Not that I have anything against dating in a park. Provided the weather is good, and the location isn’t one where you are likely to greet half a million acquaintances. Also, I have some old-fashioned notion that a FIRST date should take place indoors.

The amateur matchmaker in this case happens to be a relative of the guy, and one rather eager to see him married, so I don’t suspect her in trying to sabotage the shidduch from the very beginning. But all the same, let’s say I agreed with her suggestion to date the guy in the main park of the small town I work in, and to which he has comfortable public transportation.

“But it’s winter now!” was the first thing I exclaimed when hearing about this extraordinary idea.

“Well’” says Mom, the faithful go-between (she knows better than to let me butt heads with respectable ladies who red shidduchim), “she says she jog every evening and the weather is perfectly pleasant”. Not that my mother is trying to influence me, you understand: as mild as the Israeli winter is (it’s currently about 21 °C degrees in the area in question, 12 °C at night), she knows that her daughter is taking to wearing parkas the minute the temperature drops below 26 °C.

So, if the date takes place, I will be this bulky figure in scarf, mittens, hat, sweater, long coat and boots. And half of the time I will be skipping and jumping to keep myself warm. Very fetching, of course.

Then there is the question of privacy. I am not unduly bothered with keeping my dates secret. If somebody I know happens to see me, I can wave at them and that is that. Never saw the point in being embarrassed in these situations, unless you are dating two guys at the same time and have been caught red-handed. But I work in a small town, where most of the company employees live, and chances are I will meet not one, but quite a few men and women from my workplace either while enjoying the wonders of the local park or while leaving it, thanks to its central location. And I don’t want my coworkers getting into planning my wedding even more enthusiastically that they have done no far. I have learned by experience that they must be given no encouragement.

If that is not enough, I can’t behave myself in a park. Show me trees, greenery, and comfortable benches, and all I want to do is curl up with a book, feeling that nature, after all, isn’t too different from my room at home. Which means that after I have become warm enough (or despaired from getting so), and if the conversation becomes tiresome, I will discreetly try to pull a book out of my bag. That should serve as a good hint to the guy.

Not very nice, I agree, but then, a date in the park can’t really call for the regular dating etiquette, can it?

Hmmm…Perhaps I should rethink this suggestion. It seems my refusal, after all, was a bit too quick. Or too charitable!

I didn’t blog for more than a week. Life interfered – especially my desperate attempt to prepare for my driving theory test next Wednesday. I am so bad at this stuff.

So I spent Motzaei Shabbat cramming again, taking sample exams and failing miserably in most of them. When I finally passed one (making all the four mistakes I was allowed, of course) I was ready to call it night, but checked some of my favorite sites first.

And here is what made me laugh, what is sending me to sleep with delight instead of with grim irritation: a ‘behind the scenes’ CNN video of Roger Federer, greatest tennis player of all times, having fits of giggles.

Sports have come to my rescue so many times in the past that this incident seems minor in comparison. But sometimes the small things illustrate truths better than the big ones. And the truth is that Roger Federer has always been so important for me exactly because of this childlike (some would say childish) joie de vivre. I am hungry to see people doing what they love, looking like they are in love with life.

Driving tests and other pesky annoyances are part of life…but laughter is the shield that keeps us sane in this complicated but beautiful world. Thank you, Roger, for reminding me once again.

Admittedly, I am not the greatest jewelry lover in the world. I mainly own costume jewelry, and rarely wear more than earrings. But suddenly I started feeling this yearning towards pearls. Or perhaps I merely longed for some ‘grownup’ piece of jewelry. I don’t really like yellow gold, and silver/white gold always seem to be a waste of money: there are such good imitations around.

So I settled on pearls. I always loved their classic, timeless look. And I have the good fortune of working with a guy who flies often to a certain far eastern country where quality pearls are to be had at very reasonable prices. AND he has terrific taste. I know that for a fact: he has been buying me watches – and ties for my brothers – for the last two years. So I consulted him.

He said that ‘pearls necklace’ is an extremely vague description. What kind of pearls do I want? What color? Which shape I prefer? What length do I have in mind? And you do know that pearls come in many sizes, don’t you?

I am not sure I did, although Michelle’s Obama’s oversized pearls should have definitely given me a clue. However, internet research happens to be one of the things I am really good at. I researched, checked, compared, read, looked at pictures, and reached a conclusion: I want a single-strand choker.

