A Kosher Dating Odyssey: One Former Texas Baptist's Quest for a Naughty & Nice Jewish Girl (22 page)

(My mother knew enough about the ups and downs of my relationship with Calypso to warn me, “Van, I’m afraid she’ll trap you and get pregnant.”

“
Don’t worry, Mom, I’m not marrying anybody.”

“
Don’t be so sure,” Mom replied.)

A few weeks later, we attended an Israel Fair in Manhattan. We attended a presentation moving to Israel and she asked, in a studiously offhand manner, whether I’d go to Israel with her for several months on “vacation.”

I said no, given my mother’s ill health and my career shift. I had enough change happening in my life. She immediately shifted into rage mode and gave me the tight-lipped “you sorry son-of-a-bitch” look I knew so well.

She snapped, “Now I see I can’t trust you as far as I can throw. You just confirmed what I thought all along. You say you love me twenty times a day and then when I bring this up you say, 'Oh, no, I want to do this alone.’ ”

Before long, Fredo re-entered the picture, meant to stir up jealousy so Calypso could jerk my chain and haul me into line. I’d had enough of the dramatics and ended the relationship. Calypso was shocked but she bounced back.

How did she bounce back?

By coincidence, a few days later we were going to a party at the apartment of a Princeton classmate who lived across the street from Calypso on the Upper West Side. That Saturday evening, as I approached the apartment, who did I see but Calypso, strolling arm and arm with another man—wearing the same form-fitting turquoise jumpsuit she wore the first time I met her.

At the party, my friend’s wife told me that Calypso had called her to ask if she could attend the party with another man, since we had broken up. She was told, in no uncertain terms, “no.” Calypso was setting up exactly the same male stare-down she had engineered between Fredo and me. This time, however, I would be the old lover meeting the new sheriff in town.

Yet for all the turmoil, Calypso unwittingly holds a unique place in my life. In all my chronicles of dating, online and otherwise, she is the only woman who ever interacted with both my mother and father; she spoke to my mother and sent her a hand-drawn birthday card, and she met my father at the Brooklyn Museum. After she learned from my Princeton friends that my mother had died in January 1984, she sent me a thoughtful condolence note, which I saved to this day in a bundle with all the other letters I received during those bleak winter weeks. Since then I have always remembered her as naughty but also compassionate. She has a good heart—we just weren’t right for each other.

X to me: “I won’t be able to correspond anymore. I’m sorry. You have been very helpful to me. But someone sent my profile to my husband, and I do not know who it was. So I am uncomfortable talking with anyone, even though we had only a friendly correspondence. I hope you understand.”

Me to X: “I’m sorry your life took this turn—I have no idea who your husband is (you were still married? Separated?). Did this cause some type of problem? Anyway, I hope things work themselves out for you. If you’d like to get back in touch, you know where to reach me.”

In the online era, encounters with other gentlemen of romantic intensions can also take place electronically. One woman, for example, had the strange habit of setting up three-way Yahoo instant messaging chats, involving me, her, and another man—a sort of digital competition to see whose conversation predominated. I felt marginalized, and stopped agreeing to these chat free-for-alls.

The sexual politics are intense. After another three-way chat with people named Jack and Jill—who both lived in Toronto and whom I knew independent of each other—Jack hit me on Hotmail IM, peeved that I wasn’t his “wingman” as he tried to impress Jill. He demanded to know how long Jill and I chatted after he left. I said “a while” but nothing else. Finally I said, “I have my friendship with Jill and that’s that.” What a churlish character. He sounded unhinged, I noted.

Usually the other man cropped up as the
coup de grâce
in a call or email, announcing that a woman has found someone else to focus on. This was always a possibility; so much of online dating happened in the dark, where you only saw a tiny corner of the process. Everything was in flux and nothing was settled until a man and woman agreed that things were settled. Until then, the hidden gears of potential romance were forever spinning and grinding and pulverizing.

That’s what happened with one falsely promising contact I’ll call YettaFromYonkers. Excerpts from her emails form a striking arc of enthusiasm that peaked with a Sunday stroll on New York’s Riverside Drive.

Alas, poor Yetta, she never got a chance to experience my dancing and Russian skills (she would have learned that neither reached the level of even primitive ability).

Messages like the last from Yetta stung for a few minutes—my fragile male ego, you know—but then I shrugged them off. Honestly, I never had an emotional investment in Yetta or other women who said the same thing. If I felt a glimmer of affection, I’d simply write back to congratulate her and say that if the situation changed, she knew where to reach me. Flipping the situation around, I’ve told women friends that I’m dating somebody steadily when they’ve asked, ever so casually, “So how’s your love life?”

