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OI: “Big Man on Campus” is not, shall we say, the most, um, PC way to put it. The fact is, you should probably not walk into marriage expecting that. Walk into it expecting a partnership where you and your wife are on equal footing. Just for the sake of your future shalom bayis.
Don’t worry about the height. I’m not trying to be mean, but if the girl is the same height as you she’ll probably reject you first. Personally, I’m short and I’m not expecting (nor would I necessarily be comfortable with) a six foot guy, but just as guys have standards they like, so do girls. (And I DEFINITELY know very short girls who married very tall guys, so the people with the problems are the short guys and the tall girls- though admittedly to a lesser extent. My sister is 5’8″ and I wonder what’s gonna happen with her.) If you’re looking for a girl a bit shorter than you then fine, she’ll come along eventually.
That one I’ll admit makes sense.
Achashveirosh/SHalomToYou: And… YOU’RE the one bringing this up? Weird…
I remember having to restrain myself from commenting on that one.
ALL of my friends do that. It is so incredibly annoying.
That’s what I usually do if I want to chat them. If they don’t answer then it’s none of my business.
Better than what I do, showing up as active and STILL ignoring chats…
Um, yeah, weight (not so much height, if you’re short and you don’t want someone taller than you) is pretty subjective. I know girls (around the same height) who weigh about the same amount. One looks the way you’d picture someone who weighs that amount, and one looks very thin. It’s all in the build.
And when you say 1xx, does that mean that if she weighs more than 100 lb she’s overweight? I’m going to assume not, but if so that’s just disturbing.
And I’ll be honest with you and say that no, I don’t think that the way you’re doing it is really right. The height thing I can get (and girls are asking that too- girls don’t want short guys any more than you want a tall girl), but asking weight? That is WAY overboard. As I said above, there are girls who are 120 lb and look heavier (if they’re naturally slim) and girls who are 140 and look gorgeous.
I’ll also be honest and say that a lot of this frustration is because I’m struggling with my weight and not particularly gorgeous and I’m still holding out the hope that my chosson’s (eventually) not going to care like that and potentially nix me before he starts, but it seems to be a bit too much to ask.
And to get away from my angst for a quarter of a second to wrap up, why don’t you meet her to figure out if she’s pretty- much more direct and non-subjective?
It’s funny- during the summer I wear crocs and All-Star sneakers, so any of the shoes I’d wear would be my usual shoes.
Actually, chances are most of my shoes are synthetic anyway, so I could totally dress up tomorrow. Weird thought.
emestorah: Call them by their names. Devorah and Chuldah, two of only seven nevios, great women whose shoes you don’t even reach, even if you are a man (yeridas hadoros and all that).
I was not responding to whether guys and girls should learn together (it may not be optimal, but it can’t be bad- school studies have shown that while girls do better in girls only classes, boys do better with girls in the classroom). I was responding to the implication that girls CANNOT reason the way boys do and are not CAPABLE (charged word) of learning be’iyun.
And what are you trying to say with the quote about the nevios? That we need to squash down the women so that they don’t get into a position where they get haughty?
You may have a much more benign meaning- in which case, maybe try making that point in a benign way.
It’s over- it was a bit disappointing, as I think it was meant to be filler for Tzipi Caton’s serial and therefore as soon as it was ready they just ended it really quickly. It was very compacted, especially toward the end where 2 years of school are smushed into about four chapters.
Its last chapter was two weeks ago.
OI: But you’re missing the point- of course you can ask, and of course they can respond nicely, but is their standard of beauty the same as yours? Maybe someone who to them looks like she just stepped out of a fashion magazine is just really not your type? Maybe someone they would dismiss as “ehhh” is actually exactly what you’re looking for?
My mom got married somewhat later in life (still in her twenties, but very late twenties). Some of my favorite childhood memories are about her best friend- she used to babysit us, come to us for Shabbos, do our nails, go on Girls Night Out vacations with us, teach us how to swim, and just be an all-around amazing friend to both my mom and her kids. It was after SHE got married that we started getting together less. Now I babysit for her kids.
It really can be done. It must be so hard for you not to be able to have a friendship like that- remember, your friends are losing out too, missing a fantastic friendship with a fantastic friend :).
“Hello? HELLO? Oh, it’s you. They’re here for me. I can’t talk for long, so listen carefully. The secret is hidden in the third slot on the right in the place we agreed on. I’m activating the self-destruct- it’ll go off when you hear the beep. Thanks for everything, and good luck.” (inaudible screams, and then a “beeeep!” Then- silence.)
ultimateskier: Not that I’m aware… I believe whoever said that may have been joking to get everyone to shut up :).
