Post 83: Multidating or multiwaiting:

Three years.  It’s been three years since I have written a post here. I think one of the biggest reasons is the fear that the men and women will recognize who I am writing about, and despite changing names and places, they will be insulted.  My friendships are worth more than exposure to a low-traffic blog somewhere in hyperspace.

Do people even use the word hyperspace anymore?  Sounds so 90s.  So what has happened in three years.  My son graduated from high school and entered the army.  He no longer needs babysitters.  As a matter of fact, he babysits other children himself.

In the year he lived away from home, you would think I would have  had a boyfriend. Someone I could hold tight and keep me warm at night.

But that was not the case.  A few flings, or dalliances, as one psychic woman in Colorado predicted would happen.  No great love, but perhaps a growing self love.

I have learned to dance salsa.  I learned to love myself more.  I learned to be happy without having to have a boyfriend.

I learned that casual sex is not such a terrible thing if the alternative is celibacy for more than a year.

I’ve learned that sometimes you just don’t have time for a boyfriend.

But I’ve also learned to live your dreams TODAY.  I traveled for two months when I had a chance. 

There were times of a lot of sex.  And there were times of no sex.

But most of all there were friends and family.  Loving friends who stood by me when I was sick and when I was flying high, and not on drugs.

I’ve got loads of stories…of two friends dating the same guy and not knowing about it until later, younger men, open marriages, marriages without sex and so many more, but I can’t really tell them here.

So, where will I take this blog? 

This writer will continue not to write about no sex until she finds a solution.

Post 82: Employee Reviews for Couples

Employee Reviews for Couples

Jakob, a  friend of mine,  agreed to collaborate with me on a few blog posts.

In Jakob's ideal world, couples will have mandatory counselling, at least once a year, with an objective and qualified psychologist, social worker, or relationship counsellor. But unlike couples who go to counsellors only when their marriage is at the point of no return, new couples will be treated to a once a year review similar to what employers and employees undertake. From my experience, human resource departments are good about enforcing annual reviews between employers and employees, but don't necessarily follow up on the results. For both the employee and employer, this provides an opportunity to review the year's objectives and also examine the "SWOT" - strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

Jakob's not the only one who thinks that couples treat their cars better than each other. Iris Baron, an Israeli sexologist and radio personality (link is in Hebrew), often mentions that people have a strong awareness about having to take their cars for regular checkups, tests, and tuneups, when necessary by law. Cars that don't pass their annual tests are removed from the roads by police. She also thinks that couples, by law, should be taught proper financial planning and other skills, in order to prevent divorce.  I heard in South Africa, you need to go to counselling before you can get married.  I wonder if the divorce rate is lower there than in Canada, the U.S. or Israel.

But couples aren't forced to seek counselling or get divorced by law. It usually happens as a last straw. According to Jacob, an annual Employee Review for Couples would definitely improve the status of relationships, at least in Israel. Couples get used to their routine and will often bottle up how they feel about each other, or else let it all out in the form of criticism that may start as bantering, follow through to pestering and end up at downright insulting. Children cannot hold a relationship together if a couple is not connected spiritually through effective communication. Jakob also thinks that even if a couple does split up, at least it will do so through awareness and maturity. Divorce will then not come as a big surprise but as a step when nothing else works.

It's true that our needs change as we grow, but people generally remain the same. Can values also change? People don't change that much after marriage, but their reactions can change, especially if affected by factors including but not limited to education, employment, children, aging parents, . Sometimes the values and goals of individuals before getting together conflict right from the beginning. But how do you know that if no one has evaluated the relationship objectively before you started?

So what would the annual review entail? Jakob's vision is that the counsellor would ask the couple to come prepared to the review with the answers to questions such as:

• What worked this past year?
• What didn't work?
• Did you meet your objectives personally and as a couple?
• How do you view money? Where do you want to spend money this year? Vacation? Studies? Having a child? Renovating an apartment? Is there anyway you can cut back? Has your attitude changed in the past year?
  
• Are you prepared to work extra hours so that your spouse can spend more time with your children and cut back on her/his hours?
• Do you want to study?
• Is your sex life satisfactory? Both in terms of frequency, quality, variation?
• Travel? Hobbies?
• How much time do you want alone, with family, with friends and together?

Relationship counselling isn't new, but too many people think that you only go to counselling when something is wrong. Why not look at the Employee Review for Couples as an opportunity to celebrate the strengths, achievements, or simply good times spent together as well as a chance to make things even better in the future and prepare to deal with the open issues.

This writer knows that a relationship is more than a business. But why not think out of the box while the box itself is still sturdy?

Post 81: The Writer and the Web (not the worldwide kind)

Post 81:  The Writer and the Web (not the worldwide kind)

Yeah, more poetry...strange...must be someone influencing me.....here it goes..

The day he flew
My life changed forever
And I found her
Though she did not fall deeply

Released from the web
to which I had clung
Already woven, enthralled, trapped?
For 3 years...
How many spider years is one human year?

Now 3 years later, I've unraveled its throes
The spider moved on
The writer has too - forward into her fourth four-blanket winter woes 

Post 80: Frustrating Funeral

Post 80: Frustrating Funeral

This post has nothing to do with sex, but maybe everything to do with no sex. If I got as many invitations to dates as I did to go to the shiva, I'd have an amazing dating schedule.  I attended the funeral and shiva of an acquaintance who lost her battle with cancer.  She wasn't a close friend, but I was in touch with her and visited her and the people whom I met through her are close friends to this day.  I won't write her name here as I change the people and identifying factors.  Despite my respect for Jewish tradition, I just about verbally attacked the Rabbi who showed up at the shiva.  He did not know the age or reason for the death but tried to comfort the family members and friends there by saying that G-d created everything for a reason. There is even a reason for weeds (and moquitoes, and cockroaches, I thought.)  But I didn't want to upset the household.  It wasn't my daughter/aunt/sister who died.  But I wanted to ask him, what is the USE of a cancer cell.  What does it give the people or animals on this earth, other than some income for oncologists and lab researchers?  I'm sure this has been asked before and "believers" are supposed to take the leap of faith and think that there was a reason for her premature death and a purpose for the cancer to strike.  Twice....



