dressed for anything kosher at all. I was impressed that he was not too embarrassed to be seen with me in public, but then again, he probably didn't know of any non-kosher establishments in the area. The date lasted as long as it takes to drink a glass of coke. He was in a rush to get to a lesson at his seminary. I was in a rush to get anywhere else.

And the studying I'd done to ensure I could hold my own in a conversation on current affairs turned out to be unnecessary. Other than a coincidental common name, my date and the famous journalist had nothing in common. It seems Google doesn't yet cover the local yeshiva celebrities.

Thanks for the feedback

The first series of Big Brother started in Israel a few weeks ago. For those who pretend not to know what this ultimate in reality viewing is, the show focuses on about 16 people who move into a house together for 100 days and forego all rights to any privacy whatsoever. There are cameras in every part of the house other than the toilet, and participants are mandated to wear microphones at all times. Viewers can watch what's happening in the house 24 hours a day on TV, or even better via the Internet, where one can choose which camera (and hence, which participants) to focus on.

The show feeds the voyeur in each and every one of us. While I generally deny that I watch it to anyone who asks directly, I am convinced that most people check it out - even occasionally - just to see 'what's happening' in the house. I am fascinated by the psychology of the experience – who would WANT the whole country to see their every move and hear all their conversations? Why would someone volunteer to be jailed and monitored for three months of their lives? And, most importantly, will anything ever actually happen or will they just continue to sit around the pool, talking nonsense for the next 6 weeks?

What frustrates me the most with the show is the lack of interaction with the outside world, or rather, OUR lack of interaction with THEM. I think it would become a lot more interesting if viewers had the ability to communicate with the participants – ask questions, make suggestions, tell them what other participants are saying about them, or simply 'chat' with the people that have been so closely monitored for weeks on end.

Cyber-dating bears some resemblance to Big Brother. By putting oneself on the Internet, one becomes exposed to all sorts of strangers, but also to friends and colleagues. When I was dating via Internet sites, I often came across profiles with pictures of friends, acquaintances and colleagues. But more than that, when I went out in the city, the experience always came with a strong sense of déjà vu, where the people in my surroundings all looked familiar (mostly because I'd browsed their profiles in cyberspace).

In my dating heyday, I often thought about the issue of feedback. I even considered having friends sit at a table next to me when I went on a first date just to let me know what I did right and what I did wrong. That is, until I mentioned this to one of my blind dates and he took the opportunity to give me open, honest feedback. He was a friend of a friend, was visiting Israel for a week and was in the process of deciding whether to move to Israel or stay in South Africa. He called me at work one day and asked if I could meet for lunch, as his schedule was very full but he'd been told it would be a good idea to meet me. I agreed, even though I was not really dressed for a date and was under pressure at the office.

The actual date was painless. He spent most of it talking about his ex-girlfriend (a common experience for me, I'm afraid). I don't think he asked me anything about myself at all, meaning I had to make no effort to communicate with him, other than nodding my head on occasion and pretending to be interested in why he no longer wanted to date the girl he so obviously still wanted to date. At some point, he started talking about the experience of dating, and I mentioned that I'd often thought it would be a good idea to film the first date in order to analyze it afterwards. He took that as a cue to provide feedback, and told me he'd be happy to let me know exactly what he thought of our date, just like a friend would have done if they'd been silently observing from the side.

At the time, I was in a process of working on myself. I was working out regularly, had lost a significant amount of weight, was feeling good and felt like I radiated that. So I felt quite comfortable inviting his honest feedback. Until he started delivering it. To start with, he said I got 10 out of 10 for personality, nothing he could find fault with there. And then he went on to dissect my physical features like I was a cadaver on a slab. Apparently, I needed to lose some weight, tone up, grow my hair longer, wear more makeup, since I am short I should buy some high heels, and perhaps a personal designer could help me learn to dress better for my body.

As he shared his honest feedback with me, I felt my personal temperature gauge rise from within, and when the heat arrived in my eyes he started to back off and simmer down. His last sentence in the 'what's wrong with me' diatribe literally trailed off into silence, as he realized that he may have gone too far when he suggested I whiten my teeth. The bottom line - If I could just work a little harder on my physical appearance, he'd probably be willing to take me out again.

I thanked him for the feedback.

