Unbroken Glass

Could it be that Eliyahu Hanovi also reveals himself in the image of an Italian mafia-looking guy?

My most recent shidduch was a guy that my (no, not shadchan)… my GRANDMOTHER set up for me.
It was doomed from the start.
She said he was a new baal teshuva and I said no no no.
Then she said he owned a liquor store and I decided to be benevolent.
He was funny on the phone, and everyone had been raving to me about what a good looking guy he was, and how deep and sincere he was, and what a catch he was.
My years of shidduch-dating have taught me that optimism is a curse, at best.
So thank Gd, I was not too disappointed when I met him.

He wasn’t funny anymore. And he wasn’t getting any of my jokes. And, of course, the “liquor store” turned out to be some sort of corner shop.
But I was not broken. Oh no, no, I was way beyond that.
Nothing surprised me anymore, least of all my grandmother’s fascinating little Ideas.

I was nice to him. It wasn’t hard – I’m quite a nice person. It’s just – I couldn’t get any feeling into it.
I was not enthusiastic, to say the least.
We sat. He spoke. About his journey into the world of religion and so forth.
He’d been frum for about a year and he was still all inspired and shiny-eyed from it all.
But I was patient. As I said, I’m a nice person.
He noticed that something was wrong with me (incredibly perceptive of him might I add) and asked me what was wrong.
I told him that I was feeling a little down, because my life was very stagnant at the moment and I was finding it difficult.
He immediately launched into his little Yetzer Hora speech, about how if you give it a little opening it just pours in and ruins your life and would Hashem really be happy with that and is it really conducive to the life I had chosen, one of spiritual growth and striving to go higher.
I wanted to smack him but I kept quiet.
I mean, he was right and all, but I’m a girl – when I’m sad, indulge me a little.
He said some stuff about how my mindset was very secular and did I think that was okay, and added in some not-very-discreet things about how extremely wealthy he was, to wit: Don’t you think your mindset is secular, by the way did I tell you my father owns a yacht in the Pacific?
Stuff like that.

My patience and niceness was beginning to wear thin.
So when he got up to go to the bathroom, I was happy that I was going to have a few minutes to pull myself together and crush some tiny insects on the floor.
No sooner had he left, though, than a very Italian-mafia-looking-character came up to me and introduced himself as the owner of the restaurant.
He told me some very nice things about myself, too boring to repeat. He told me that he wanted my number. I said no. Firmly.
He told me that the guy I was with wasn’t for me and that there was a lot more where that came from, what with his being an extremely perceptive person.
I guess that was supposed to arouse my curiosity.
But it just kind of irritated me.
My phone rang and I answered it, motioning with my hands that I was very sorry and I really was interested in what he had to say, but I had to take this call.
As I was chatting away to my friend, complaining about all the horrible things in my life, Mafia-Man came back and, with a flourish, handed me a napkin.
On it was written the following:
“There is a moment in the upper echelons
Where the gift of life is handed to you
And commands you to raise up
It is difficult to write and speak these feelings
On this expressionless paper…”

Oh, and his phone number.
I mean for Gd’s sake.

Just then my shidduch came back. And me all put out by this strange, strange turn of events. Just the contrast between the poetic scribblings and this man who looked like he had killed three people in very exotic ways that very night, was enough to throw me completely off-balance.
And now this guy… who, apparently, wasn’t right for me…..
I smiled to myself.
Someone up there had a very good sense of humour.
We spoke a little more; he took it straight from where we had left off, telling
me more and more about the evils of the Yeitzer and how we must not give in and not succumb…
And the whole time, out of the corner of my eye, the Mafia-like character giving me longing glances…
Finally I couldnt take it anymore and announced that the evening was over and
I was going home.
He was pretty okay with that, pretty confident if you know what I mean.

The next day when he called me, I ended things with him.
He just wasn’t the right guy for me.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 30th, 2002 at 4:46 pm and is filed under She. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.