Well, I don't buy it.  The only thing her death did is for us to put things into perspective...and the only thing I could come up was anger, in this poem.  It's a little childish, a little angry, but that's how this writer feels:


The only thing I know
Is that when I go
I do not want to suffer so
I want to glow until the end
Don't want to show illness to my friends
Just sing and dance and make them laugh
Until they write my epitaph

So why are people so in shock?
Did they ever think to call or knock?
Denying what was going on
Until they reached the cemetary gate
Then apologizing on Facebook, when it was too late.

But denial is human
And human means you're alive
Not for me to judge as I survive
This world of hurdles, high and low
And this writer knows nothing, that's what I know.

Column 79: September Boy Blues

Column 79: September Boy Blues

The new school year has started and the Jewish high holidays are approaching. On the one hand, people are looking to hook up because they are fed up of everyone in their family asking them when they are getting married, having kids, etc. On the other hand, the commitment shy ones run away when something good comes their way. So what was I thinking? As I told you int he last column, Yaniv is a bachelor and the chances of him having a real relationship were not high from day one. Still, he has turned out to be a fun male friend to have around, and a friend with benefits if I do so desire, and can find a place and time. That's kind of complicated when you are in a non committed physical relationship, but there are solutions to everything when it comes to matters of the heart, or hormones, as the case may be.

Today, you can order a computer built according to your needs - memory, operating system, speed, size. You can get the best sum of the parts and therefore control that you know what you're getting right from the start. But in a man, this isn't (yet) possible, and what you see is not always what you get.

So Yaniv came and went, disappointed me by not showing up to a play I was in, not calling and then calling. I played it cool so he wouldn't feel pressured, and that worked well, until I realized I needed more and deserved to be with someone who at least communicated a bit better. Turns out, like many men his age who have never been married, that he doesn't want to take the relationship to the next step and isn't sure what he wants. Fine, we'll be friends (great, just what I need, another single male friend) and I planned a great, fun filled weekend of hiking, food, and music, not taking him into account. He did attend some of the activities but he went as an individual, not as my partner or date. I did want to have another kid after my divorce, but I don't need one in his mid-forties. It was a nice experience, but he has gone to my collection of intelligent, fun, talented, men, who are simply not boyfriend material. I wish I could take the parts that I cherish with me to my next computer, rather, boyfriend.

So for a guy who can't send a simple text message to say whether or not he is showing up at a picnic, Yaniv suddenly calls me yesterday, at work, to tell me about a discount coupon for renting a car during the holidays. The deal was so attractive, I was thrilled.

This writer doesn't have a boyfriend with whom to spend the Jewish New Year, but she has wheels!

Post 78: Mourning has broken (but will my heart break too?)

Post 78: Mourning has broken (but will my heart break?)

I have a statue that I bought for myself of a man embracing a woman from behind. I find this statue particular romantic, not because I think men should support women financially or that a woman can't stand up straight without the help of a man, but because this image represents the positive sides of a man, strength as opposed to dominance, leadership, as opposed to control.

Likewise the woman in this image reminds me of serenity in her submission, as opposed to passivity, trust vs. dependency, pleasure vs. being unable to be by yourself, togetherness, as opposed to neediness.

This type of couple is so lacking in my day-to-day life. I find myself playing father and mother, and sometimes just tired of having to do everything by myself. With so much of the financial and emotional weight on my shoulder, it's no wonder I dream of a partner to lift me up a bit, BUT only in the metaphoric, positive sense of the word. I have a few "rules" regarding dating. I will not date a smoker. I will not date a bachelor. I will DEFINITELY not date a bachelor who wants biological kids. And I don't date men who are interested in my friends. And a few more rules, I'm sure.

Then something happened.

My son broke the statue, collected most of the pieces and glued it back with superglue. One or two pieces of the perfect statue remained missing. But guess what happened? The couple remained embracing, standing upright. The couple crumbled to pieces but remained intact after a third party (in this case, my son) glued them back together.

With their missing parts, they were still working. They didn't have to break up! And you know what, he didn't even leave her for a thinner, younger statue.

Shortly after the statue incident, I told my son that the 11 month old mourning period for my father had passed. Morning has broken, Cat Stevens sings.....oh, that morning...in this case Mourning has Broken....and with it comes a new era.

First thing I did was started to dance again...one day I came back from a dance class and a man tried to pick me up on the street on the way back from the bus. He was kind of cute, divorced with a 13 year old, educated, employed, and had a nice car too.

But he was a smoker. He called me the next day, but I declined. I'll keep him on the backburner for my divorced smoking friends.

Then out of the blue, from a popular Jewish dating site, popped out a divorced man who does NOT want biological children and is willing to meet women older than him. We met, and he was nice enough, intelligent enough and moderately attractive enough, but I found our conversations heavy and stagnant, like a married couple who has been together for years and doesn't know how to communicate. Instead they bicker and criticize. I gave him the "good luck line" and ended the "potential". Some potentials need to stay unharnessed.'

The same week, my friend's exboyfriend started asking me to go on walks with him in order to improve his English. I think his motivation seriously IS English, but I have other people I'd rather walk with!

During the same period, I went out to a picnic of 38+ single people. My friend Amalie told me it was a good opportunity to meet men our age. We met two guys in their 40s and had a really nice time laughing together over a beer and salad...the change didn't work out evenly and one of the guys ended up owing me aprox.7 dollars. The two guys took Amalie's phone number and I went to sleep. Alone.

But the problem was, my magnet friend, Amalie wasn't at all attracted to the guy without the money. I'll call him Yaniv for now. But she insisted that he call me to return the 7 dollars. And that's how Yaniv and I got to be friends. A non-smoker, albeit a bachelor!! OFF LIMITS as a boyfriend, so no pressure. With no pressure, a couple may be able to stay together even with some missing parts.

So when there is no pressure and no expectations, things flow....and that is how this writer found herself breaking her own rules but having fun doing it.

This writer hopes Yaniv will not drop her for his dream of spending nights with a pile of dirty diapers (at least not yet!)

Post 77: Why is one of my best friends swimming in my pond?

Post 77: Why is one of my best friends swimming in my pond?