And I explained in a controlled, soft, probably menacing voice, that he may want to learn to appreciate people not as 'snapshots' but rather as 'movie footage', not as an object in a single point in time but as one point in a series of events. The way any given person looks, at any given time, is a factor of so many things that one look simply cannot be enough to make a judgment call. But that said, I told him I was grateful he'd shared his opinion. And I followed on to tell him that I, too, had feedback.

I told him he looked fine. His weight was not a problem, he was firm enough, his hair was the right length, his teeth where white and he was just the right height. Physically close to perfect. If he could have just done something about his rotten personality, I probably would have been willing to let him take me out again.

I never heard from him again.

Competing to be picked up

Quite a few people I know met partners in 'pick-up' situations – bars; restaurants; one couple I'm friendly with even met on a bus. I don't recall ever really having been 'picked up' – the closest I came to it was someone noticing me at a football match and calling me up later. That didn't end very well, though; I vaguely recall him taking me to an animated movie for our first date, where he softly crooned ALL the songs in my ear throughout the movie, much to my irritation and that of the other movie-goers.

There was one incident that may well have turned into a pick-up if I hadn't nipped it in the bud. It happened at the tail end of the longest cross-Atlantic flight in the world. I was returning from San Diego at the end of a summer vacation, and stopped off in London before going home. I had taken an afternoon flight from San Diego to Los Angeles and the red-eye to New York. Then, after a four-hour wait in New York - spent nodding off on the floor of the airport since all the seats were taken - I spent another six hours on the flight to London. Needless to say, by the time I arrived at Heathrow I felt like death warmed up, and wore a look to match. The next part of my journey consisted of an hour-long train ride to East Finchley, so I dragged my two suitcases and hand luggage onto an empty compartment in the train, then proceeded to undress to the absolute lower limit of public decency, as it was steaming hot and the ventilation was less than ideal.

Within five minutes of embarking, a pretty English girl and two European-looking guys in their early twenties joined me. She sat next to me and they sat across from the two of us. They were talking in a foreign language, and it took a few minutes for me to come out of my jet-lagged funk to realize that they were talking Hebrew and I could actually understand what they had to say. I was not in the mood to chat and certainly didn't let on that I understood them. Not that what they were talking about was particularly interesting anyway – discussion mostly focused on the 'action' they were planning on getting that night, where they were going to find women and how lucky they assumed they'd be. The English rose to my right kept quiet, and I concentrated on not falling asleep, out of terror that I'd miss my stop and drag this night out a minute longer than it absolutely had to be.

A few minutes into the ride, it became apparent to me that the conversation across the aisle had moved from the 'generic' to the 'localized', and the guys were making a blatant comparison between the beauty to my right, and me. The odds were against me – I hadn't showered for 30 hours, I was rubber-necking (the movement that takes place when you fight sleep and your head keeps dropping onto your chest, only to be ripped up in sudden jerking movements when you realize you nodded off…). She was lovely – milky skin, freckles, slightly ginger hair (instant aphrodisiac for Israeli men), and she was clean and made up, ready for a night on the town. When she realized she might be the topic of conversation across the way, she gave the guys a shy glance through her long, mascara'd eyelashes, and I didn't stand a chance.

Under the assumption that they were speaking a language neither of us girls understood, the guys were fairly brutal. To start with, they went into a scathing analysis of how I looked like I hadn't slept for a week, and started taking bets on how long it would be before I fell asleep completely. They also joked about a few of the 'favors' they'd be 'willing to perform' for my seat-mate, and just when I thought they would not find a single redeeming feature in yours truly, their eyes moved past our faces to our upper torsos. Time for me to make a comeback. The girl next to me had not been blessed with any breasts to write of – in fact, I think G-d gave her a lovely face in the hope that it would stop men from looking any further. The boys across the way picked up on this, joking about her 'flapjacks' as opposed to my 'round buns'; how she had nothing to grab whereas I could give each of them a breast and there would still be 'leftovers'…It was when they started discussing specific acts they'd like to perform with my bosom that I decided it was time to let them know that I did, in fact, understand what they had to say.

So following on their comparison ("girl on right, pretty; girl on left, has had better days"; "girl on right flat as a pancake, girl on right perfectly endowed"), I retorted, in accented – but perfect – Hebrew. All I did was add another feature to their comparative statement, informing them in Hebrew that in addition to the obvious difference between our faces and our breasts, there was also the fact that her Hebrew was non-existent, and mine was perfect.

