‘What Are You Doing Here?’

Wednesday night. Gotta change things up in my life. I’ve paid the $5, now I’m going to take the 30s-40s ride. Match.com is throwing an event at 8029 Sunset Blvd and I’m going. Yes, I know BINA LA has an event at the same time in Santa Monica but it costs $30 and is for the 25-45 crowd. I’m 47 now. I didn’t have success with my last runs with JDate and Frumster. So now I’m keyword searching “Jewish” on Match.com and POF.com and emailing everyone I find attractive. I’m getting a 10% response rate.

So I walk in and start meeting people. Everyone’s nice. Considering the awkward circumstance of a singles mingle, conversation moves along. Still, I’m itching to leave when I hit off with two women about 40 who work in the entertainment industry. I hole up with them at their table for about an hour. They’re not Jewish. They ask me, “What are you doing here? You’re looking for someone Jewish. Why aren’t you on JDate?”

People keep asking me that, “What are you doing here?” As I step out into the wider world, I keep feeling that I don’t belong.

I run into two Israeli guys. They have no plans for Rosh Hashanah. I’m about to leave when this high energy Creole woman with kinky hair walks over and lights up my night. Eventually, I get her alone. “What am I going to do with you?” she says. “I’m never going to become Jewish. I’m not going to change. I like who I am. I can’t drink with you. I can’t eat meat with you. I can’t have sex with you. I’m going to circulate.”

It’s almost 10 p.m.. Time to go home. I do a u-turn across double yellow lines on Santa Monica Blvd and the police pull me over. They ask me to wind down all my windows. They ask for my driver’s license and registration. They ask me if I have anything in the car that I wouldn’t want them to see. I told them they’re welcome to search. They ask me if I have ever been arrested. I say no. They ask me where I was. “A match.com party,” I say. “I don’t drink. You can smell my breath.”

“Do you know why we pulled you over?” asked the officer.

“I followed the example of the car in front of me and crossed the double yellow line,” I said.

“Where are you going?”

“Home,” I said. “I live about four miles from here.”

They run my information and let me off with a warning.

Ivan posts to my FB: “In my opinion, you traded one very controlling religion SDA for another very similar one.”

Michael: “Gives a new meaning to the expression that if we forget we are Jewish, the gentiles will remind us.”

It never ceases to sting when it takes strangers to remind me of who I am and where I belong.

The non-Jews I meet have nothing but respect for Orthodox Judaism. Frequently, they see us more clearly than we see ourselves.

I really like black girls particularly if they have a white girl’s body. I like their strength. I love their gleaming white teeth and kinky hair. They make me smile. They seem to like Jewish guys. They don’t hold back with what they’re thinking.

If I could just land a black (Jewish) wife, then nobody could accuse me of racism and I’d have carte blance!

It was so nice to be wanted and desired by women. I don’t get that so often in shul.

I like women who dress nicely. I like it when they offer to buy me a drink. I walked around last night afraid some woman would ask me to buy her a drink. I’m not into that unless we’re already in a relationship.

There were some women there last night who had a filthy mouth. I like that in a woman. There was this one exec in a super posh outfit, sipping champagne, and the varieties of the ways she could say f*** took my breath away.

I met a therapist and got to talk about John Bowlby and attachment theory for 15 minutes.

About Luke Ford

I've written five books (see Amazon.com). My work has been covered in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and on 60 Minutes. I teach Alexander Technique in Beverly Hills (Alexander90210.com).
This entry was posted in Dating, Personal. Bookmark the permalink.