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Orit is a painter and writer living in Tel Aviv. She is currently working on her first book, entitled The Fountain of Esther, a creative comparison of the Book of Esther and The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand.
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By Orit
November 18, 2004
I told my friend Schimmel exactly what I was looking for: likes to have a good time, cute, open-minded, smart, easygoing. He told me he knew the perfect person for me. So he set me and Tyra up on a "blind date."
It was love at first sight. At the time, Tyra had many qualities that I was looking for in a girlfriend, i.e., a friend who is a girl. She was fun-loving and open; she had my exact same taste in men; she loved Karaoke and pop music, especially Madonna. I called her the next day, and we went out on our second date. I told Schimmel that the shidduch was perfect. Tyra became my first best friend in Israel, and through her I also met "Bonita," as we liked to call her. The men at the nightclubs knew us as the "Bermuda Triangle." They said they got lost in us. Yep, we were the closest thing to Sex in the City that you could get in Jerusalem.
Eventually, though, they both moved to New York and, while we spoke a lot on the phone, it wasn't the same without them near me. I missed getting dolled-up together for a night out, rocking the house at Karaoke, and crying with them in my living room when things with men just didn't go right.
Then one day, after a year-long dry spell in good, local girlfriends, I saw a woman standing with a funky leopard purse in the middle of the art exhibition at the Museum where I worked. She had come to report about the exhibition for a local newspaper. I thought she was really cute. Turns out she was American, so I struck-up a conversation with questions common for small-talk among olim (immigrants to Israel): "When did you get here? Why haven't I seen you around before?" I discovered that Lorena lived a few blocks away from me. And then I got the guts to invite her out for coffee at a neighborhood joint. She accepted.
She was also single, and being several years older than me, she seemed wiser in the ways of male-female relationships. We talked about our relationship experiences, our hopes for the future, our mutual love for and difficulties in Israel -- and we hit it off.
Recently, though, I moved to Tel Aviv and left Lorena and the rest of my girlfriends behind. While we are still in touch, sometimes daily, I don't see them as often.
Now, I'm experiencing a dry spell again, and, sometimes, I'm less concerned with meeting a guy than I am with meeting a girl. I thought it would be easy to make good girlfriends in the big city. But even in Tel Aviv, I find that it's getting harder for me to find one. Many women my age are either involved in serious relationships or married with children. This means that more often than not, they have a different set of priorities and needs. They have a lifelong romantic best friend with whom they spend most of their free time, and they certainly don't go out on the town as often as I would like. So not only do I have to wonder if the guys I meet are "available," but I have to wonder if the girls are too.
Not long ago, I was at the gym waiting for a pilates class to start, and a petite, sweet-looking Israeli woman was sitting next to me by the health-bar. She looked my age and also single. I wanted to strike up a conversation, but I didn't know what to say. "Hi, where are you from?" That didn't seem right. Had she been a fellow olah, that question would have been more appropriate. Then insecurity seized me. Maybe she's not looking for friends like I am, I thought. She probably grew-up in Israel and is all hooked-up with her friends from high school and the army.
Then I wondered if it would have been easier to shoot the breeze with her had she been a man. Precisely because she was a woman, my shyness took hold of me and I clammed-up. Maybe she would think I was strange or lesbian for making friendly "advances." In addition to that, women are traditionally known to be natural competitors, vying for the coveted male protector. I'm not sure if this stems from a biological instinct or social conditioning, but I know that subtle female competitiveness often prevents free-flowing friendliness among women, and I think it's a shame.
So I'm still on the prowl. I'm cruising for a local, platonic girlfriend, and I know from experience that one way to find one is to use the mating rituals reserved for romantic relationships. I ask my friends to set me up with girls. Sometimes, but not often enough, I get the nerve to "flirt" with a girl who catches my fancy. They don't have J-date or singles ads for girls seeking girls -- in the straight sense -- but maybe they should.
Because finding a good girlfriend -- a girl you can really count on, who wants the best for you, who doesn't get jealous, who's open and honest, who you can have fun and be yourself with -- is sometimes just as hard, or even harder, than finding a boyfriend.
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Purely personal messages to Orit can be sent to orit@israelinsider.com. Please use Talkback for messages of general interest.
Views expressed by the author do not
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