In one of the episodes of “Sex and the City”, Carrie Bradshaw (then in her mid to late 30s) comes to a party with her then boyfriend Aleksander Petrovsky, probably in his 50s, divorced, with a grown daughter and doesn’t want more children of his own. Carrie’s boss at the time is also in her 50s and laments the lack of men her age. She asks Carrie why she is swimming in her (very small) pond.

In theory, my pond should be very large. Divorced men with children who do not want more children of their own. However if they are non-smokers, that is a must for me, and if they are musicians, that is simply a huge plus.

Since the big breakup more than two years ago, I’ve been hanging out with people of all ages, but many of them 5-15 years younger than me. Of the musician friends, only one is divorced and he has always been polite but rather cold to me. However, I’ve noticed that the women he dates are tall and thin. Matti himself is not very attractive but he is divorced with kids, and around my age.

Therefore, you could imagine my surprise when a close friend of mine started to date him. I am actually very happy for her, but she wants children of her own and has just broken up with someone herself. That means SHE needs the time to heal on her own and it’s my turn for a boyfriend. This is my third cold winter without a boyfriend and she has not even gone the whole winter without one.

And she’s not a musician.

I do wish her all the luck, because, as I said, I was not attracted to that guy in the first place....

Another friend, never married, is also dating a divorced man with a child. I've never met him so it's not like he chose her over me, but still...

both of them are swimming in my pond.

In an ideal world, men who have never been married would go out with single women; divorced guys would go out with divorced women, widows with widowers and newly separated with newly separated.

The only parallelism I see is married people having affairs with other married people.

This writer will probably end up with a single guy 20 years older than her who smokes and isn’t a musician. Or will she?

Post 76: The Guy with the White Hair

Post 76: The Guy with the White Hair


Another winter was approaching and it was 2 years since my boyfriend and I had split up. There was absolutely no way I was going to enter my third winter without a boyfriend. Therefore, in order to brace myself for the stormy and rainy weather, I had the end of October as my goal in meeting Mr. Right...or at least Mr. Warm.

But my father passed away in September, putting a bit of a damper on my plans. Maybe he's in another world somewhere setting my sister and I up, but somehow I think he has more important things to do with his soul, wherever it might be. So October 31 came around and I did meet a divorced man who has a grown child. My friend set him up with me. Problem was he used to go out with her, and I just didn't think it was appropriate. Secondly, he wasn't interested in me, or anyone for that matter, as he just lost his entire business and was depressed.

November came along and I met someone whom I thought was my soul mate. Attractive, intelligent, communicative and sensitive...but yes, you guessed it, another bachelor who wanted to get married and have a family...and not with me.

A girlfriend visiting from the U.S. had a vision that I would meet an older man with white hair, and that I wouldn't be attracted to him at first. We would meet at an event that evolves around common interests, something intellectual.

So last night, I was invited to a house concert in the living room of a friend. It was a very intimate environment as some people had cancelled becuase of the storm. Indeed most of the men who arrived showed up in couples - no not gay couples, but with another woman. After the intermission, a voice of a man entered the living room and apologized for being late, and took a seat beside the host. I turned around to hear where the voice was coming from. The man was older than me, rather short, but indeed had white hair. I took a closer look and saw that he wasn't a man at all but a puppet that the host had brought in to entertain us.

It's now December. Looks like this writer will have to stick with her imaginary boyfriends for now.

Post 75: No Sex at the Shiva

Post 75: No Sex at the Shiva



One of my parents recently passed away. I'm not sure I can add any insight about thefuneral and the death of a parent, because it is a universal experience. It's painful. It's intense. It makes you angry. It makes you thankful. And it also makes you laugh. There you are faced with your immortality. Nothing lasts forever. No one lives forever. And suddenty wrinkles that I never saw before sprung up in the mirror.



And I remembered that my sex life has been about as dry as the inside of the coffin. Yes, that bad. So bad that I should have been blogging about it EVERY day, but not only was it No Sex in the City, but No Sex in the Country, in the office, in the sea, and of course, no sex at the shiva - the (normally seven) days of mourning that follow a Jewish funeral.



But right before the funeral, I started to believe in miracles again. That's right. Be careful what you wish for. I decided to lower the par a bit on my expectations. So while still in my post breakup mode, I wished for things that I didn't get from my exboyfriend....being treated to a cup of coffee, being taken out to dinner, and being brought flowers.



During these post-breakup years (I'm approaching the big TWO years since THE breakup of the decade), I have been lucky enough to be treated to more than just coffee and more than just dinner. I even got treated to a whole weekend away....but I still yearned a simple but romantic gesture that I knew would move to tears...



but since the death everything moves me to tears....



One of my fantasies was to reunite with my first boyfriend and live happily ever after...or move in together...or date on a regular basis....or sleep with again once....or simply see again....that fantasy got stronger when I discovered that Yaron was separated....and living in the same part of the country as me. Although I realized his divorce was not final and that he really had no time for dating (between seeing his kids, his studies and his work), he had already been separated for a few years, and I thought maybe, soon, I'd have my chance. We met occasionally for dinner and he always complimented me. And there it ended. He'd disappear into his work, kids and his divorce proceedings and I'd disappear back into my personal rat race. I knew that he wasn't at the same stage as me...he needed to go play the field, have his first post-divorce relationship, build up his hurt male ego....and I knew to keep him as a friend ...AND THAT'S IT....



...until the death. I sat a very brief shiva at the time of the death and decided to hold an additional day of an open-house so that my friends in Israel could visit and comfort me...and the doorbell rang and in walked Yaron...with 13 red roses...a gesture of sympathy but, could it be, (and so my friends thought) ...a gesture of romance? The sexual tension was high. Yaron complimented me on my appearance and I sensed a bit of jealousy from the other men in the room. Another girlfriend present at the time, thin and fit, sensed the same tension...but it was a type of shiva, and after all, you can't have sex at a shiva, can you?



The day after the shiva, Yaron announced that his divorce was final and took me out to a romantic dinner. No rose this time, but a ring. He told me that I was the one he was waiting for the whole time and wanted to revive our relationship cut short so many years ago. My heart beat strongly as I realized that my fantasy was actually coming true.....


HEY. WHAT BLOG ARE YOU IN? IT'S NO SEX IN THE CITY!!!