Toi: So what?
Would having that thought stop them from learning the gemara?
Especially since it’s not a stupid question at all. It may be irrelevant, but it’s not stupid. (I may just be saying that because I was wondering the same thing, but while true, if the inyan is about gittin and you need an example this works, it does seem to be a kind of a strange scenario. For someone unused to gemara, it would be a very logical question. Note the use of the word “unused” as opposed to “unsuited.”)
HaKatan: You tar Zionists with rather a wide brush.
To whom exactly do you refer when you say “Zionists”?
Thank you, Toi. That’s pretty much what I meant. Nobody’s doubting the lemaalah min hateva nature of the mabul- but Hashem’s default is definitely not that type of nes, or we’d see it all the time (actually, that would be impossible, as that would just mean a different type of teva, but whatever.)
OI: No, it’s not a din in the reference. Are you expecting people to lie? Because if you expect the reference to ALWAYS say that the girl is pretty in some “nice” manner, what’s the point in asking anyway if you know what answer you’re going to get?
If someone has doubts and issues and goes off the derech, he/she gets the quick’n’dirty method of testing his/her theories. That will naturally give clarity, in a way.
This compared to people who have doubts and issues, stay the way they are (outwardly, at least), and then have to fight with, to use WIY’s word, their “demons” for the rest of their lives.
I guess that’s the whole Amish rumspringa concept. (Not saying it’s the right solution, but knowing the hard way may, in some strange ways, be better than not knowing at all.)
This from someone who isn’t really very close to OTD people or chozrim beteshuva but is definitely having issues with her own inner demons, so take it with a grain of salt.
Derech HaMelech: Yes, that sounds right. If you take into account that everything Hashem does is a neis, and that most nissim are done bederech hateva (while back then a neis galui was more common, a neis nistar is not out of the question), it’s definitely a valid question.
jfem02: Oh NO… I need to try for some clarity here, like rereading my posts to make sure I’m not insulting people.
I was NOT talking to you. I was talking to the male chauvinist who thought that girls didn’t have higher order thinking skills.
(That is the first time I have ever called someone a male chauvinist. It will probably be the last.)
I definitely think that we have equal right to respond over here. And I definitely remember that thread :). I never actually POSTED on it… maybe I should have, just to dilute the Y chromosomes.
abc: If that’s the case, and you really think you aren’t gaining and you need help (anyone who only started something as complex as gemara 8 months ago probably needs some help), then I have no idea by what kind of mechanism you got your current chavrusa, but maybe you can use the system to get a new one.
Are your chavrusas at the same level as you, or have they been learning longer? Can you arrange for a chavrusa who will specifically help you?
Hatzlacha!
Shopping: Writer’s soul (just apply the s to both)
Poster’s heart
I now appreciate it for being very cute 🙂
Syag: See above 🙂 and I don’t know what I was expecting back then, but I definitely forgive you :).
Writersoul groaned as she shifted in her seat and reached groggily for the seatbelt. She grabbed her earbuds and rolled the cord around her iPod almost vindictively, as though she was trying to strangle it. She HATED airplanes.
This was the girl whose first reaction to landing on the holy soil of Eretz Yisrael had been to vomit. This was the girl who chewed four pieces of gum in a useless bid to keep her hears from popping as the plane took off. This was the girl who brought five vomit bags per flight, and dreaded sem year more for the twenty-four hours of flights it would entail than for the ten months of school in between.
And she’d been shunted off to Ecuador!
As the passengers disembarked, writersoul gripped her carryon bag, trying to somehow remain inconspicuous. Falling down in a dizzy faint is conspicuous. Yes, it is. Yes, even if you feel like you’re going to puke again. Remember that.
Now, she had to figure out where Rivky lived. Eliyahu Rainden was careful- he wasn’t going to let the NSA figure out his address. Writersoul would have to figure it out on her own.
Two hours later, she was walking up the stairwell of the Raindens’ building. Three months ago, it might have been hard to find them, but now, with all of the yeshiva bochurim who’d moved there, she’d just needed to stop off at one of Quito’s three takeout food stores (Thursday night cholent a specialty) to ask a passerby their address. A well-meaning shadchan, moved down to where the clients were, had tried to set her up with seven different guys (“You’ll only need a week!”) as she paid for her Coke (not diet, which had earned her a weird look from the shadchan, who then remembered that this was a girl’s market and the girl was about to walk away with her soda and change), but writersoul had managed to get out and, using her high school Spanish (“No comprendo Espanol. ?Comprende Ingles?”), got to the front door of Mishpachas Rainden.
