Dating for Everyone

I’m beginning to think there must be a dating site for practically every known kind of person under the sun. Just came across one for Jewish singles, for example. Maybe I should start collecting dating sites as a hobby. There would certainly be a fair number to collect. It’s not that long since I wrote about the goth site, and then there was the one for interracial singles.

I guess Jewish dating has its own particular quirks, though by the look of most of the people advertised on the site you wouldn’t know they were Jewish without being told. None of the guys are wearing those long tassel things down the side of their hair, nor are they bearded. Can they really be Jews?

The Jewish personals site does give you an option to inform others of your denomination within the Jewish scene, from Orthodox to Hassidic, from Reconstructionist to Conservadox (Conservadox?). I guess that means there’s a certain seriousness about the whole thing; this ain’t no site for frivolity. I’d just like to see someone who looked Hassidic up amongst the profile pictures.

Anyway, the temptation to check out what a Conservadox is was too great. I found this informative paragraph on a blog:

Some of you might say, "Pearl, you sound as if you were Conservative all the way." To that, I'd say "No way." We always went to an Orthodox shul, the first one being a real shtiebel in a home, with a mikveh in the basement, a mechitzah separating the men from the women and even a cut-out in the flooring upstairs, so that when there was an overflow of women davening at that shtiebel on the High Holidays, the men took over the women's section, while the women davened upstairs, with the floor tile removed so that they could hear the davening below.

Get the picture?

Getting personal

The tricky part about looking at some sites is that you have to enter details. And dating sites get just a bit too personal - for me. Guess if wasn’t a sixty-plus-year-old grandfather of seven I wouldn’t mind, but with a wife of 33 years in tow, I don’t think this is the time to go on a dating site, even one like JustSayHi.com, which is different because it’s free – unlike Yahoo Personals, as it notes in a slightly superior tone. And no need for a credit card, which might be a good thing for JustSayHi.com as well as the participants.

A friend of mine used to get involved in online dating, and had some interesting experiences. For him, he felt he only met up with slightly wacky solo mothers who couldn’t get out and about otherwise. And he wasn’t that fussed about having a toddler tack along on the dates.

I did check out a bit of JustSayHi.com. There are a number of boxes to fill in before you submit your application, so I had a bit of fun giving myself the username of anatsyha (it has an unpronounceable ring to it) and being 25; discovering that by default I live in Barrington, Illinois (though I would have preferred it to be Boise, Idaho, really); finding I was going to be thought of as five foot tall with black hair (at first I thought I was going to be black), and that I was interested in travel, music, riding horses, cooking, art. Pretty good for a short-stop. I told them I was looking for my south seas belle – the default of a ‘San Francisco prince charming’ didn’t quite cut the mustard, since nowhere had I indicated I was gay. On reaching the last page, just before I might have submitted all this, McAfee told me that on the basis of their research I was likely to receive up to 189 spammy-type emails a week. Well, I guess that’s what I’d want really, if I were going in for this wholeheartedly!