QuarterLifePriceless

If you are a woman with control issues, I have the perfect remedy for you. Even though I love and believe in therapy, it’s not that. I’m not talking about getting all Zen or even calm for a minute, so no, it’s not meditation. It’s not science. It’s salsa dancing.

I am a huge Latin music fan, so I’ve danced salsa before but I never really knew the steps. I recently took a legitimate salsa class at a dance studio and really learned how to dance salsa. Mind you, I’m a lady, so I was taught to dance salsa as “the follower.” Feminists please don’t throw shit at me right about now – I know how it sounds. But in salsa and the majority of partner dancing, the male leads. Plain and simple. I’ll be P.C. right now and say that if you are a same-sex couple, there is still one person who leads.

During my first salsa class, I was unnerved that I wasn’t in control of the situation. I told my partner, “No, it’s like this…” and demonstrated what he was supposed to do as well as what I was supposed to do. I was being a woman – handling every little detail, taking care of my partner, helping him. I quickly realized that in the real world, that’s okay and often times necessary to “handle” everything. Not in salsa, my friend. We bumped into each other, jerked each other around. In other words, it was a hot, flaming mess. I realized that I needed to relinquish control, just a little bit. Since we rotated partners, I told myself that this was a fresh start – don’t fuck up this time! Maybe the last guy didn’t know what the hell he was doing, but this guy, wow he’s a natural, he’s a great lead! Or maybe it was me. Whatever happened, I let go of needing control, and all of a sudden, my feet were gliding as my hips sensually moved side to side. My partner and I were really dancing salsa! With the subsequent partners, I learned to let my partner take the lead, even if he didn’t know exactly what he was doing. It was his job to figure it out. And as our instructor said, it’s the follower’s job to feel what their partner is doing and let them lead. I was surprised at how relaxed I felt once I gave away the control and allowed my partner to lead. It takes skill to lead, and it takes faith to be led.

I know plenty of women who don’t have the luxury of “letting go” and letting others take the lead – they have careers, families, screaming babies and a hundred other things to do. Yet, I must admit, it feels really nice, even for an hour and a half inside a dance studio, to let go of the need to control, handle and manage. This hour and a half could give a girl a little faith to let others take the lead – just sometimes. 

I’m new to this city.

This morning on my way to Bart, a mentally ill man let me know that my ass and titties were jiggling. Thanks for letting me know.

At 24 hour fitness, an older lady tried to get on a treadmill going 8 miles an hour and fell flat on her face while I was waiting for that exact machine. 

My upstairs neighbor, the insomniac artist with a bladder problem, has turned me into a Benadryl-popping insomniac interior designer who puts her bed in her living room.

A Piedmont yuppie in a 3 series Beamer with a mini Buddha statue flipped me off for following her too close. If you can’t find the irony in this then I really don’t know what to do with you.

A trendy chicken and waffles spot in West Oakland filled with all white folks.

This is Oaklandish.

It’s been about a month I’ve been on Jdate and it’s already pretty exciting, interesting and not to mention hilarious. After being on Jdate for about 2 days, I check out my “matches” online. Then a couple days after that, I go to the Rosh Hashanah Ball. Yeah, I said it, the Rosh Hashanah Ball. This was thrown by a formerly non-profit-now-for-profit organization run by these two Jappy (Jewish American Princess-y) girls. It was actually pretty fun. Mind you, I paid thirty bucks, and this was pre-sale. Yeah, steep I know. I really want to make a Jewish joke right now but I will refrain since I don’t want to perpetuate Jewish stereotypes. Yeah, you can guess what I would say. (I might write another blog post about my encounter with an anti-Semitic Russian doll and my complaint to the store owner). Anyhoo, back to the Rosh Hashanah Ball. It was in this mansion in the city owned by some Israeli person so there are mezuzahs on every doorway which is pretty cool. I am chillin with some of the girls I came with and I check out the scene. It was weird, I all of a sudden realized this was Jdate in person. I see a couple guys who were my “matches” online. I laugh and tell the chicks I’m with. I tell them that it’s so funny to me that I want to tell my “matches” about this hilarity. Then I stop and think, hmm, maybe not such a good idea. Gimme a break, I’m new to this online dating thing. Common sense sometimes doesn’t apply even though it always should. So I decide not to say anything to my matches for fear of being awkward. Well, the awkwardness just creeps up on me when a guy comes up to me at the bar, and goes, “Kiryatshalom?” This is my Jdate username. I’m like,”Uhhh yeah…” Then he says,”I just messaged you yesterday.” I reply,”Dude! I paid seventy bucks to check that frickin’ message!” (I paid seventy-something dollars for three months). We both laugh. Then he proceeds to hit on me in REAL LIFE and go on and on about how he is a doctor and barely asks me about myself. Cool! This is the moment that I am officially christened into the young Jewish dating scene of the San Francisco Bay Area. Anoint me with that goddamn oil and slap me upside the head! Shaynaleh is in the mothafuckin’ building! (AKA the awkward Jewish dating scene type of building). Yesssss.

