Post 51: Why is this breakup different from all other breakups?

During the Passover seder, one of the questions that the youngest child asks is "Why is this Night Different from all other Nights?" Although it's a few months before Passover, and I'm not even a religious Jew, I've been pondering that question regarding being back in the "singles" scene following my recent breakup.

Can I still call it recent? It's been more than two months. When is it right to be dating again ? There are all sorts of theories about this. One theory says that you need one month for every year you've been going out. So since I went out with my (now) ex-boyfriend for 3 years, that would mean three months, which is coming up soon.

However, if I saw him only once a week during the last three years, does that give me less time, or more time? And we had a breakup during those three years of two months, so how do you account for that?

Like all rules, they are good to have as a basis but there is always an exception to the rule....and it's pretty easy to break most rules, unless you are very religious person....and even then you can sometimes there are exceptions to rules, if that religious person consults with his or her rabbi, priest, guru, spiritual leader, etc.

So if we all agree that it's ok that I've gone back to dating, what is DIFFERENT this time around? To be honest, it's a pain; an unpleasant deja vu. I'm not really into blind dates right now, but I do try to combine meeting new men with activities that I like. For example, if I know about an organized hike that a lot of people are going on, then I might invite someone that I have been in touch with on the internet to join. In that way, I am not "stuck" with him and he is not "stuck" with me. We are both free to meet other people during the hike.

The other day, a non-smoking divorced man with a very nice internet profile and nice voice, called me up and told me about a party that he was going to. He had already seen my picture on the internet, but I couldn't really see his, as he only revealed his head and nose....Anyway, I would assume that if a man calls you up and tells you about a party, he is giving you the opportunity to meet him there. If he didn't want to meet you, he wouldn't call you up specially on the night of the party and tell you about it, right?

That sounds logical, but I have been in Israel for over 20 years, and should know by now that there is NOTHING logical about Israel. Without going into a political narrative and scare you away, this lack of logic extends itself to dating and other areas....

So I wasn't going to show up to this party, being a bad dancer to begin with. I am much more comfortable in a party where people are playing music and singing, or on a hike in the nature, than watching middle aged men and women dance in an empty garage, with no opportunity to even hear the person beside you.

Things have improved in Israel whereas there is far less smoking inside the dance clubs (there is no smoking allowed officially, but I don't know what is happening in Tel Aviv; I have trouble believing this is enforced). This is great for avid non-smokers such as myself. The disadvantage is that if you actually want to hear anyone speak, you need to go outside, and that is exactly where all the smokers are.

I did go to the party that my potential new man in my life suggested. On the phone, he sounded so sweet and had a few things going for him: divorced, non-smoking, employed, has kids (read: doesn't want more as he's paying enough child support already); doesn't like dancing, loves nature, cuddling, kissing for hours.....I thought that if he made the effort to call me and tell me about the party, I should make the effort to at least show up, particularly as the party was only a 10 minute drive or so from my home.

So Mr. Potential met me at the entrance to the party, (along with his relatives and a few people that had driven with him). He admitted, once we were inside, that he wasn't much of a dancer anyway. Great, I thought....and then after a drink or so, he disappeared.

I danced a bit but then decided to look for him, as I really did want to get the opportunity to know him a bit better. But he wasn't at the bar, and it seemed a bit long for him to have been in the toilet, so I went outside.

Mr. "no, I don't smoke" was sitting and chatting with another woman (whom he didn't arrive with), both of them SMOKING CIGARETTES!!!

When I confronted him, he said "well, I'm corrupt. I do smoke at events like these". My friends asked if I was upset that he was chatting with another woman (obviously he didn't like the way I looked once he saw me in person......or preferred the smell of the cigarettes to the smell of my freshly washed hair and body). They told me (a recurring voice, after being in this country for so long. "You are still too anglo-saxon and you expect people to behave as nicely and honestly as you do....but they don't) (Ironically, I am divorced from an 'Anglo Saxon" so that doesn't mean that marrying or dating another Anglo Saxon is a key to a good relationship)....

But I wasn't upset (ok, maybe a bit!) that he spoke to another woman, as this wasn't an official "date". What upset me was that he lied about the smoking! Feeling rather foolish, I went home and crossed the man off my mental "potential new boyfriend list". The fact that he didn't reveal his whole face in the picture perhaps should have been a hint to me that he wasn't honest about other things he had told me.

And thank goodness, I didn't even have to go on a "date" with him to find this out, or uncover dishonesty after a three year relationship.

Not being religious, I still have to say that G-d did me a favor. If I hadn't made the effort to meet him that night, I might still have been fantasizing about meeting him in the future....

So what's different about the disappointments now as opposed to three years ago?

The difference is today I realize that I am the lucky one, and it is the loss of the guy who 'rejects' me or "lies to me". He is only giving the green light for the next guy that G-d or fate decides to flaunt in my path (or on my screen). And due to lots of therapy and work on my self esteem, I no longer take this as something personal. Rather, I say "next".