She could hear a baby screaming inside and a woman walking. The baby’s decibel level went down a smidgen, and writersoul could hear the woman- must be Rivky- talking softly to the baby as he quieted down.
So this was Rivky. In person. The Rivky who had caused all of the trouble that the NSA had to deal with now. The Rivky who was on the rotten-egg-throwing list of every boy’s mother and shadchan in the tri-state area. The Rivky who hid out in Ecuador as the ramifications of her deed realized themselves.
The Rivky who, writersoul realized, was about to suffer a very, very big shock.
Writersoul almost felt sorry about what she had to do.
OI: I think oomis’s point is that asking about appearance doesn’t do anything. Plenty of people you may not consider attractive are happily married to guys who think they’re gorgeous. If they’d called you for a reference to see if she’s pretty, what would have happened?
jfem02: Sorry… I deserved that just as much as you did. (Take that however you want as far as how much blame is deserved either way…) shmuelgold seems to be just smart enough to figure out that feminists are girls but not enough to read my obviously-a-girl post and catch the signals.
And excuse me, but I know of plenty of girls who would do perfectly well in a gemara discussion. We’d start off at a disadvantage because we don’t know what’s flying on a page of gemara (at least I sure don’t), but after an intro, don’t worry TOO much about us. (Actually, I have no idea if I’d be good at gemara- if math knowledge is important I probably wouldn’t be, though my brother’s great at it and about like me in math- but don’t jump to conclusions, wise guy.)
I have that situation somewhere where the place that many people daven (for the sake of their kavanah, as it’s a bit secluded) is right in the way of the elevator, which I and others need to use. It really causes a lot of agmas nefesh for the people who cannot take the stairs (I can and do many times, but there are people who need the elevator and are really inconvenienced).
147: is that so? I’d never heard of that- thanks. DO you have a source? (Just interested.)
Or just ask in a very firm tone of voice.
And develop enough of a personality that they can actually have an idea of what to give you. Unfortunately, by the time I got mine, the mods had no idea what to put for mine. I believe it was Syag who thought of mine. (Thanks :).)
MorahRach: I KNOW, RIGHT? Baruch Hashem I’m not doing it this year, but that was literally the worst part of my day last year. I had one camper who wore them EVERY DAY.
And the slip-on Converse and Lelli-Kellis? After a while, I just gave up and bought a shoehorn. (It was, unfortunately, too big.)
Sorry, but do that kid’s parents have any idea that he can’t use the bathroom by himself with those pants? Because that is SICK. I mean, my kids had diapers, so it was all on me, but when he’s actually supposed to be able to do it himself but he can’t because of his clothes…
Torah- 0+ or 0-?
I’m an O also, but since I can’t donate blood (at least at this point) I haven’t gotten the chance to figure out which. (I know that I’m O because both my parents are.)
Actually, I’ve probably got my blood type on blood test paperwork somewhere. I should figure it out.
Are YOU putting everything into it that you can?
I remember once being put in a group in school for a Chumash project. I was doing it with a friend of mine who is AMAZING. I did it with her and I understood everything, it was fascinating, etc. Then I did a different part of the project with someone else, and it just didn’t have the same geshmak to it.
I was really annoyed, and I wanted to switch partners, but then I realized- the other time, I’d kind of been coasting along with my friend. I’d been letting her do all the work, making it amazing and meaningful. Why couldn’t I do it this time? So I did. I won’t tell you it was the same, but it was still 100x better than before and, in the end, actually pretty darn incredible.
I’m not saying you’re not trying- how could I? I don’t know you or your situation- and I’ve never learned in a yeshiva-style chavrusa situation, but this may be something to keep in mind- if your partner isn’t the motivator for you, try being the motivator for your partner. Chances are he can use it just as much as you can, and you can explore what you’re doing in so many ways.
Torah: I was kidding… (If you’re kidding just say so and ignore everything below.)
What on EARTH does a peace sign have to do with a rainbow?
A peace sign is a representative of a fifty-year-old peace movement that is pretty much irrelevant right now to the extent that nobody even remembers what a peace sign stands for anymore.
A rainbow is representative of a movement that the principal would definitely see as against TORAH. Not against conservatism.
There is nothing in the Torah forbidding liberalism (sorry, Yated). There is a lo sa’asay in the Torah against the basics of what a rainbow stands for.
Setting aside the fact, of course, that nobody would say boo if a bais Yaakov girl wore a rainbow because around here, LGBTQ is not the first thing you think of when you see a rainbow.
