by JeremySpoke 
under
Date Night,
Single Life
What is wrong with going to a bar alone because it makes you happy? Aside from the many things that probably are actually wrong with that, I like doing it.
Whenever I convince a date to go to that horrible bar that I love, I always get there a few hours early. This is not just because I’m obsessively early for everything due to a decade-long superstition about acquiring a fatal hardening-of-the-skin disorder that I once saw in a made-for-TV movie starring Dana Delaney. It’s also because I love going to bars alone.
It’s so great. There’s no pressure to talk to anybody, yet I am welcome to if I want. The bartender knows exactly what I want because she asks me every time, even if my last order was just five minutes ago. Despite the short-term memory of the nice woman whose only job is to have a long-term memory, this is the only place I am truly happy. It’s usually Friday, and I now know why so many people in education are alcoholics. Alcohol can make you feel things that temporarily erase the other bad things you felt earlier in the week.
The one, and very big, drawback to arriving to a date at a bar hours early is that by the time your date arrives, you are already blisteringly drunk. I already talked about this in “Dating Drunk”, but I don’t think I can emphasize enough how big of a deal this is. This could potentially kill a date, or yourself, if you go overboard with the drinking. You will remember the date, but it won’t matter because you will have to go back to your soul-crushing job on Monday.
by AndyCowan under
Relationships
How much is too much time on the phone before that first hookup? How little is too little?
Too much can run the risk of forming a connection that will inevitably compete with the connection or lack thereof once you lay eyes on each other. A line I once wrote for George in a Seinfeld first draft: “Blind guys have it made. They don’t need looks! All they need is a cute voice. There are tons of women with cute voices!” Love may be blind, but on the road leading there, men and women are both visual creatures.
Being very auditory, I’m drawn to a certain type of voice. The wrong one is a deal breaker right away. The right one, I start filling in the other pieces to the puzzle, probably based on subconscious combos of other interesting women I’ve met across the years with similar voices. A recipe for ultimate disappointment if there ever was one! Before you get to filling in those other pieces… hang up the phone and meet them.
On the flip side, a woman recently avoided giving me her phone number beforehand. The voice inside me said, “This isn’t right.” I wound up basing our “chemistry” on our emails and her eternally smiling picture. How can real life measure up to that? It can’t. Lesson: Listen to the voice inside you. And before meeting her… hers.
by Tamar Caspi under
Relationships
Hi Tamar,
How does your story end after your trip to Israel where you met your Beshert?
I Want to Know
Luckily, the story has a happy ending. We decided I would extend my trip by one week, and we spent that time together getting to know each other and having fun. On my last night he asked if I would move to Israel to be with him, and I did just that! I quit my job, put my stuff in storage and moved to Israel so we could see if this was the “real deal.” Ten months later he proposed, and we eventually moved back to the States where we settled down, got married and started a family.
I truly believe that I had to kiss my fair share of frogs until I found my Prince. Although I didn’t learn something from each date or each relationship, I learned from enough of them that I was able to recognize both who he was and who I am when I’m with him. It was tough going at the time, but in hindsight it was all worth it.
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