They hot-footed it out of the carriage and the rest of the trip was spent in silence.

Beware of Matchmaking Mothers

I've yet to meet a mother who didn't want me for her son. Regardless of whether the latter is married or single, young or old, interested or not, their mothers tend to fall in love with me at first sight. I once had a mother ask me to wait for her unborn child to be conceived, born and raised, just so she could claim me as her daughter-in-law. I suggested she adopt an adult for me or introduce me to her brother instead.

The sons, on the other hand, tend to be less eager. In fact, parental adoration often causes a directly-opposite reaction in the offspring. I have found that while boyfriends are delighted when their mothers like me, potential boyfriends find the thought of their mother even knowing I exist (let alone having met me) fairly intimidating. For those who are commitment-phobic, there's the issue of how they could date someone who had already met their mother; and for those with deeply-embedded psychological issues, there is the inevitable angst associated with the fact that their mother could be interpreted as playing a role in their dating lives. And to be honest, without too badly maligning most men I've had the pleasure or displeasure of going on first dates with, I have definitely run the full gamut of commitment-phobic, psychologically-issued men (with or without wonderful moms).

As such, as a matter of rule I try to avoid the parental fix up. Not only have I always firmly resisted attempts on the part of my own parents to introduce me to potential partners, but I only actually fell into the trap of allowing a mother to introduce me to her son once. Once was enough.

One of the reasons I even allowed the fix-up to take place at all was that the potential date's mother is one of the finest women I know. We had an instantaneous click when we met at mutual friends one weekend. In fact, we had more in common than I have with most of my friends – we like the same books, similar music, both love to travel – and I figured the apple probably doesn't fall far from the tree. And to my credit, she never actually told me she'd be fixing me up with her son – she simply gave him my number, and a week after I met his mother, Noam called, introduced himself, and asked if I'd like to meet for a cup of coffee.

My biggest concern with meeting Noam was that his mother is religious and I am far from. I was concerned that I'd meet up with a yarmulke-toting G-d-fearing kosher guy, but I decided to bite the bullet and give it a try anyway. When he arrived to pick me up I was pleasantly surprised. Not only is he secular, but Noam is good-looking, rugged, confident, funny and very smart. I was to learn afterwards that he's also a great cook and a deep thinker who loves animals, is great with children and is comfortable in just about any type of social situation. Our first date lasted a couple of hours, and the conversation ran the full gamut of topics, which we sashayed between with the ease of professional ballroom dance partners.

When Noam invited me to go with him to Jerusalem for our second date, I was delighted. He said that he and his roommate were going to a poetry reading at the Sultan's pool in Jerusalem, and I was excited that after only one date he was already happy to introduce me to his friends. Perhaps for once I'd had the good fortune to meet someone without commitment issues? Or even better, without ANY deep-seated issues at all?

I must admit I raised an eyebrow slightly when I was given the back seat of the car on our way to Jerusalem. But since Noam and his friend had arrived together to fetch me, I realized it was probably not comfortable for him to ask his friend to move to the back of the car. Nevertheless, I also felt it was a little impolite to put your date in the back and your friend in the front. And as the evening progressed, I realized that Noam, in fact, agreed with this.

At the restaurant before the poetry reading, we agreed to split the bill. The second eyebrow joined the first in its raised position when my date paid for himself and his friend, and I paid my own share. But the penny only really dropped when we got to the poetry reading and Noam's 'friend' asked whether I would swap places with Noam, so that he, too, could sit at Noam's side (he was kind enough to allow me to be on the other side).

So on the way back from Jerusalem, from my now-regular back-seat position, I was not really surprised when I saw the roommate's left hand slide across the seats and rest gently on Noam's upper thigh. I also realized that Noam was not as impolite as I'd suspected. In fact, he had placed his date in the front seat, and his friend in the back. He had simply failed to mention to me that I was NOT his date, and that rather than this being an episode of J-Date, I was an extra in a feature edition of 'Gay Date'.

The good news? This story ends happily – Noam's mom has been enlightened as to why she should stop fixing him up, and I got myself a great male friend with impeccable taste who gives me first-rate dating advice. Could a girl ask for more?