I emailed my colleague with all the details. He emailed me back, asking me to call him. I did. He explained that I shouldn’t ask for a stand at length of 14-16 inches. I need to be specific. They will cut it to size.

We had our discussion, reached a conclusion, and I was ready to say goodbye, when he suddenly remarked ‘don’t you leave something for your chosson to buy?’

I told him my chosson, whenever he comes, can always buy me books. And that most guys don’t have much of a taste anyway. And that I prefer to buy my own jewelry. Really, I felt myself becoming the lady who doth protest too much. So I said a quick goodbye and hung up.

Jewelry, indeed, can be a token of love. But they can very well be a token of my own love to myself. And as to my intended… sorry, dear. ANOTHER pearl chocker isn’t on the agenda!

But that was never meant to be.

In my all years of following tennis, riding emotional storms generated by the movements of small, fuzzy, yellow balls, there were quite a few players I liked in a way that transcended the game. Roger Federer brought me to tennis and became one of the greatest loves of my life. Kim Clijsters was my model for niceness unspoiled by success. Venus Williams was a symbol of class. Serena – the quintessential queen warrior. Marcos Baghdatis was joyful rays of a young sun – his results notwithstanding.

None of my likes has anything to do with the way those guys and gals wield a racket. Neither are my dislikes, which have always been much fewer. And Marat Safin was the first of them.

I couldn’t stand the guy. There was something in the injustice this all– a talented guy wandering through life, muttering under his breath, spraying balls all over, smashing rackets ‘cuz I can afford to’, constantly choking, underachieving, vanishing while leaving his body behind, to go through the motions of the game. Giving broody press conferences, full of dark self-loathing. I couldn’t buy into this ‘Big Russian Personality’ idea. He was a cross between Peter Pan and the eternal backpacker, traveling all over the world not to find pleasure but because, apparently, he couldn’t think of anything better to do.

And he was gorgeous. No point in denying that. All over the world, women were swooning over him. Watching matches only to see him gliding over the court in all his glory, watching interviews and caring not for the answers but for the fall of his dark locks over his forehead. For the look of his expressive, deep eyes…

I resented that. Safin was narcissist, irresponsinle, immature, and totally self-absorbed. He wasn’t a bad guy, not the kind who takes pleasure from practicing any vices. But he marched to his own drum, never noticing or caring who and what got in the way. He didn’t care for tennis achievements, dismissing his two grand slam titles as ‘nice, but I hate to be reminded of them. Why do people make a great deal of them?’ he didn’t care for any appearance of propriety, on one memorable occasion filling his player box with blond bimbos. He never knew the meaning of diplomacy – nor, it seems, of compassion. (He recently called Agassi’s revelation that he took recreational drugs both ‘stupid’ and ‘cruel’, wondering whether he just wanted to make sure his book sell well and make more money. Agassi got a lot of flack from others too, but none of the current players put it quite like Marat did.)

Yet he was loved. People found his outbursts funny, his ramblings charming, his apathy interesting…he was unique, there was no doubt of that. I just didn’t want his uniqueness to be any part of the game I loved.

And now it is not. And, strangely enough, I can’t feel happy about it.

After years of solid dislike, the last year was different. He had announced it would be his last year on the tour, and as fans all over the world followed him, already nostalgic, I followed him with scientific detachment, mildly curious as to how it all end up.

It ended up just as he had probably wanted. No swan song, not one last redeeming big win, no extremely bizarre losses (and he had plenty of that in his career). The drama king went through the motions one last time – and quite free of drama. No, he will not miss the game. No, he will not get sentimental over anything. No, he was quite happy with his career, thank-you-very- much.

And somehow during this year, I came to realize that, when it came to marat, I was as lacking in compassion as I suspected him to be. That this grown child was born without any internal dashboard to monitor and change the settings of his inner self. That if he succeeded, it was thanks to talent occasionally managing to overcome his basic inclination: the inclination to drift through life guided solely by his moods and desires. A disastrous temperament if there ever was one.