(sound of cloud bursting...glass breaking.......)


The day after the shiva, Yaron called me up and I told him how moved I was to get the flowers. He said he was busy and couldn't come over but wanted to ask me a few questions.....ABOUT MY THIN GIRLFRIEND!!!!


Tough luck, Yaron, my girlfriend has a serious boyfriend, I thought. Luckily I was busy and could not extend the conversation.


A few days later, the roses wilted and this writer threw them in the garbage, but her dreams remain alive for the next drama.

Post 74: What is worse than a blind date?

Post 74: What is worse than a blind date?







On a very very hot and humid evening in Tel Aviv, some really nice and talented people got together to celebrate a friend's birthday. The location wasn't ideal and apart from M for men, the other 3 Ms that accompanied them were rather unbearable: Mugginess, mud, and mosquitoes.






The fire of the campfire kept the mosquitoes away, for the most part (most also starts with the letter m, but who is counting?) but it really was too hot for a fire. As I got a lift and didn't have to take a bus, I mustered the initiative to bring two straw mats (known as machtzelot in Hebrew. Read "Me and my machtzelet" to find out why this is (usually) a good idea).





(Ok, this is what happens when you read Dr. Suess's ABC book too many times...)





The advantage to this evening was the darkness. People can't usually tell my age or see the pimples or cold sores on my face. I actually felt and looked nice this evening, despite the enviromental factors. A guy named Meir started talking to me and despite the fact, that I usually prefer dating divorced men with children, and not bachelors, I decided to stay near him because he was a guitar player, and not a bad one at that. Plus, I had brought my guitar which I lent him. I am always amazed by the sounds semiprofessional guitar players manage to emit from my guitar. I don't do my Japanese guitar sufficient justice. So I wonder if Meir would have taken my number at the end of the evening if he didn't break my guitar string. Not only was he a guitar player, but a guitar teacher.





The next day, sure enough, Meir calls me at work and we arranged that I'd go with him on his motorcycle into Tel Aviv to have coffee and pick up my new guitar string. I hadn't been on a motorcycle for years, so this was fun. We sat at a quiet coffee house in north Tel Aviv and perused our menus. The first thing Meir did was take out a large MP3 player, or a small boom box that plays MP3s....not sure about the correct term for this device. The coffee house didn't have any background music, so why not? Ok, I thought...stramge. but at least we have similar tastes in music. I asked the waitress about the iced coffees. Meir didn't listen at all and repeated my questions. He told me that he didn't consume any sugar except for natural sugar and took out a box of dates. He did order a cup of coffee and laid the box of dates on the table. He offered the waitress and me a few dates. I actually expected him to bring out his own cutlery and coffee mug, but to my relief, he didn't.





It was obvious that Meir had some sort of communication problem, but when we spoke about music, it was ok. I learned that despite him having travelled all over the world, his English wasn't very good. You see, in Hebrew, the word "date" is tamar in Hebrew so I'm sure that he didn't understand the irony.



So what's worse than a blind date, this writer asks? She's been on many dates, but this is the first one where her date brought his own dates along.

Post 73: The hitech food baby

Post 73: The Hitech Food Baby

With some extra unwanted kilos that seemed to have jumped on to my stomach without me noticing until it was too late (although I really did enjoy my childhood friend's homemade cheesecake), I haven't exactly been given much attention from the male population lately. What I do have are lots of male friends and confidantes, who in time, will probably be instrumental in introducing me to my next boyfriend...or it could happen by accident, as it often does. In the meantime, I am concentrating on doing the things that I enjoy - singing, hiking, writing, and working. I try to walk and swim when I can, although the dietician says running to the train station is not enough (even though I definitely get that pulse rate up as I plop into my seat, sweating and gasping for breath, reach for my water and usually finish 1/2 a litre or so before reaching my destination.

But with my European genes (what kind of DNA adds 5 kilos without blinking on your 35th birthday?), I am not exactly desired dating material in the Israeli Jewish market. If I had a different religion, I'd get to choose the cream of the crop of single men in certain cities in Israel whose demographic makeup I will not spell out here. In these cities, being plump is attractive. One of my doctors put it this way when he last saw me. He didn't even ask me to step on the scale. "I do believe a woman should be curvy, but not that curvy....."

So I'm back to the dietician, have cut out carbohydrates from my lunch and added walks to my schedule, including with an attractive married girlfriend who I spotted with a pregnant stomach a few weeks ago. I NEVER ask married women if they are pregnant, but this was so disporportionate to the rest of her body, I was quite sure. Ouch! She was carrying the same baby as I was - the hitech food baby that often comes as an unwanted fringe benefit from subsicized lunches, too much time next to a computer, a company car (not in my case) and eating sweets instead of carrots between meals.

Next week instead of meeting for quiches and coffee, we met in t-shirts and running shoes.

This writer was surprised to know that she could get pregnant in her late 40s. She just spent time on her exercise bike before writing this..

Post 72: What do you do when you're stood up twice in one night?

The good thing about having platonic friends is that you don't have to follow dating rules. A woman doesn't have to sit at home waiting for the man to call her. It's customary for her to wait when she is dating someone new, but when it comes to male platonic friends, the customs change and it's okay for the woman to take the initiative in organizing an outing, from time to time.

A few months ago, Jakob and I saw a female singer at a folk festival and were very impressed. We were determined to go see her again when she appeared in Tel Aviv. Since I am her Facebook friend, it was easy for me to find out about her upcoming performances. It was actually Jakob who asked me when we would hear her sing again. I told him about the concert she would be giving and he was very enthusiastic. He told a few friends of his, and we were all set to meet at the Tel Aviv pub where she was performing. However, only an hour before we were supposed to meet, Jakob told me that no one else was joining us, and I was looking forward to some quality time with Jakob.

Then less than an hour before the performance was meant to start, Jakob told me that he had a free ticket to a play he had wanted to see for ages, and was sorry to cancel. I was really looking forward to seeing this singer perform, especially as it was in a pub that had no smoking allowed inside. With less than an hour's notice, it was hard for me to find someone who would go with me to the performance instead of Jakob, and I was not thrilled about going by myself.