Bad answers to good questions

First dates often take on the form of job interviews, obviously with the differentiating feature that at the end of a good date there is always the remote possibility that you could ‘get lucky’ with your ‘interviewer’. And just like any decent job interview, the questions tend to be as important as the answers.  As such, seasoned blind daters should have a few good questions tucked up their sleeve for emergency lulls in conversation.

There are few things worst than a first date with stilted – or no - conversation.  Silence only becomes comfortable after years of intimacy or numerous glasses of alcohol, and the awkward silence on a first date is both palpable and highly visible to those in the surrounding area.  In this particular incident, I was enduring a date with someone who appeared to have taken on a vow of silence; at a stretch he was prepared to give a yes/no answer to even my most creative and challenging questions.  Ironically, he seemed to have had a fairly interesting life, had worked in a range of careers and companies, had travelled widely, and had lived abroad for several years.  But this I knew from his profile on a dating site, and not from his short-winded communicative style.  So at a complete loss for topics of discussion, and with half a cup of coffee to go before I could safely make a run for it, I asked what I thought was the ultimate in creative questions – and one that demanded a qualitative response, rather than a one-word retort. 

My innocent question went something like this: “So, it looks like you’ve managed to do so much in your life already.  I have to wonder if there’s anything left that you’ve always dreamed of doing, but haven’t managed to yet?” (I anticipated a response that would go something like “I really want to study for my MBA” or “I dream of dancing salsa in Cuba”).

Who could have anticipated that I would get a response that led me to regret asking this question until this very day. His x-rated, highly-inappropriate response, and I quote word for word, was: “I’ve never had oral sex”. 

I was so shocked my jaw literally dropped (though I closed it immediately lest he misinterpret my pose as some form of invitation…).  This statement was so offensive on so many levels that I felt that the insult of leaving the date halfway through my cup of coffee would pale in significance, and I made for the woods before he could elaborate on any more of his unfulfilled aspirations.

In retrospect, however, I must admit that this may not actually be the worst answer I ever got to a good question. 

Forever etched in my brain is my first and only meeting with Julio, a South American I was introduced to at an intimate gathering of friends.  A couple who knew me and a couple who knew Julio wanted to introduce us, so I suggested that we all meet together to counter the embarrassment inherent in first dates with people with whom one has nothing at all in common (other than being single, that is). 

So the evening started off with my friends and I arriving first, and Julio arriving 15 minutes later. My friend Caryn, who had also never met the potential date, got the honors of the first glance at Julio as he entered (a nice way of describing how he waddled in).  She turned around slowly, faced me with her back to the rest of the group, and mouthed silently: “I’m so, soooo sorry”.  Then in he came, sporting a heavy gold chain that rested nicely on his big hairy chest, which one could not really ignore since his button-down shirt was open all the way through to his belly button.  Still trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, we struggled through some small talk, I asked a few polite questions, as did the others at the dinner party, and I think we all let out a sigh of relief when we were called to the table for dinner. 

And just between the starters and the main course, as a few of us were nibbling on some bread and trying to pretend this was comfortable and fun, I asked what I thought was a classic question.  Of the six of us at the table, five were immigrants who had come to live in Israel from various parts of the world over the previous decade.  So I asked everyone at the table what they missed most about their home countries. 

Our hosts unanimously declared that they missed the food.  Caryn said she missed her friends.  I said I missed my family.  And Julio, bless him, took the opportunity to tell us all that he missed, of all things, the bidet.  THE BIDET.  I looked at Caryn and asked, under my breath, “Did he say SUNDAY?” (wishing desperately that I was right or at least that she’d lie to pacify me.  But no such luck…). Nope, she said out of the side of her mouth.  It was bidet. No doubt about it.  The men at the table laughed out loud, the women chuckled nervously, and I can’t help but wonder whether I was the only one left with a mental image permanently etched in my memory of this hairy creature sitting naked on his marble throne. 

In future, I vow to stick to “So where do you work?” and “Who is your favorite singer?” when trying to break the ice.

The accidental second date

My rule of thumb with my blog is that I never write about anyone who got as much as a second date. Without that kind of restriction, it's probable that potential boyfriends would be nervous to go out with me in fear of appearing as a weekly entry when things went belly up.

The rule does pose a dilemma, however, when the second date is accidental.