But sometimes rejection made me feel like I had been kicked in the head by a mule. After one such episode, I found myself brooding over the new top guy. I tried to picture him. This happened at a time when I had two obsessions. First, I was taking a ten-week course in Krav Maga, the Israeli martial arts form that focuses on butt-kicking survival in street fights, not finding your inner calm and oneness with the universe. I liked its directness. Second, I was fixated on the HBO series
The Sopranos
and the violent actions and capers of Tony Soprano colored my emotions (although not my actions). My mind spun wildly as I imagined the other man. Was the replacement tall, rich, worldly, maybe a Richie Aprile-style psycho with the edge and drama I lacked? (
Sopranos
fans will understand the Aprile reference.) WWTD—what would Tony do?

I soon tapped into my inner Tony. Tony’s replacement moment came after he discovered Irina, a discarded girlfriend, was dating his politician friend, Ron. Enraged, Tony hunted them down and beat the tar out of Ron with his belt. In my version, thoughts of this woman and the new guy boiled over in class. I told my sparring partner I envisioned them together. He picked up on my anger and encouraged me to attack. “That’s it! Now you’re hitting!” he shouted as I pounded uppercuts into the padded shield he held.

When I calmed down, I asked myself, “Who was the real target? Another man who happened to appeal to a woman more than I did, or my own foolish quest?” I had made my own choices here, and knew what I was doing despite my better judgment. As in every other relationship, I was a volunteer, not a victim. I stopped brooding and just continued the search to be the fresh new guy coming in through the revolving door.

Looking back on years of dating online, I ask myself, what did it all mean? I learned, in my roller-coastering search for romance, that being different and articulate at least helped me slide my foot in the dating door. Being from Texas was an excellent marketing tool. I also found that a thin and erasable line separates
amor
from
amoral
. I gained some great friends, slurped enough Starbucks coffee on first dates to float the Battleship
Texas
at San Jacinto, traveled to Brazil and elsewhere, endured a few sleepless nights staring at my bedroom ceiling, and was given a kabbalistic key chain from Israel that I use to this day. I had my heart cracked a few times—and I bruised several myself along the way. I’m now past the searching and its addictive qualities. I’m glad to be done with highs and lows, the endless what-ifs and juggling of multiple opportunities. The Return on Emotional Investment ultimately works better when the eggs settle in one basket.

My journeys in Judaism continue. I recently attended my synagogue’s annual meeting—the first ever for me—and found it enlightening. I peered beneath the hood of the synagogue’s operations, including those evergreen concerns over Hebrew school and a new building. I keep the Stone Edition of the Chumash (the whole “Old Testament,” not just the five books of the Torah) at my office and start the day with a few minutes to read the
perek yomi,
or daily Bible chapter. My son and I recently teamed up to install two
mezuzot
in my apartment, following a quick rabbinical consultation to ensure we were doing the job correctly. Literally meaning a “doorpost,” a
mezuzah
is a rectangular box with Bible verses on parchment. They add a traditional Jewish tonality to the place. The downstairs
mezuzah
, in the shape of a dove, was a birthday gift from my girlfriend, so it has extra meaning.

Judaism grows as part of life’s rhythm. The Jewish calendar, once so foreign to me that the high holidays came as a surprise, punctuates the fall and spring seasons. Living very near Beit Chaverim, I attend services regularly—I don’t describe myself as Orthodox, but I’m religious in my own way. Over decades of repetition, the services, like a meditation text, have become more familiar to me. I can read the Hebrew and follow the text, even finding my place if I lose it or, as too often happens, my attention wanders.

Moments of startling insight and even transcendence jolt me at times. During a Torah study session, a rabbi once said something that simply made total sense: “There are no days off in Judaism.” That context involved observance of the
mitzvot
in Orthodoxy, but I also see it as a plan for nurturing faith as a part of one’s life. Judaism is there; it’s yours, if you want it. Make it matter.

My Significant Other relationship, meanwhile, has perked along for almost four years—longer than any relationship except my marriage. We’ve had a high ratio of enjoyment to exasperation, with a great similarity in lifestyle and values. Nothing beats an evening of Indian food and then indie music at the Tarrytown Music Hall, followed by bowls of ice cream and
Saturday Night Live.
We had a great time at the Montreal International Film Festival. Jewish activities provide memories, such as hearing Israeli singer-songwriter Idan Raichel in what we agreed was the greatest, most tribally rousing concert we had ever attended. She’s always ready for off-beat adventures, such as the annual Menorah Horah burlesque show at Hanukkah and my performances at open-mic events of material inspired by this book. For my part, I gamely tag along on her visits to yarn stores and country fairs, where she spends hours sifting through hundreds of skeins of yarn to find just the right ones to satisfy her knitting addiction.