By good fortune, after the 3rd or 4th phone call, I got a hold of Teddy, a massage therapist, who has just finished work and was conveniently parked near my office building. So he agreed to go to the concert and picked me up and drove me to the venue.

After parking the car in a free parking spot (not to be taken for granted in central Tel Aviv), Teddy and I paid for our tickets separately and sat down to wait for the performance to start. A few minutes later, Teddy got an angry text message from a client who was on her way to Teddy's apartment for a two hour massage. Teddy had forgotten to record this appointment in his calendar and told her that he was late and was on his way. Then he left me in the theater alone. That was already the second time I was stood up in one evening. Luckily, there was another guy alone (but too young for me) and I started to talk to him. Then Teddy returned, much to my surprise. The woman didn't want to wait for him, so he lost 2 hours worth of work and the admission price to the show.

So I wasn't alone after all, so I thought.


The singer started to sing after the lights were dimmed, but that wasn't the only darkness. Teddy fell asleep during the whole show.

I can handle being stood up once or twice....but not in the same evening! And when you have a "date" that isn't really "with you" and even falls asleep, I wonder....would it have been better simply to have come alone?

By the way, Jakob apologized later on that evening and I am not the type to hold a grudge.

But this writer would prefer going on a real date where she isn't just "one of the guys".

Post 71: Love by Any Other Name

Post 71: Love by Any Other Name


English may be a richer language than Hebrew, but both have the same problem. They have a word called "love" (Ahava in Hebrew (noun); Le'ehov (verb) to describe several kinds of situations.

There is something wrong with this!!! How can you have the same word to describe your feeling towards eating ice cream to your love of your parents???

• I love ice cream.



• I love my son.



• I love my mother.



• I love hiking.



• I love to sing.



• I love my baby.



• I love my cat.



• I love my friends.



• It's even a score in tennis meaning ZERO.
  

It's just not the same thing!!! In English you can like, admire, adore, lust....but why is there only one word for love? Some people say that the Inuit have 100 different words for snow (although check the Internet - this is debatable). And why is the problem of one word for love evident in so many languages? But there's got to be a different between sexual, physical love and platonic love at least!!! How did this word develop? Why are there so many words in Hebrew, for example, for bodily secretions, for flowers and trees. There's even more than one word for a basket that you use for the Shavuot holiday? And that's only one or two days in the entire year?



And some say that come of the Eskimo lanaguges spoken by Inuit people have hundred of words for "snow", although this may very well be an urban legend.

The word LOVE has definitely been neglected. It's sung about, written about, defined, sold, bought, traded, used for advertisements, hidden, exposed, counted, sorted, measured, weighed, lost, won, forgotten, regained, relinquished, abandoned, etc. etc.

You may the song "As the Years Go By" by Mashmakhan. They also sing about the meaning of love at different ages. You can watch it here (external link) or embedded here.. I like this version as they show scenes from Canada, but you can watch different versions on YouTube. This is the first time I've embedded a video. There may be hopes for me yet until the techology changes again.

I don't know what love is, but maybe I'll finally understand once someone gives the word another name.

This post has been inspired by Jacob, a friend of this writer, who would "love" to give him a well-deserved credit.

Post 70: Cinderella on Chanukah

Cinderella on Chanukah

Chanukah did not start festively at all for me this year. Unemployed, no car, no boyfriend. I even lost my friend with benefits who started to see someone else and suggested we return to being “just friends”. The timing could not be worse in Israel. Winter is the season when it’s colder inside than it is outside. To warm up, I sleep with 4 blankets, 3 stuffed animals and a partridge in a pear tree ….ooops, wrong religion…

Back to Chanukah. It started with a medical procedure that took a whole morning, drugged me out and left me completely exhausted for the entire evening. I insisted that my son go to accept his father’s invitation to light the first candle and sleep overnight. As Murphy law has it, my bed stays empty when my son is away, which is why this blog is called No Sex in the City. It just doesn’t happen when you want it to happen.

In this case, partially dehydrated and partially stoned with valium (can you be stoned with valium or only with hashish? I don’t know because I am a good girl and law-abiding person, who always stayed away from drugs except for the occasional glass of wine). I did once have laughing gas for a tooth extract. It just occurred to me that there may be some religious people taking a look at this blog, and I promised that it was “clean” with no pornography, so how did I allow drugs to creep in here?

But then again Gilit may be my pen name, but she is allowed to do things that I have not. In fact, when someone recently reminded me about Boris in Russia, I forgot that he was real. It seems that when he told me that he would no longer write to me and shut me out of his life, I wrote about him and committed him to fiction as well. Wow, he was real? He really did say that he loved me, even though my definition of love (stay tuned for a post about the meaning of love) is quite different from his. If you really love someone, you are not going to forget them even if they do not love you back.

I’ve strayed away from Chanukah, so let me go back to that first night. There I was alone, tired, dehydrated, and generally mixed up. My adoptive mother was dying in a Tel Aviv hospital (from cancer) and I knew it was a matter of days before the inevitable phone call. At 10:30 am the next morning, my cellphone rang. Now everyone knows that I am either hiking or asleep on a Saturday morning. Or else I have religious friends who don’t use the phone on Shabbat in any case. Therefore, I knew exactly why the phone was ringing. This time it wasn’t the valium or a dream, but the real thing. “Mom is gone”, Dafna announced, in a matter of fact voice.

And so began my Chanukah. I helped Dafna put up the death notices in her neighborhood. It’s good to know that the municipality gives out scotch tape together with the signs. That’s one less thing to buy before a funeral, I guess. I didn’t cry much that day and neither did Dafna. I guess we thought that her mother was still in the hospital and we’d see her soon. Or maybe in the shower. Or sneaking another cigarette in the kitchen before joining us for a cup of coffee.

On Monday I had to sign into the unemployment bureau and then meet my son on the bus on the way to the cemetery. Nice day for a funeral. Dafna’s mother was a former school principal and didn’t want children to miss school on her behalf. So she died during a school holiday. My son was not impressed. Last year he ate up all the latkes she had made and he promised to bake a batch himself to bring to the Passover seder. This year, none of us baked latkes. Dafna lit Chanukah candles and a memorial candle. Instead of buying a plant to bring to the family dinner at her house, I brought a plant to her graveside. I wanted to sing James Taylor’s “Fire and Rain” at the funeral, but there was no way I would be able to get the words out. Instead the rain spoke for itself from the sky (but spared us at the funeral) and the fire came from the candles which I continued to light each night.