A friend of mine had one of those recently, when she showed for a blind date only to realize she'd been fixed up with him before. She was so embarrassed by the situation that she didn't raise the topic of this being their second date. And while it was obvious he recognized her too, he was also apparently too embarrassed to acknowledge the uncomfortable reality of their situation. So they battled their way through their unintentional second date, both pretending it was the first time they'd met, even holding some of the same conversation they'd conducted years before on their first date. She claimed that the funniest part of the entire experience was that for the second time running, at the end of the date he promised to call her even though they both knew that the probability of achieving peace in the Middle East was higher than a third date.

While I've never actually had to go through with an accidental second date, I've certainly had a few close shaves. The example that leaps to mind is my follow-up run-in with Stuart. We met about five years ago, through a dating site. At first, we just corresponded. On paper, we looked like a perfect fit, both ardent Zionists with Anglo-Saxon backgrounds, both writers in hi-tech, voracious readers and a fairly cynical outlook on life. Our email exchange was hilarious, to the extent that we were both rather reluctant to meet in person, just in case the face-to-face meeting didn't live up to the expectations set by our unparalleled written communication.

When we could no longer postpone the inevitable, we went out for a short, awkward dinner of good food and bad chemistry, concluded with a mutual agreement that we would part ways amicably. It was one of those dates that closely resembles a job interview rather than a romantic interlude, and I think we were both grateful when it came to a premature end. The biggest disappointment in this episode was that I lost the best pen-pal I'd ever had, and I remember his sharp written wit to this day.

It seems, however, that I did not warrant the same solid impression. A number of years after our first (and only) date, I met friends for a drink one night and they introduced me to the very same guy - Stuart. My initial reaction was to blush, then to stutter, and I was impressed at how cool he was in the face of what could have been a most awkward situation. I was amazed at the way he managed to pretend we'd never met, and wondered how long it would take before he'd call me aside to comment on how potentially embarrassing the situation was.

It took about half an hour for the penny to drop. I realized that it was not pure class facilitating Stuart's smooth reaction to me – it was the fact that he truly believed this was the first time we'd ever met. I played along for a while, but when he starting going through his repertoire of interview questions from the first date all those years ago, I couldn't take it any more. I was forced to ask whether he was experiencing any kind of déjà vu at all. He was blown away when I reminded him that we had not only met before, but that we'd gone on a date that was preceded by weeks of correspondence. And even then there was no glimmer of recognition, just a blank look followed by a stammer of apology and the quickest getaway I've witnessed in all my years of dating. To some extent I envy Stuart's sieve-like memory - some dates really are best left forgotten.

Dating as an Olympic sport

Bad dating is so competitive it should be declared an Olympic sport. Sure, everyone is happy when single friends meet great partners and embark on new relationships. But there is just as much – if not more - excitement when a blind date goes wrong and a funny story follows. And for every bad date story out there, someone has one just that much worse to regale.

The most challenging category in the bad dating genre has to be that of shortest date (otherwise known as quickest rejection). There are many horror stories to be told about bad first impressions, and since this is a competitive sport the stories I am writing about today are not mine alone.

I was shocked to hear a friend's story – years ago – of a date that lasted just 10 minutes. It was a fix-up through common acquaintances, and the two potential partners met at the top of a popular walkway in Jerusalem. They agreed to go for a cup of coffee at the bottom of the street, requiring a 5-minute walk. By the time they reached the coffee house, he had decided that he was just not that keen, and told her that he'd prefer not to waste any more of either of their time by following through with coffee. My friend was left standing on her own next to a coffee shop she had no interest in entering, having shared nothing more than a handshake with the man who had just rejected her. At the time, that was by far the shortest date I'd heard of, and I was horrified by the lack of tact he had displayed by calling such an abrupt end to the pre-date.

Imagine my surprise, then, when another friend met someone through a dating site, arrived at the designated meeting spot, said hello to her date, and got the following response: "I don't think so", before he got up and left the bar. While we've all heard of foreplay, this rejection was nothing more than a four-word foreword of a date, and its sting lasted a lot longer than the meeting itself.

And just when I thought this friend had won the gold medal for shortest, most humiliating date ever, I almost met Eli. Eli and I lived an hour apart, and we had come across one another on a dating site a week before. After a couple of emails and a quick phone call, we decided to meet up and see whether there was any point investigating a 'long distance' connection (since Israel is so tiny, an hour's distance between partners sometimes seems like an insurmountable obstacle to overcome). So we decided to meet in Caesaria – a good location because it was a central point between where we both lived at the time, but even better for a first date because there's a lot to see and do there, just in case there's not much to talk about (not unusual when the only thing you have in common is that you've both resorted to cyberspace dating to find your one and only….).