And yes, I am worried about the future of Marat Safin. Tennis probably kept him as committed as ever would be – which sounds too much like a doom for any human being. As Peter Bodo wrote in his Tennis world blog: “The world is littered with unhappy women who thought they could take a Safin-esque kind of guy and reform him, inspire him to be an achiever – to bend to the pressure and join the vast majority of men who embrace the call of responsibility, hard work, even family-building. But all his adult life, Safin seemed hell bent on clinging to something like his authenticity”

I feel for any woman who ends up married to this oh-so-authentic man. But right now, I feel more for Safin himself. He has money and fame, looks and adoring fans. He has nothing to entice him out of this clinging-to-authenticity, this paralyzing tendency to be himself in the most primitive way: staying static, unchanged, and undeveloped. Not growing into the full potential of self but rather embracing the egocentric, childish, early bud of self. The one which will never tie itself to anything and to anybody.

It was loosely attached to tennis, though, and now that this is gone, I worry for Marat Safin. My hate is no more, love will never be there, but I can feel compassion. Compassion for the man who has everything – and nothing. .

So farewell, Marat. And do take care.

An insignificant incident and yet…being an INFJ, my totem is a dolphin. And being an INFJ, I am happy with any proof that people are neither as bad nor as stupid as I am sometimes inclined to believe. They are just…slow.

A much more forgivable trait.

This has got to be the most irritating question in the world. Luckily, I am not as harassed with this as others are, thanks to my fierce glares at any attempt to ask me, you know, PERSONAL QUESTIONS, if one isn’t a close personal friend.

But some people are blissfully free from tact, intuition, or the ability to feel my displeasure, and so I get hit with the question every so often. Others aren’t as bad – they are actually trying to red me a shidduch and the ensuing conversation inevitably leads to the question: ‘so, what are you looking for?’

That is what happened today, when a very nice coworker tried talking me into dating one of two guys her husband knows (or both of them, if I so wished). ‘Look, they are Baalei Teshuvah. do you mind?’

I don’t, as it happens. But I do have reservations. ‘It depends how long they have been frum. Also, what they were doing in their life before’. (that wisdom was learned from my BT BFF who told me some guys redt to her, couldn’t report anything about their doings in their former incarnation – never mind that they only became furm at age 30. as she commented: ‘they had no job, no life, but, voila! Now they have a profession. They are BT!’)

Well, it turns out she didn’t know how/when they saw the light. She wasn’t sure about their frumkeit level either, or their hashkafa. She knew that one was either studying engineering or working in the field, and the other was doing ‘something with cameras’. Oh, and they were (or at least one of them was) ‘tall and handsome’.

Not looking for a decorative husband, I politely explained that I need to know more. And somehow, when she was trying to decipher from her post-it note what she wrote about their professions, I think I mentioned that the cameras guy didn’t sound too ‘intellectual’. Big mistake. Because then I had to face the dreary ‘what exactly are you looking for’, of course.

I have my stock of answers. ‘A good Jew’ (that throws everybody off) ‘a millionaire’ (with a straight face). But really, I find this so unbearably stupid. Besides the most basic and terribly obvious details, (healthy – duh! – nice, who would’ve thunk it! – intelligent…oh, the horror!), nobody has any idea, and that includes myself. And most people who can give you detailed and colorful descriptions of their desired spouses end up married to the exact opposites of what they described.

And don’t ask me which kind of guys I am attracted to. I once participated in a ‘literary crushes’ thread (I am weird like that, OK?) and my list included everybody from Mr. Darcy to Edmund Bertram to Remus Lupin to Pratchett’s Captain Carrot. And mine wasn’t the only list to feature extremely different (fictional) specimen of manhood.

I suppose I can try answering, the next time I get the WAYLF:  ‘I am looking for a cross between a regency gentleman and a complicatedly simple police officer’. I don’t believe I will get too many follow-up questions (or shidduchim suggestions, for that matter) after such a reply…

I am – surprise!- an Israeli. Hebrew is my mother tongue. None of my relatives are native speakers of English, nor have I ever lived abroad. (Heck, I have never BEEN abroad!). But English has been my passion for years. Oh, I love Hebrew, but English has given me so much (many more books to read, for a start) it seems only fair to love it in return.

Besides, bloging in English is much safer for an extremely private person like me, who treats any ‘what did you on the weekend’? question as a possible offense of intrusion. Oh, and I am just happy for any excuse to write in English about things which are not work-related, and therefore are short on words such as ‘remittance’, ‘itinerary’ and ‘coordination’.

That’s enough explaining for now, I think. Here we go…