Read A Kosher Dating Odyssey: One Former Texas Baptist's Quest for a Naughty & Nice Jewish Girl for Free Online Page A
Authors: van Wallach
surprisingly good sense of a woman’s personality—than a half-hour of tortured conversation. As a writer, contacting women online suited my style far better than jostling for attention as just another bald middle-aged guy at a bar or party.
The traditions of my youth, however, were still appealing. In early 2003, I responded to a personals ad in the Forward newspaper. Most of the personal ads were geriatric, but one woman in her early forties, Russian, sounded worth a letter. As a writer, I can do nothing if not crank out an attention-grabbing letter. I summoned up my rusty ad-response skills after a fifteen-year hiatus and sent a note to the woman.
A few days later, the phone rang. The Russian, let’s call her Nadezhda (the Russian word for hope, which she indeed represented at that time of my life) was calling. My letter worked! She had a very heavy accent, but the talk went well and I got her phone number. I asked her to meet and she agreed. We worked out the details to get together a few days later on Fifth Avenue and Forty-Ninth Street after work.
I remember my excitement at my first real date after the separation and how my teeth chattered. Actually, the dental clicking was a combination of nerves and the bone-snapping cold of the night we met. The temperature must have been in the mid-teens as I scurried out of my office at an accounting firm on Third Avenue around 6:30, dressed in a suit. Despite layers of clothing, the cold seeped into me as if I were in swim trunks. Nadezhda was probably used to just such weather, but my Texas roots still kept me acclimated to balmy Gulf Coast weather.
We had no plans for what to do, where to go. Nadezhda worked in a financial position with a state agency, so that gave us some occupational overlap. I waited on Fifth Avenue at the appointed meeting spot, bouncing from foot to foot to keep the frostbite surely affecting my extremities from spreading.
“ Van?” I heard, and turned. I had not seen a picture of Nadezhda, but she knew what I looked like. I saw a well-dressed women with Asiatic features. She reminded me of a Jewish version of the Icelandic singer Björk. As such, she varied greatly from the bred-from-the- shtetl variety of Eastern European Jewish women I typically ran with in my single days. For the very first date of my newly single life, I had made a good start. Nadezhda was breathtakingly attractive.
We decided to stroll and find a place to order a drink and warm up. Our search was not random; she made a beeline north to the St. Regis Hotel.
We settled into a booth and I noticed a young Orthodox couple nearby, perhaps in their modest courting mode. They knew how to get to the point of dating.
The waiter brought the drink menu and we ordered glasses of wine. As a total wine neophyte, I seconded her order. The place was relatively quiet, but I strained to understand Nadezhda’s Russian accent. We talked about our kids, our work, Russia, the U.S. Every word, every gesture of this first encounter was new to me. After about forty-five minutes Nadezhda excused herself to get the bus back to Brooklyn, and I had to skitter to Grand Central Terminal for the train to Connecticut. Our first date had reached its conclusion.
I said I would call, and I did. Nadezhda ushered in my new life and I liked her exotic Björk-like appearance and the notion of a social life. I called, I emailed, and I never heard anything back from her.
I never responded to a print-media personal ad again. The first date of my new single life marked the last date generated by my old approach. Within a month, I joined an online dating site. My social life was going digital. The opportunities for searching, finding, chatting and even connecting, I soon learned, were about to increase dramatically.
Dunked in the Digital Dating Pool
I knew about JDate, but I couldn’t get myself to join it. I was not yet divorced, and the idea of seriously looking for a new woman felt strange. However, I wanted
The traditions of my youth, however, were still appealing. In early 2003, I responded to a personals ad in the Forward newspaper. Most of the personal ads were geriatric, but one woman in her early forties, Russian, sounded worth a letter. As a writer, I can do nothing if not crank out an attention-grabbing letter. I summoned up my rusty ad-response skills after a fifteen-year hiatus and sent a note to the woman.
A few days later, the phone rang. The Russian, let’s call her Nadezhda (the Russian word for hope, which she indeed represented at that time of my life) was calling. My letter worked! She had a very heavy accent, but the talk went well and I got her phone number. I asked her to meet and she agreed. We worked out the details to get together a few days later on Fifth Avenue and Forty-Ninth Street after work.
I remember my excitement at my first real date after the separation and how my teeth chattered. Actually, the dental clicking was a combination of nerves and the bone-snapping cold of the night we met. The temperature must have been in the mid-teens as I scurried out of my office at an accounting firm on Third Avenue around 6:30, dressed in a suit. Despite layers of clothing, the cold seeped into me as if I were in swim trunks. Nadezhda was probably used to just such weather, but my Texas roots still kept me acclimated to balmy Gulf Coast weather.
We had no plans for what to do, where to go. Nadezhda worked in a financial position with a state agency, so that gave us some occupational overlap. I waited on Fifth Avenue at the appointed meeting spot, bouncing from foot to foot to keep the frostbite surely affecting my extremities from spreading.
“ Van?” I heard, and turned. I had not seen a picture of Nadezhda, but she knew what I looked like. I saw a well-dressed women with Asiatic features. She reminded me of a Jewish version of the Icelandic singer Björk. As such, she varied greatly from the bred-from-the- shtetl variety of Eastern European Jewish women I typically ran with in my single days. For the very first date of my newly single life, I had made a good start. Nadezhda was breathtakingly attractive.
We decided to stroll and find a place to order a drink and warm up. Our search was not random; she made a beeline north to the St. Regis Hotel.
We settled into a booth and I noticed a young Orthodox couple nearby, perhaps in their modest courting mode. They knew how to get to the point of dating.
The waiter brought the drink menu and we ordered glasses of wine. As a total wine neophyte, I seconded her order. The place was relatively quiet, but I strained to understand Nadezhda’s Russian accent. We talked about our kids, our work, Russia, the U.S. Every word, every gesture of this first encounter was new to me. After about forty-five minutes Nadezhda excused herself to get the bus back to Brooklyn, and I had to skitter to Grand Central Terminal for the train to Connecticut. Our first date had reached its conclusion.
I said I would call, and I did. Nadezhda ushered in my new life and I liked her exotic Björk-like appearance and the notion of a social life. I called, I emailed, and I never heard anything back from her.
I never responded to a print-media personal ad again. The first date of my new single life marked the last date generated by my old approach. Within a month, I joined an online dating site. My social life was going digital. The opportunities for searching, finding, chatting and even connecting, I soon learned, were about to increase dramatically.
Dunked in the Digital Dating Pool
I knew about JDate, but I couldn’t get myself to join it. I was not yet divorced, and the idea of seriously looking for a new woman felt strange. However, I wanted
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