I arrived first, found a shady spot and waited for Eli to arrive. He arrived 10 minutes later, and I directed him to a parking place next to mine. While we had swapped photographs before the meeting, I couldn't help but feel an all-too-familiar pang of disappointment as he parked his car and I realized his photo was not exactly recent. It had been taken about 15 years before, when he was in his prime, and like a good car, his physical condition had very obviously rapidly depreciated since then. I worked hard at not letting my disappointment show on my face as I got out my car and walked over to greet him. After all, looks are not everything and it was quite possible that his personality would make up for his deteriorated exterior. It's not as if I walked off the pages of Cosmopolitan magazine.

But as fate would have it, from the very briefest of encounters, I have to declare that his personality is a perfect fit with his physical appearance. He got out his car, looked at me, and gave me the one-word verbal version of the finger-flip. "No", he said, before getting into his car and shooting out of the parking lot like a bat out of hell, never to be seen or heard of again. I was left in the dust, gob smacked, looking in vain for the candid camera crew to pop out and yell that it had all been a hoax. But no such luck.

And with that, I officially became world champion in the category of shortest date in history. Let me know if you can beat my score.

On dating dogs

There was a time when I insisted on two criteria being met before I'd allow friends to give my number out. First, the matchmakers had to actually KNOW both me and my potential date (or at least they should have met the guy at least once); and second, I wanted to know we had something in common other than that we were both single.

However, following a particularly dry patch, I was considering lowering my criteria to the point of if he trimmed his nose hair before the first date, I would meet him. So when my friend Michal suggested I meet someone she'd heard was nice, but had never met, I decided to give it a go. Ran was the brother of a friend of a friend, and all I knew before the date was that he was my age and lived in Tel Aviv.

A quick pointer about dating people who live in Tel Aviv: If you don't live there yourself, be prepared to travel. A lot. Because people who live in Tel Aviv don't leave the city after dark under any circumstances. The reason is simple - while love may be unconditional, parking is not, and no self-respecting Tel Aviv resident would consider giving up a parking place just to go on a date.

This in mind, Ran and I arranged to meet in Tel Aviv late one Sunday night. The late hour suited me because I was going to a cooking course earlier in the evening and was grateful for the time to go home and shower before the date. The cooking course entailed preparing different types of meat in different types of conditions, and lasted three hours. By the time I walked out of there I smelled like I'd taken a long bath in marinade and dried myself off with a beef pattie.

On my way home, I got a call from Ran that if I didn't mind, he'd like me to come to Tel Aviv earlier for our 'meeting'. I explained that I'd just come out of a cooking course and it would be worth his while to give me time to shower before meeting. But he was insistent that it would make no difference and all-but-pleaded with me to join him at his favourite bar, as soon as possible.

In fact, he said, he and Basel were walking there at that very moment, so the sooner I got there, the better.

"Basel?" I asked.

"My best friend", he responded. "We go everywhere together. I hope you don't mind".

Now I must admit that this was a first for me. It's all very well going on a blind date, smelling like a well-done entrecote, to meet someone I know literally nothing about. But now this was becoming a threesome, and my date was clearly wandering into 'not my thing' territory.

Against all my better instincts, I agreed to meet Ran and Basel at a bar in Tel Aviv. To cover myself, I clarified from the word go that we'd have a quick drink and I would be on my way.
To my relief, I discovered a lovely little bar, with a very non-offensive Ran waiting in it for me. And with Ran was Basel, his 'best friend' - a silver-haired, slim Weimaraner. The Weimaraner in adult form is the closest canine you will find to the equine family. Not clear enough? It's a dog disguised as a horse. Beautiful and almost my height, Basel turned out to be a lot more interested, and a LOT more demonstrative, than his owner.