I think people are more disturbed by the pop culture aspects of peace signs. By the same token, they may have issues with mustaches now (which is a rant for another time).
PBA: If he waits until the statute of limitations is up, will anyone be interested enough anymore to buy his book?
That was the whole problem with “What It Takes” when it came out.
frumgirl93: If everyone actually had a different image of the “top” guy/girl, the shidduch crisis would be a long way toward being solved, IMO.
Actually, that’s a universal issue, granted, but I think that an issue is that starting out, everyone’s looking for the SAME guy/girl. I look at my mom’s spreadsheets of bare-bones info and EVERYONE LOOKS THE SAME because that’s what everyone wants to see. My mom’s biggest saying (paraphrased a LOT) is that you don’t get a different image of who’s “top” until you meet your spouse. And your spouse is “top.”
It could just be that the profile of the “top” guy/girl is just so sparse that 95% of people can actually fall under it with a bit of cutting and pasting and editing, but if so, maybe that needs to change as well. Or maybe people just edit too much in order to become the “top” when that’s really not them.
Please, Hashem, let all this be fixed when I’m twenty…
JF02: My mom deals with a lot of shidduchim. I’d say that 40% of her resumes are from guys.
I have to say, though, that she has only once ever had a guy send in a photo, while on the other side I can count three girls who have not. (I know the numbers because she mentioned them as yotzei min haklal. The guy and one of the girls are married- not to each other.)
147: That’s a nice thing to say.
How do you know? Do you give up on everyone (else) before they even start?
rebdoniel: Frum men I know of who wear rings (admittedly few, generally on the older side, actually) absolutely did NOT wear them as part of the whole kiddushin/chuppah ceremony. It’s completely outside it.
Torah: Why would my principal be so annoyed that I’m protesting nuclear disarmament?
octopi: That’s actually cute! I would wear it, if that were my thing. (I personally would be more likely to wear it on a tshirt.) I don’t think there’s any problem with it, unless you actually believe it means something. (Which you don’t, right? RIGHT?)
If it’s important to you to have an iPhone, then the kind of person who thinks it’s an aveirah and that you shouldn’t have one is probably not the one for you.
If you don’t care, or you know in your heart or whatever that you really shouldn’t have one but the yetzer hara is too strong or something like that, then by all means get rid of it. IF YOU WANT. Not for shidduchim. Why make a fake persona to attract someone who, if they are attracted to your fake persona and not the real you, is not necessarily your type anyway?
Any flaws in the theory? Please let me know before I hit shidduchim with a loud crash.
Also in the Nine Days meals thread
Torah: So if you wear a peace sign you need to know beforehand that you’re REALLY protesting for nuclear disarmament?
octopi: If you made up the symbol (the only way I can think of offhand that you’d know the symbol didn’t mean anything and STILL call it a symbol), then I don’t see the issue- it’s the same thing as making your own jewelry, no?
Never heard of Daniel Yehuda as a common combo…
(Though to me the combo sounds right because those are the names of two brothers I know.)
I have two names, as do everyone in my family. (Except for one of my cousins. Not sure why.) In our case it was a way to name after multiple people- and it worked, as between me and my three siblings, all of my great-grandparents are accounted for, along with a great-great-grandparent and just a random name that my parents happened to like.
I remember reading that it can be an issue with kesubos and gittin (if a name isn’t used, a) what happens if it’s left off the kesubah/get and b) is it really a name?), but I don’t think there are any actual issues with it.
If you’re allowed to add a name to a choleh then presumably the number of names you have isn’t a big issue (though I’m completely extrapolating on my own here).
JF2 and SaysMe: What women think but don’t say. Guys, PAY ATTENTION: you probably won’t hear this again…
Though my issues with skinny jeans are more with mothers who dress their (chubby) toddlers in them and then expect me to change their kids to and from swimming. Squeezing a little kid into skinny jeans while he still has a whole lot of baby fat and a diaper is not something I would wish on my worst enemy.
ALMOST as bad as toddler slip-on Converse. GRRRRRrrrrr.
My favorite lunch is fried baked ziti (okay, not the best way to put it…)
You just fry your pasta, sauce and cheese instead of baking or microwaving it. You can add whatever you want- from veggies to salsa (probably instead of the sauce, in which case it’s a bit like pasta nachos) to falafel balls to whatever you like.
Even if you’re not as into BCBs (burnt crunchy bits, the king of the food groups) as I am, I still find that it comes out kind of different when you compare it to baking or microwaving.
Try latkes! There are a million and one different recipes online for all types- old-fashioned potato, fruit, vegetable, cheese, the works.
