Unbroken Glass

Well, this story is not a regular shidduchim story, for usually you have to hopelessly wait for your shadchan to phone you with an offer that will convince you it’s worth the bother. This time it was not so.

I saw him a couple of times in a coffee-shop in my area, and I couldnt believe
someone as gorgeous as he was could also be frum. Then I saw him on the bus a couple of months later. That’s when I decided that if I saw him again I wouldnt let him walk away quietly.

Well…
That day came.

I was sitting at a coffee shop (yes, the same one) with a friend of mine, and all of a sudden the Greek Statue just waltzed in. I nearly spilled my coffee on my friend.
“That’s HIM” I whispered breathlessly.
She began looking around nervously, searching for the legend, till her eyes came across the tall, muscular, great-looking, cool-smiling bochur.
Since that moment, of course, she has begun admiring my taste in men.

“What am I going to do?” I kept saying to myself aloud in despair.
My friend gave me a few minutes to pick myself up and do something productive about the whole matter, but I just wasn’t going to.
I could have settled for just staring at him from afar for ever and ever, smiling dreamily, that stupid smile of those in love or at least in great lust.

After about 30 minutes of my friend watching me watching him in a controlled panic, she took a napkin, scribbled something on it, stood up and walked away.
I was so obsessed with myself that I didnt even notice what was going on.
She came back to the table and sat back looking very satisfied with herself, and smiling at me mysteriously.
What? I asked her.
Oh, nothing, she said in the most unconvincing tone I’d EVER heard.
I became suspicious.
Tell me, hun, WHAT DID YOU DO?
Well, I saw that you’re not going to do anything so I just, well…
YOU JUST WHAT??? I yelled at her, starting to lose it. I wasn’t sure that I truly wanted to hear the rest.
“Don’t get so upset, I simply went up to him and told him you like him and gave him your number. What’s the big deal”?
I thought I was about to get under the coffee table and never ever leave. I glanced beneath the table. “Hmmm,” I thought. “I could live here.”

Oh… come on, I was only KIDDING saying I wont let him slip away, I mean, HEY, I’m frum, I’m a seminary girl, I DONT HIT ON BOYS AT COFFEE SHOPS!
What a mess.

But she was still looking at me in that infuriatingly satisfied way as if she didnt understand that she’d just completely and irrevocably RUINED MY LIFE.
We went home and I went to sleep, not knowing whether I wanted him to call or not.
I decided not.
So, of course, he did.

He said that frankly he wasnt going to but he checked up on me a little and found out that I’m really a good seminary girl who doesnt hit on guys on a daily basis.
I was kind of happy he’d called, by then.
I put on my best ‘cool’ voice, just so he wouldn’t think I was completely obsessed with him – a futile gesture, since by then he obviously knew that I was.
But he let me play my little game.
He was very sweet about it too, asking me if I would agree to meet him the next day.
I almost didnt let him finish the sentence before screaming ‘Yes!!’. But I restrained myself.

We met.
He was still beautiful. Still very tall, and all muscles and deep voice, radiating manhood. The works.
I couldn’t really speak so he took over the conversation; I guess he was used to that sort of thing.
I kind of just wanted to marry him right there.
Thank Gd I didnt.
He started talking.
And the more he talked, the more I began to realize, through my hazy dreams of really tall, really beautiful children, all radiating manhood and good things, that he was really a very stupid person. I mean, not stupid in that he couldn’t work out basic mathematical equations, I mean this guy was DUMB.

He spoke in a sort of empty monotone, telling me about all those things that he found so deep and meaningful in his life, which were just that much bunk. I sat and listened, thought – maybe he’s not really as stupid as he’s making himself out to be, and anyways everyone says I have a superiority complex…
maybe it can still work?

But by the end of the second hour, when I was almost tearing my hair out in boredom and, indeed, deep disappointment, I realised that all our efforts had been in vain.
Then I began looking for places to hide, since he would only assume that because of our very enthusiastic beginning (ALL my fault) there were no questions on my part, and it was really up to him to decide if he wanted this.
Which, I began to realize, he clearly did.
So when the evening ended, and he called me again and asked me where we should meet that night, and I explained to him that I didnt think it was going to work out, he was taken not merely by surprise – he couldnt talk for about ten minutes. I guess he’d never been rejected before.
Understandably.

It kind of felt good in a really really bad way.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 6th, 2002 at 10:58 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.