Since I wasn’t sitting shiva, I was determined to find a glimmer of hope during the holiday. On Wednesday, I got another rejection from a job interview, but I wasn’t sad. Now it was all clear to me. The funeral was over. The shiva was almost over. And now I had no excuse but to get on with my life. Land that job. Find a boyfriend. Buy a new car (or get a leased one from work).

So I braved a sandstorm and met a friend in Tel Aviv who was studying makeup and used me as a guinea pig. Actually, I trusted her completely and she created a Cinderella. Even though my train got stuck (Israeli trains are NOT Swiss trains) and I had to get out of the train and take a bus home, I was determined to forget about the funeral, my unemployment, and my lack of boyfriend, and get NOTICED at a Chanukah party.

And so I did. It was unbelievable. Men who didn’t give me the time of day were asking me to dance. Women who forgot my name came across the room to talk to me. No one seemed to remember me from the year before. It didn’t matter that I was unemployed, had just been at a funeral, or didn’t have a car. What mattered was that I was now almost a blonde and that I had a personal makeup artist turn me into another person.

It felt a bit like the old days when I was an amateur actress. I was in the limelight (even literally, as I was wearing a green dress) for the evening, but at the end of the day, when the audience went home, my theatrical mask got removed and it was only me. At the end of the night, no Prince Charming rescued my slipper.

Perhaps because this writer was wearing boots.

Post 69: Historical and Religious Land of Israel: Year Round Tourist Destination

I’ve lived in Israel for more than half my life, and rarely take it for granted. I relish in the vast variety of natural, historical and religious sites that this country possesses. For those of you who don’t live here, I’d recommend checking out Flights to Tel Aviv which is a good place to visit and enjoy the beaches, night life, museums, art galleries, and dance performances. Hebrew, Arabic and English are the official languages of Israel, but you can get along with Russian, French, or Spanish. If you want to leave politics and religion behind, stay in Tel Aviv, whereas if you’re a religious and historical buff, you can spend your entire vacation in Jerusalem, a holy city for Christians, Jews, and Muslims alike. Whichever city you choose in central Israel as your home-base, you’ll be thrilled to know that the scenery changes constantly, and you can make a lot of day trips reaching scenic destinations within an hour or two by car as diverse as deserts, waterfalls (both in northern and southern Israel), pine forests (Galilee), and prehistoric caves (Carmel). You can visit the world famous Dead Sea, the lowest point on earth, or venture off the beaten track to Machtesh Ramon, a breathtaking geological formation resembling a crater. My favorite time to hike is in the spring when the wildflowers are in bloom, but there is no shortage of things to see and do, depending on your interests, no matter what time of the year you visit.

This writer has lived in Israel for more than 22 years and still has not seen it all.

* sponsored post

Post 68: Closing the blinds

Post 68: Closing the Blinds


This post is based on a story told to me by one of my single friends.

Gad recently moved out of his girlfriend's house and had not been dating in years. He wasn't signed up on any of the dating sites yet, but, as he is a man, his friends immediately started to set him up once the word was out that he was "available" again.

Gad didn't know that there were best practices for blind dates. First of all, the date, Limor, cancelled a few times before they actually met. She never sent him a picture by email...but then again neither did he, but she sounded nice enough, and he knew that he had to take the plunge. After cancelling twice, she finally called him and they set a place and time to meet, half way between their homes, at a scenic restaurant overlooking a nature reserve in northern Israel.

I already warned Gad not to base his evening around this date, because if it was good, they would be tempted to go on talking all night..and jump to things perhaps too soon and not very gentlemanly....but if it was bad, the evening would still be free, and both Gad and Limor could do something "normal" that was not a blind date.

They finally met one afternoon and Gad felt nothing. He wasn't attracted physically and the conversation did not flow. But he made the mistake of picking her up in his car and driving her home afterwards. Plus she had his home number and he had hers. He did not want to see her again and made that clear...that is, he didn't say he had a good time and did not ask her when she was free. Phew, all well's that end's well....so he thought.

The next day Gad heard strange sounds coming from his telephone while driving. "A text message", he thought, and continued driving, enjoying the new music he had downloaded. A few days later the strange sounds were emitted again, but Gad's phone was turned off, so he couldn't figure it out. Was it from the radio? His new MP3 player?

When he got home, he looked under the car seats, and sure enough, there it was. Limor's phone. He would now have to call her. The problem was that she no longer had a cellphone so coordinating the return of the phone would be difficult. He drove by her home one evening but she didn't answer her home phone. I suppose he could have dropped the phone in her mailbox, but for some reason, that didn't happen.

Although Limor had already cancelled the phone service, the actual phone was expensive, so she still wanted it back. Gad had a busy month at work and was not going to be near her city again. So Limor dropped by Gad's house one evening. Gad had his sons visiting (who were not thrilled to know that he was already dating so soon after the breakup from his recent girlfriend whom they liked very much), as well as some guests. Gad was busy with a work-related call in another room, and asked his son and guests to keep Limor entertained. Her phone was in his car, so he would have to leave his house and give the phone to her.

When Gad entered the living room, he couldn't believe his eyes. Limor suddenly was made up, her hair was dyed a different color and she had lost 5 kilos. Wrong! Limor was just as unattractive as the first time and... it gets worse. Instead of waiting patiently in the doorway or seated quietly while Gad was finished with his business, she was walking around the living room of his house (did I mention this was the FIRST time in his house?) straightening out his pictures on the wall!

Gad escorted Limor to his car as quickly as possible and gave her back her phone. This blind date ended up into a few-week long relationship that he did not plan or want.

This writer wants men to know that when it comes to getting rid of blind dates, remember that you're not always off the hook.

Post 67: Let Your Fingers Do the Walking

The Jewish new year has formally arrived. Reflecting back on this year, I realize that I definitely broke my own self-inflicted rules this year. I dated a guy who smoked. I dated a guy whose divorce wasn't yet final. I dated a guy who lived in a different country. I dated a guy with a different religion than mine. I dated a guy without children. I dated a guy with children who had never been married. I even dated a guy who claimed to have seen aliens.