But the other thing that is interesting is that while I haven't yet learned to 'detach myself from the wanting", as I wrote about in my previous post, I do realize that if I keep attracting these problematic men into my life, it means that it's not my time yet. I haven't healed yet....or the next boyfriend simply hasn't broken up from his present girlfriend yet.

There are plenty of men out there who find me attractive, intelligent, sexy, and everything else that I believe I am....sometimes I simply do not feel the same about them...and other times it is reciprocal, but it doesn't work out for more technical reasons like geographical distance.

What's different this time around, is that I don't feel guilty for trying, because I know that my time will come soon, but the fact that I can still get excited, romantic, fantasize, or just get giggly as a teenager means that I still have the capacity to love, more cynically and apprehensively, yes, but it's there. The girl-woman is still here, not the figure of the girl, but the passion of the woman combined with the romanticism of the girl.

The nights are still cold. The apartments here still are not heated that well. And going to sleep reading a good book and hugging the blankets is STILL not the same as a boyfriend....no matter how much I have tried to convince you otherwise!

So the war is over (for now). The flowers are blooming (just started). The men coming my way are still rather messed up (for now)...which means that I must also be a bit messed up (for now).

That being said, this writer should be cynical and bitter, but she knows how to hike in the rain, and laugh in the middle of a war. It might not be her stop just yet on the road to emotional ride to recovery from the breakup, but she can enjoy the scenery on the ride, while it lasts.

Post 46: No Sex in the Tent

flashback to October, 2005

On the northeast side of the Sea of Galilee, during the Succot holidays, I spent a few days with Arie and his sons, Erez and Alon at the Breshit (Genesis) Festival. Born in the sixties, I was too young to be a hippy and too old to be Generation X. I was born just after the baby boomers, between generations.

I typed my essays in university on a typewriter and learned word-processing on a computer on the job. The first time I saw a fax machine was during one of my first temp jobs. I didn't fear technology because it was in its infancy. and I didn't fear new age workshops, as my mother had already been involved with the new age movement in Canada in the 70s. We just didn't know it was the new age then.

I discovered music of the 60s in the 70s, and the 70s in the 80s, always feeling I had just missed the train. Although the festival was full of teenagers, there were some families and I was happy to have hooked up with a divorced man and his sons. What I didn't expect was the intensity of the rain! My son and I had pitched our tent in the family area, about a kilometer walk from Arie and his sons' camping area.

On the second day of the festival, my son and I awoke to a downpour. The food court area was drenched. The workshop area was soaked. One of the only warm place was in the lake itself...but until we got there, we visited Arie in his home away from home. He had hooked his appliances up to the electricity of the staff area and made us coffee and tea. He had a foldup table and chairs, two or three tents, one for each of his sons and enough food to feed us as well as his offspring.

With nothing to do, my son entered ten-year old Alon's tent, and Arie offered to play backgammon with me in his tent. I beat him at the first few games, but Alon told my son that I spent the entire time having sex with his father in the tent.

This writer did not know that backgammon had sexual overtones.

Post 44: Busride with an adult, some teenagers and the vodka bottles

flashback to October, 2005

I signed a contract with a new hitech company so I had a month off, free of job interviews and going to work. But I still didn't have a car. This wasn't so bad during the week, but Israeli Jewish holidays proved to be a bit challenging. Trains don't run during the Sabbath and religious holidays, and buses are hard to find, except in some of the mixed neighborhoods and cities such as Haifa.

Therefore, being secular and having the high holidays fall smack in the middle of the week can make you feel stranded. Rosh hashana passed. Yom kippur passed. Then it was Succot. There was no way we were going to spend 4 days without a car stuck in our house eating Pasta and watching DVDs of Seinfeld.

There were two new age festivals that were meant for families during the festival of Succot - one was Festival Breshit, at the Sea of Galilee and one was Segol, at the Dor beach. I didn't know one from the other, so I asked my son to choose. He chose fresh water over sea water, and that's how we ended up, one quiet morning during Succot, on a chartered bus - an eleven year old, a forty-two year old, and a bus full of teenagers with minimal shanti style clothing, multiple body-piercing, tattoos and vodka.

This was the bus to the family festival. After about ten minutes on the bus, I was ready to turn around. But I had already paid for the fares and so there was no turning back. There was nowhere to go anyway. Our tent and backpack were already in the baggage compartment of the bus and I was determined to get away from the city life, even though I missed driving the company car and stopping wherever I wanted to, whenever I wanted to.

Eventually we reached our destination on the eastern part of the Sea of Gailee, along with thousands of other teenagers, and thankfully, a few families. The family camping area was uncomfortably close to the noisy chai shop where many of the teenagers partied all night.

But before nightfall, I still had to pitch my tent, and there was someone who had offered to help me with that.

This writer called Arie's cellphone. There was no answer so she asked someone else to help her with the tent. Shortly before the sunset, her phone rang.