As the story goes, little Goldilocks goes into the 3 bears’ home and first tastes porridge that is too cold…then too hot…then juuuuust right. Same thing happened with chairs then their beds. Sorry to ruin it for y’all. My Goldilocks story is about my level of religion versus a partner’s level. For my whole life, I dated goyim. Obviously that’s all that’s around me so it’s natural. Then I realize (per the post below) that Jewish guys aren’t so bad. So I date a Jewish guy, and he turns out to be TOO Jewish for me. Way too religious. So here’s a secret: I just went on JDate and chatted with a guy who I think might be too non-religious for me. Where’s the Jew who is juuuuuust right? This I feel may be hard to find, unfortunately.    

For any female American Jew, you probably grew up with a weird aversion to Jewish guys. I used to have an aversion to asparagus, but now I actually really like it. And I honestly don’t mind that it makes my pee smell funny. Anyway, that’s kinda how I feel about Jewish guys now. What changed my mind was Israeli men. Any girl who has been on Birthright knows EXACTLY what the fuck I’m talking about. You take a ten hour flight then all of a sudden there exists actual physically attractive Jewish men. It’s like you’re teleported into a new dimension. I remember being so shocked. And so excited. On my Birthright trip, there were a few soldiers, and one who was a beautiful specimen of a Jewish guy. I won’t even say man because he really wasn’t (he was 21 at the time). I don’t want to say boy because that sounds creepy. Well, he was beautiful. To me, he was a young King David, bronzed skin, gorgeous light green eyes, and a buzz cut. Even though King David apparently had red hair, whatever, Gabriel is how I want to imagine King David was when he was in his prime. The best moment on the trip is when we were kayaking on the Jordan River and this chick literally fell off the boat into the water and Gabriel jumped in a second later and saved her. In all honesty she probably would have just swam back to her boat but in that moment, he seemed to save her life, and all of us girls swooned so hard. So that was like my intro course, you could call it, “Israeli Men 101.” But I don’t really know how to categorize Gabriel into the various categories of Israeli men. He might fit into something like “Perfect If He Was Ten Years Older” category of Israeli men. The other category that I was (unfortunately) exposed to was “Crazy Israeli Man” very similar to romantic-gone-wrong Latin men. This one was a doozie. Again, beautiful, but emotionally unstable. Hilarious though. The best quote I have from this one is (from a text message after I broke up with him): “I will trow the neklace from my balcony and cry.” He meant: I will throw the necklace from my balcony and cry. His spelling wasn’t too bad. But he was referring to a necklace that he bought me that had my name in English that he was planning on giving to me the night I ended it with him. I’m glad I’m a trained mental health worker because I literally had to crisis counsel this shit out of this situation via text message the next day. By the way, this guy was a police officer in Tel Aviv. I could literally fill many many blog posts about many more Israeli men. They provided months of entertainment, fun, grief and joy. What I will say about Israelis in general, both men and women, no matter how crazy or annoying they could be, is that they knew how to live life, whether it was jumping into the Jordan River to save dumb Americans, or threatening to “trow” unrequited love from balconies, they did things with passion, urgency and chutzpah. 

I guess it happens. Late twenties. Suddenly single. And everyone around me is pairing up. I try not to buy into the desperate feelings that say “oh shit, I’m single.” Or “oh, shit, what if everyone is married but me?” Then I have to remind myself of that other part of me that says “oh, shit, this is awesome!” This shit is awesome because I will never get this type of freedom back, unless I decide to stay single the rest of  my life. Truth be told, I want a long-term life partner, preferably a husband. When you have a partner, it’s not just you anymore. This is a beautiful thing, to have two souls conjoined. Mystical Judaism says that when two people get married, it is two souls becoming one. That is super romantic and sweet and I love the idea, but for now, I want to be okay with being one soul. And one WHOLE soul. The thing about it is, right now, in my singledom state, I get to sit around and do what I want. I get to dream my own dreams. Being single helps one develop a sense of stability in who they are. And that shit is awesome.