Another great recipe- spicy cheese fries. (OBVIOUSLY, I do not make this kind of food ALL the time, but it’s nice to have sometimes.) Cut up the potatoes, peel them if you want, then add Baby Bam seasoning. (It’s a less spicy version of Cajun seasoning, but as my mom first started making this when we were little, we weren’t really up to the big stuff yet and this is still great. If you want it spicier, you can add cayenne pepper.) Mix
and sprinkle some on the fries. Leave the rest for a rainy day. Bake them however you like to bake fries- we don’t usually make them very french fry-ish, so maybe check this one out on your own if that’s what you’d prefer. If anyone has any good tips as far as French fry baking/frying is concerned, that would probably be great.
Ummm… did this actually HAPPEN to you?…
mussar zoger: Really? I can’t think why…
(Not an installment, but seriously Torah, you just made my day. I always knew I didn’t like my dentist…)
🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
I’ve got one in the spelling errors thread…
The trouble I get into for this- I wonder sometimes if it’s worth it.
I’ve got one in the spelling errors thread…
The trouble I get into for this- I wonder sometimes if it’s worth it.
Oomis: SORRY!
🙂
Yes I know you’re not OOM. This is a joke intended for the Discworld spamming joke thing that she seems to be in charge of. You just happened to bring up the point (which drives me half crazy sometimes) that triggered it.
Ignore me :).
benignuman: The problem is, I see these things a LOT in really public forums such as circulars. If people are trying to advertise their products, shouldn’t they care about presentation and grammar?
apushatayid: That’s in the whole country, actually.
You NEVER have to prove the defendant innocent. The burden of proof is ALWAYS on the prosecution
Writersoul didn’t have her dentist appointment for another half hour, so she decided to go log on for a bit to theyeshivaworld. She clicked on the serial story thread, waiting to see where the story had gone in her absence.
What she saw there made the very marrow freeze in her bones.
They were on to her!
Up til now, NOBODY had figured it out. Nobody. She’d been undercover for years and nobody had figured it out til now.
Okay, so they didn’t have the real picture. The Mafia had made her some offers, but she’d turned them down after a while. (And apparently that same poster thought she was a guy, so yeah.) And okay, so shed been with the Blob for a bit, but not for THAT long- it was just a stupid pre-teenage phase. Of course, it had left her with some very INTERESTING abilities, but still, the Blob had been ANNOYING. When everyone around you looks like jelly, you almost wish you were back in school where you belong.
ALMOST.
But now, writersoul had a new job and a new mission- with the NSA. Really, it had been Reuven’s idea. It was funny how stuff like that worked. He’d gone to yeshiva with writersoul’s cousin’s brother-in-law’s nephew and talked all about his sister’s cool undercover job, and, quite naturally and not yentaishly AT ALL, the news had traveled to writersoul, who heard this and wondered, is this my opportunity to truly transcend the eighth grade without resorting to either a life of crime or a life among Jell-O?
Two weeks later, as the rest of her class was on their senior trip, watching a movie about the Capitol building, writersoul had been secretly picked up and taken to NSA HQ, where she received her first job in their new genetics laboratory. And it had only escalated from there.
High school was cool. She always pretended she had fewer chesed hours than she did- didn’t want to freak ’em all out- and if she did read those Rashis a little bit too quickly, the teachers were always quicker to shep nachas than to wonder about it. But she always stayed focused on her real job- to figure out the genetics of the shidduch crisis.
(I bet you didn’t know that there WAS a genetic component to the shidduch crisis. But there is. And I’m not telling you what it is. Hush-hush.)
It was in the summer before twelfth grade that writersoul first encountered Rivky. It wasn’t face to face- it was simply writersoul trying to get Rivky off of her idea that high school seniors should get into shidduchim. She reasoned, she pleaded, she moaned, she begged. She even sent footage of her school’s seniors at lunch hour, and if that wouldn’t convince her NOTHING would.
But Rivky wouldn’t budge.
So writersoul, feeling defeated, went onto theyeshivaworld and became even more depressed, realizing that her cover wasn’t nearly as airtight as she and her handlers had thought it was- in fact, let’s face it, it was practically Swiss cheese.
But there was nothing she could do about it- she had her dentist appointment in ten minutes.
Shame the Blob hadn’t given her any anti-cavity powers.
gefen: I’m not offended- I reread it and I could see why someone might think it wasn’t serious.
It’s actually also a bit academic as I remember reading about the stairs to the Bais HaMikdash and how they were uneven so that you couldn’t run up them. So I’m just hoping there’s also a ramp :).
distracted; AMEIN!
I seriously can’t wait!