Thoughts on a slow Monday
Happy Monday to all.
Hope everyone did something interesting over the weekend.
For those who care, today’s been a real drag; one of those “is it Friday yet?” days.
Anyway, back to shidduch dating.
There are quite a few topics I want to get to in length, but for today, I’ll take the easy way out and comment on other peoples’ ideas.
First, that blogging friend of mine keeps churning them out. I believe we’ve already mentioned http://greatdateplaces.blogspot.com/, and on it he has a new post on the dating black hole that is the state of New Nersey. Now I happen to be a big fan of New Jersey in general ( I just can’t imagine driving in a state where there are signs that are actually helpful), but there really is not much to do there on a Frum Shidduch date. I actually think that Target or Ikea make good dating places if you happen to go out with a girl from NJ. Target, incidentally, is one of the coolest stores ever. You can literally buy a suit, mp3 player, toilet seat cover, and a box of cereal in ONE trip. How awesome is that?!
I think the point though is that the company you keep is more important than where you actually go. If two people are interested in each other, they really can have fun doing anything. You can have a great time with a date at a grocery store or a terrible time at Hershey Park (really, the grocery store can be a lot of fun). Now, I am not advocating doing generic things on a date, certainly not in the early stages of the courtship. A guy really should put some effort into finding an interesting place to take a date. The point is that if you can’t (eventually) have fun doing “ordinary” things with a date, then maybe he/she just isn’t for you.
And when I say ordinary, I don’t mean a hotel lobby. I think it just puts too much pressure on both sides to sit a total stranger down in a formal setting like a lobby and say, “talk.”
You should be doing SOMETHING. But then again, I AM Modern Orthodox ;-)
One could retort, “what about Starbucks, eh? That’s just talking?” (no, I’m not Canadian, I just like saying “eh?”). Well, at Starbucks, at least there’s interesting music in the background and a choice of drink has to be made. One could spin off into a whole conversation about the different types of coffee that are offered or choice of background music (which of course could lead to a much more in depth conversation about non-Jewish music in general). That’s better than a stiff hotel lobby in my opinion. To me, when the ONLY thing to do in a place is talk, the date just becomes too formal.
On another note, apparently I am so inspiring in my commentary on the SC that I already have my first “break-away.” The link is http://helpsolvethecrisis.blogspot.com/ if you haven’t already seen it in the comments section. I assume the author is a girl (master of the obvious, I am). It’s a shame that she already has a bad taste in her mouth about the whole Shidduch system. I certainly understand the opinion that it was better back in the day when people just met naturally. But, it should be known that there are still 50-year-old singles on the UWS who believe that the shidduch system is a bunch of baloney. I’m not sure that any particular system really is the answer; it may just be necessary to borrow from all types of Frum dating philosophies to get the right mix.
I’ll let that percolate for a while so we can have something to talk about next time.
Hope everyone did something interesting over the weekend.
For those who care, today’s been a real drag; one of those “is it Friday yet?” days.
Anyway, back to shidduch dating.
There are quite a few topics I want to get to in length, but for today, I’ll take the easy way out and comment on other peoples’ ideas.
First, that blogging friend of mine keeps churning them out. I believe we’ve already mentioned http://greatdateplaces.blogspot.com/, and on it he has a new post on the dating black hole that is the state of New Nersey. Now I happen to be a big fan of New Jersey in general ( I just can’t imagine driving in a state where there are signs that are actually helpful), but there really is not much to do there on a Frum Shidduch date. I actually think that Target or Ikea make good dating places if you happen to go out with a girl from NJ. Target, incidentally, is one of the coolest stores ever. You can literally buy a suit, mp3 player, toilet seat cover, and a box of cereal in ONE trip. How awesome is that?!
I think the point though is that the company you keep is more important than where you actually go. If two people are interested in each other, they really can have fun doing anything. You can have a great time with a date at a grocery store or a terrible time at Hershey Park (really, the grocery store can be a lot of fun). Now, I am not advocating doing generic things on a date, certainly not in the early stages of the courtship. A guy really should put some effort into finding an interesting place to take a date. The point is that if you can’t (eventually) have fun doing “ordinary” things with a date, then maybe he/she just isn’t for you.
And when I say ordinary, I don’t mean a hotel lobby. I think it just puts too much pressure on both sides to sit a total stranger down in a formal setting like a lobby and say, “talk.”
You should be doing SOMETHING. But then again, I AM Modern Orthodox ;-)
One could retort, “what about Starbucks, eh? That’s just talking?” (no, I’m not Canadian, I just like saying “eh?”). Well, at Starbucks, at least there’s interesting music in the background and a choice of drink has to be made. One could spin off into a whole conversation about the different types of coffee that are offered or choice of background music (which of course could lead to a much more in depth conversation about non-Jewish music in general). That’s better than a stiff hotel lobby in my opinion. To me, when the ONLY thing to do in a place is talk, the date just becomes too formal.
On another note, apparently I am so inspiring in my commentary on the SC that I already have my first “break-away.” The link is http://helpsolvethecrisis.blogspot.com/ if you haven’t already seen it in the comments section. I assume the author is a girl (master of the obvious, I am). It’s a shame that she already has a bad taste in her mouth about the whole Shidduch system. I certainly understand the opinion that it was better back in the day when people just met naturally. But, it should be known that there are still 50-year-old singles on the UWS who believe that the shidduch system is a bunch of baloney. I’m not sure that any particular system really is the answer; it may just be necessary to borrow from all types of Frum dating philosophies to get the right mix.
I’ll let that percolate for a while so we can have something to talk about next time.
posted by MoDox Machmir Man at 5:37 PM
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