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!