If you haven't figured it out by now, I went beyond my comfort zone. Until now, my comfort zone led me to fun relationships but also to broken hearts and lots of used kleenex, not to mention extra visits to psychologists and doctors, and yes, a loss of a girlfriend who just had no patience for my adventure. I forget sometimes that is better to write than to talk, even though writing lets me change the truth and censor some of the juicy stuff.

Did you actually think that everything I wrote here was true? It's actually the stranger things here that are true. But what does it really matter? I carefully protect the identity of those real characters in these posts. I probably should be more careful of my own identity, but one day I'll reveal the truth. In this small country, it's not so hard to figure out.

After THE breakup, it was obvious to me that I wouldn't meet the love of my life immediately. I needed to play the field, meet lots of different people, and get to know myself again, or get to know myself for the first time. I've met amazing men and women - some have remained good friends while others disappointed me, or I disappointed them. There is no black and white in friendship between women or men.

But after going out on a variety of dates, I can honestly say that I'm tired of the "almost" men - the great love who smokes, the drop-dead gorgeous guy who doesn't believe in foreplay, the devoted father who doesn't really have time to see me, the fun friend who can't say he loves me cause he's waiting for that "wow" click....they're all great guys, but I want my rules back. I want a divorced guy with children, who doesn't want anymore children, is my age or younger, passionate, employed, romantic and is not afraid to say that he loves me....and lives in Israel or course....and it would definitely be an added bonus if he could carry a tune or play an instrument, as I have a weakness for musicians.

So why not fantasize? I had almost a year to get over the breakup. It's my turn now for the real thing, right? Fate had it that I couldn't meet up with my friend with benefits (that sounds SO much nicer than fuck buddy, doesn't it?) and ended up going out to a concert with a girlfriend. The women at the concert were about ten years younger than me, thinner, and many childless.....you would think that would put me at a disadvantage....at first I seemed invisible. Lots of members of the audience were couples, smiley and cuddly... no outward signs of stress from staying up all night with a teething baby or wondering what time of night their teenager will bring home their other car....or wondering how to pay the mortgage on their garden apartment in the suburbs....

and then I saw the youngest and cutest girl in the audience. She was eleven. And she had a dad. Who was alone. And acknowledged my existence. And even played the piano. There, my prince had arrived. The end to my searching...here, among all the young bachelors. "Don't talk too much Gilit. Don't talk too much. Don't ask him too many questions. Smile, but don't be pushy. Listen. Watch".

And so I did. The break was over and he got up to play. The piano. My first instrument. I waited in anticipation to see if he played as nicely as he treated his daughter. From the audience, I didn't have to worry about staring at him, as he wouldn't notice with the stage lights on and the audience lights dimmed. I could comfortably glance at him for the distance, starting with his smile, and then down to the keyboard where I could closely watch his finger-work. My mind drifted to a different form of "let your fingers do the walking" as I imagined him taking my phone number after I complimented him on his piano-playing, of our trips together with his daughter and my son, and of not having to go on a blind date again.

My eyes drifted down to his right hand and musical savvy, and then watched his left hand to see how he managed with his accompaniment.

I didn't feel so bad when the piano player did NOT ask me for my telephone number. Thanks to the stage spotlight, there it was - the finger accessory this writer hadn't noticed when the musician first sat next to his daughter - his wedding ring.

Post 66: Not Exactly Aleksandr Petrovsky

I've been writing the columns that predated this blog since 2000, and sometimes I feel as though I have played every character in the series "Sex and the City", except that I'm chubbier, poorer, and don't wear brand names, to mention a few differences.....

I met Boris in 2000, through a Jewish dating site, and traveled with him and my son a bit in Israel, when he was visiting from Russia. I knew that he was quite taken with me even then, but I did not want to have a "fling" with him in Israel. At the time, I would have gotten too attached and it would have bothered me from going out with other guys. However, we kept in touch throughout the years by email, and I was proud of him as he advanced in his career path, which I won't detail here so as to protect his privacy.

He kept inviting me to visit him in Russia and I refused for one or more of the following reasons:

1. I had a boyfriend
2. I couldn't leave my son
3. I didn't have enough vacation from work

Year after year, I repeated the same excuses until the following happened:

1. I no longer had a boyfriend
2. My son was old enough to stay overnight by himself or with friends and/or with his father
3. I was unemployed...therefore with LOTS of vacation from work.

Boris spoke and wrote excellent English and his communication was loud and clear. "We can be friends or we can have romance while you are here. Whatever you decide, I will respect you".

Great, I thought. I warned him that I snored. I thanked him for his honesty. I was glad that we cleared this up before, and I hinted that I thought we would "get along well" while we were there. I remembered that he was attracted to me and I remembered that I was indifferent - that I was not turned off, but not head over heels. Not exactly Aleksandr Petrovsky, the Carrie’s Russian boyfriend played by Mikhail Baryshnikov in the sixth season of Sex and the City.

So I flew for a week to Moscow.

I paid for the flight, but Boris insisted on paying for everything else, even if I had chosen to avoid physical contact. He met me at the airport and drove with me and a driver to his apartment. As we got out of the elevator, he told me to be quiet, so as not to wake the others. “What others?”

Turns out that Moscow is one of the most expensive cities in the world, not because of the price of food or paper goods (which I found considerably less expensive than in Tel Aviv), but because of housing. So Boris, despite being successful in his career, was waiting for his apartment in the suburbs to be completed, and in the meantime, rented a room in central Moscow. The other room was rented out to three nannies from the Ukraine.

“You didn’t tell me you had flatmates”, I told Boris.

“You didn’t ask”, he replied.

He also didn’t tell me there was no living room and no other mattress in his room. Therefore, I had no choice but to share his bed. Also, there was no blanket, despite it being about 15 degrees outside. Coming from nights of 30 degrees, I was cold! The only covering he had was a curtain. Therefore, the only way I could warm up was body heat. So one thing led to another, and before I knew it, Boris was “in love” with me and talking about a future. When I said “why can’t we enjoy the week together”, he got angry and told me that I was using him, and could not stand my behavior.