While Ran and I tried to make small talk, Basel tried to make little puppies. With my leg. It seemed that while the smell of the basted beef may not have had an effect on my date, it was particularly provocative for his best friend, who alternated from rubbing my thighs with his long nose, to grabbing my back with his front legs while being vigorously attentive to my calves with his back legs. And they say males can't multitask…

After half a glass of beer and some subtle attempts to extract the hound's snout from my privates, both Ran and I realized it was a losing battle. Trying to stop Basel from embracing my meaty aroma was nothing less than animal abuse. And there was no way I could continue permitting being petted by a pooch in a public place, so we packed it in early and called it a night.

Needless to say, as happens with the male species when they get their way on the first date - I never heard from the dog again.

What are THEY writing about ME?

After much deliberation about how appropriate my blog would be for a parental audience, I showed my mom my blog. While she was amused to read the stories she's already heard me tell ad nauseum, she did wonder out loud whether I thought there were any 'ex-dates' out there who would be tempted to write similar stories about their experiences with me. While I have obviously dated plenty of men who were not inclined to go for a second date, there are only three experiences that I can think of which would warrant re-telling for amusement purposes.

Coming in at number 3 is my cousin's wife's brother (mentioned briefly in "The Recurring Bad Date"). From my perspective, the date was great fun: in fact, I remember claiming I had never met anyone who could be that funny and still maintain a deadpan face all night long. He literally cracked me up. But from his perspective? It must have felt like a never-ending episode with a giggle machine. How was I to know that he was being dead serious about his childhood traumas, when his stories were so hilarious they made me cry with laughter? There he was, baring his soul about some of his life's deepest disturbances, and I treated his tale of woe as a night of stand-up never to be forgotten. Not too surprising that I never heard from him again…

With incident number 2, I was introduced to a friend of a friend of a friend. The blindest kind of date possible – where two mutual friends decided to fix up two of their friends, having never met one of the two people being introduced. And since the meeting is through 'friends', there's no swapping of pictures beforehand and no idea what to expect when waiting for your date to arrive. All I knew was that we would meet on a corner in Herzliyya on a warm spring night. I arrived a little early, and was chatting to a friend on the phone – laughing actually, with my mouth wide open – when a fly chose to make a swift entrance into my mouth and was promptly swallowed. The person I was talking to bore aural witness to the episode, as he listened to me trying desperately to regurgitate the fly before it took up permanent residence in my body. The noises emerging from the back of my throat sounded a lot like the Chinese man in Monty Python who had a pubic hair caught in the back of his throat (as my friend generously pointed out). My friend, however, only got to hear my attempts to free the fly. What he did not get to witness were the contortions that accompanied the GGGHHHHHHHHHHHAAAHHHH sounds, including back-slapping, torso swaying (resembles head banging but with the entire upper body region moving backward and forward violently), and vigorous head shaking, in a desperate effort to dislodge the creature making its way down my throat. Got the picture? So did the blind date, innocently walking up the street to meet someone who seemed to be having a very loud epileptic fit on the street corner. Perhaps due to his European sensibilities, he did not see fit to ask why I was doing the kazatzka on the street – and due to my personal South African inhibitions, I couldn't bring myself to actually tell this man I'd never met that I'd swallowed a fly. One glass of wine later, he made a break for it, understandably never to be heard from again.

And the number one story, which I've dined out on for years, is only a 'dating' story in my own imagination. It happened many years ago, when I carried a few kilos less in body weight and a few layers more in self confidence. I was a student at Hebrew University and a friend who was studying in the States asked me to get a Hebrew translation of a philosophy book for him from the university bookstore. I approached the man at the counter to ask whether they had the book in stock, and saw his face light up like he'd just won the jackpot. He went into a diatribe on the book, the quality of the translation, the author…at which point I came to the realization that this guy who looked like he'd walked straight off the set of 'Revenge of the Nerds' had fallen for me: hook, line and sinker. And while he continued to rant on, I could literally picture him calling his mother later to tell her he'd met 'the one'. It was several seconds later that I realized he'd asked a question and I hadn't heard what he asked. When I asked him to repeat his question, he asked me for my phone number. At this point I was faced with the age-old dilemma – do I give him my real number and kick myself afterwards? Do I give him a false number and feel guilty afterwards? Or do I tell a little white lie and let him down gently? I went for the latter, explaining that while he seemed to be a great guy, I had a boyfriend and was not available. At which point he looked directly at me and said, "Ok. I have a wife and a baby at home. Now that we've cleared up our personal situations, how would you like me to reach you when the book you're looking for arrives?". I can only imagine how many times HE's eaten out on that story…