Since my breakup almost two months ago, I’ve gone on my own little spiritual journey. The “journey” that I was on before that, I realized, was not my journey. It was my ex-boyfriend’s journey into religious Judaism. How liberating it is to know that now is my time and no one else’s. It’s liberating, freeing but also a bit lonely. The most frustrating part for me post-breakup is that a few aspects of Modern Orthodox Judaism appeal to me. (The main one being Shabbat. But that’s a whole ‘nother blog post). Then that makes me think, shit, why couldn’t have my relationship worked out? We are both super Jewy..? I know though, that it could have never worked out because of my ex-boyfriend’s rigid belief system. The part of that rigid belief system that always irked me was about women’s issues. Specifically, modesty and the role of women in Modern Orthodox Jewish life. To me, there is a sense of conformity and lack of choice that women have in those communities. As much as I admire the community for their focus on family, the seeming simplicity of life, there doesn’t seem like a whole lot of choice for women. Their main role is wife and mother. For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been going to an Orthodox shul in Palo Alto with my old friend from Hebrew school. I don’t mind Orthodox shuls, I actually sort of like the fact that the way that we’re praying is like the people who came a few hundred years before us. To me, that’s pretty cool. Anyway, last Saturday I had an interesting encounter with some little Orthodox Jewish girls. It was a hot day, and after walking 1.5 miles from my friend’s place to the temple, I was super thirsty. My friend already went in and I wanted to grab some water before going in. I went into the kitchen and grabbed a plastic cup and filled it up. In the kitchen were a few little kids sneaking some Red Vines from the shelf. I told the boys to be careful since they were balancing on a stool to get to to the Red Vines. Then my conversation with the little girls began. This cute little girl, who looked to be Persian, wearing a frilly pink dress, said to me, “Are you a mommy?” I said, “No, I’m not, but I want kids someday.” Then she said, “Why are you carrying a purse?” And I replied, “To carry my things.” She looked at my necklace and said, “What does that say?” My necklace said my grandmother’s name, Marion, in Hebrew. I asked her if she could read it and she said no. Then I told her it was my grandmother’s. Then, true to little kid form, she asked me a weird question: “Do you wear your necklace when you sleep?” I said, “No, I take it off.” She said, “My mommy sleeps with her necklace very carefully.” I smiled and then asked her and her little sister’s names. I asked the older one, who I had this conversation with, if she was the oldest of her siblings. She said proudly, “The oldest girl.” 

After of course finding the humor in our little conversation, it also helped me understand the community a little better. The first question that the girl asked me was if I was a mother. To me, this shows the narrow role of women in Orthodox Judaism. Arguably the most fulfilling role in life, it’s still narrow. The second question was about me carrying my bag. To this little girl, it was odd that someone at temple was carrying something on Shabbat (which is forbidden). My answer probably perplexed her - that I was simply carrying my things. The necklace question was just cute. Our little exchange about her siblings highlights the two different worlds we live in - I was asking if she was the oldest sibling out of all them, not really taking gender into account. She differentiated the gender of her sibling and proudly announced that she was the oldest girl. This highlights the regular separation between males and females in their world. The Orthodox world will claim that men and women are separate but equal. I know that there are many privileges of being a woman, such as being able to give birth, lighting the Shabbat candles, passing down Judaism to one’s children, but I still can’t get over not being able to read or chant Torah in front of men. 

My friend Jon and I joke about “White People Problems.” You know, problems that us white people have, like, debating about moving to Europe, (or in our case, Israel), or talking about their emotional problems that started in childhood, blah blah blah. Today I’m having a different type of white person problem - my grief over losing my relationship with a guy who wants to become an Modern Orthodox Jew. Yup, that’s my white person problem these days. I mean, it is real grief I guess, but it’s a weird sort of grief that is triggered by thinking about specific religious type of stuff. For example, today when I was at the gym, I started thinking about how he told me that one of the reasons why he knew it was over was because I ordered something really really not-Kosher in front of him. Then my grief was also triggered a few minutes ago when reading descriptions of the films in the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. One was about an African-American orphan who becomes an Orthodox Jew (and this guy is also a rapper). Obviously, it’s an interesting story, but it made me think - why couldn’t I just do the same thing and then me and my ex-boyfriend could have had a happy Orthodox life together. Why can’t it be that simple? Easy, cop-out answer: life’s not that simple.