I managed to calm him down, but he acted up again a few times, and although I had a credit card, money and a cellphone, Boris wouldn’t hear of me wandering around Moscow myself. So he calmed down for a few days but then got upset again on the last night.
I did manage to enjoy my time in Moscow, despite the surprise from my friend who had promised to “respect me no matter what I decided”. I did not know that my decision to touch him made me committed to a long distance relationship with me.

He made me promise to call him immediately upon my return to Israel. I did, and sent him a follow up email, explaining again that I would help him during his visits to Israel in the future, but that my life was here (in Israel) and I wanted a boyfriend who LIVED in Israel. He didn't like my explanation, and told me to delete the pictures I had taken and not contact him ever again.

And although I don’t believe in “love at first sight/touch”, it was very moving to hear a man say he loved me, the first time in, perhaps ten years. (My last boyfriend did love me but had too many emotional problems to say it to my face. Yes, we are no longer together). On the other hand, it could have ended much worse, like with Carrie and Aleksandr - when she got upset, he slapped her. Then again, she had Mr. Big to rescue her and take her back to New York.

When a man behaves like a woman, run away….. but if you have nowhere to run to, what do you do? Maybe it’s better to travel to Europe with a girlfriend.

This writer says make sure your travel companion is straight, and make sure that the bed you’re going to sleep in is equipped with a warm, thick blanket rather than a warm, emotional man!

Post 65: Sabra attacked by a sabra

Post 65: Sabra attacked by a sabra

As most of you know, sabra is a cactus fruit found in Israel and also refers to a native-born Israeli. I'm not a sabra, since I immigrated to Israel from Canada, but both my mother and my son are sabras. When referring to male sabras, the term also alludes to, like the fruit, something/someone who is rough and tough (macho-like) on the outside but sweet on the inside.

My son could probably use a little bit of the sabra in him for his exterior, as his sensitive side shows through all too clearly in public. This has made him subject to teasing. Now that he's a teenager, it's still tough for him to be "tough", but that's what psychologists are for.....yes, I'm passing the buck, but I have an excuse. I'm not a sabra, and I'm just not that tough. I fight for my rights, but I'm still pretty nice. You won't see me in the book "Why Men Marry Bitches". Maybe that's why I'm not married.

And although I've had quite a few boyfriends, both before and after my marriage and divorce, not all of them were native-born Israelis. There have been Anglo-saxon (of all English speaking countries), South American, Russian, Israelis who lived abroad, and yes, some born and bred sabras.

A few weeks ago, I met a sabra. The mammal. Not the fruit. We clicked immediately and started a relationship,,,,,of sorts. One night he was hungry and started peeling fruit from his fridge. Startled by the noise, I woke up and he offered me some sabra fruit. I ate one or two that he had cut up for me, and then watched him devour one after the other, relishing every bite.

But he didn't use gloves! A few hours later, I found him awake again in pain, yelling, and pulling out cactus thorns from his hands.

The sabra had attacked the sabra. But this writer realized that sabras can also fight back.

Post 64: The mat and me

Post 64: The mat and me



When you go to a party or event, who are the women and men that turn heads? There are the extremely fat ones....perhaps you console yourself and think "wow, I'm not that fat" or you feel disgust "how did he let himself get so large without doing anything about it" or pity "wow, she has such a pretty face. Maybe she had to take steroids or has a thyroid problem. I bet she's a wonderful person on the inside"....then there are the "cusiot"...I really was shocked when this slang term came out in Israel for beautiful, sexy women. They used to be called simply "hatichot" (pieces) but then a particular piece of female anatomy was added to the slang. The young Israelis didn't let the word go. Instead they added a male equivalent (but still using the reference to the female vagina) and called a great looking man a "cuson". Since I haven't been living in Canada for more than 20 years, I don't know what the most updated term is. We used to call these guys "hunks".



The point is that the other type of head turners are "cusiot". And they know it. They have a slim figure, thin but not skeletal looking, and a big chest, but not out of proportion. Their hair is straight and long,, rarely curly, and their makeup is also in place. Their mascara doesn't run and their lipstick seems to stay on even after they drink coffee.. ..a walking wax doll......



If they don't smile, men won't necessarily approach them, but if they do flash a smile or two, they won't be sitting alone. Another variation is simply a tall thin woman with lots of self-confidence who simply knows that she attracts men and doesn't have to do anything except appear at a party.....but she's less of a head turner.



With the men, it doesn't operate the same way. The good looking guys may come off arrogant and the women will run the other way. But if a good looking guy appears who is also a little bit shy and modest and smiles at everyone around, the women will often fall to their feet. These guys will treat the "cusiot" the same as the chubby or obese women and the same as the short women with adult acne.



Then there are the musicians. Since I have a weakness for them, almost any guy playing an instrument (especially guitar) will allure me. All of a sudden I forget whether he is divorced, smokes, is educated, or even stable.....if he shows me some attention, I'm a goner. (I usually calm down when I do a reality check).



There are also unusual people. Some bring gimmicks - babies (their own or their nephews/nieces), cute dogs, or even a parrot. Yup, there is a guy I know who brings his parrot to parties. The parrot quietly rests on his shoulder during the evening or he lends him out to other people.



Those have you who have been reading this blog for awhile know a few things about me. I'm not a "cusit". I am not tall and thin and have curly, unkept hair. I don't smoke. I don't have a baby or a dog or a parrot. But there is one thing I have that not too many people have at these picnic gatherings I often go to....a mat!!!



In Hebrew it's called a "machtzelet" - it's those large flat rugs, made of straw-like material. It's sturdier than a blanket and great to use when you need a comfortable surface on which to sit. So if you don't like sitting on antholes and bird droppings, you will happily gravitate to a machtzelet.



When I first bought my machtzelet on sale, I didn't realize what power it would give me. I kept in my car and started bringing it to events. Wow. People started sitting next to me. If someone started to smoke, I could send them away "please smoke somewhere else. This is my machtzelet". When it was time to go, everyone had to get up, and so I was noticed, because I had to pack up the "machtzelet". If people sat in front of me, I could move closer up and move them to the back of the machtzelet, cause it was mine!



This writer doesn't need to be a 'cusit'. She has a machtzelet!