I think Awesome Hubby is starting to feel used. I guess I would too if it were so clear that the main attraction I hold for my partner is my reproductive capability. It's very caveman of me actually: You Man, Me Woman, Make Baby Now.
I on the other hand, find the whole mandatory consummation thing sexy. I sit anxiously by the phone, waiting for that romantic phone call from the nurses which will determine the destiny of our love life for that evening. But I guess only a biological clock driven female can be turned on by the possibility of getting pregnant. Not exactly a man's fantasy.
All this sitting and waiting for the phone to ring to find out whether or not I will be having sex takes me right back to my year of sowing my wild oats in New York... or rather, not sowing any oats, just thinking about it a lot. My oat sowing primarily took place right here in the holy land (the Big Apple time is more memorable for many hours of waiting for a phone to ring). So this entry will not be about baby making (I can hear your collective sigh of relief), it will be about something much more juicy: Sex and the Jewish (and Muslim and Christian) City.
Before I met Awesome Hubby, I would regularly fall in love with Israeli men whose sole worthiness of my affection was as basic as having Hebrewish English and a tour of duty with the IDF. Any Israeli who at some point owned an army uniform (regardless of what they did in that uniform) very quickly and undeservedly became my Ari Ben Canaan. I beamed my love for this country onto them with all the fury of a Megaplex Projector. Of course they were all too willing to take the naive American girl out for a spin, and so I would get swept up, hurtled through the Holy Land skies in a whirlwind of passion and idealism, and then dropped right back on the cold Jerusalem stone slightly beat up but, luckily, with little long term damage. It took a few years of these silly Zionist affairs before Awesome Hubby came along (on the white horse as usual) and swept me off my feet with his many winning qualities, his having chosen to become Israeli being just the beginning.
Now that I am out of the dating game and have been for a while, I happily serve as a dating counselor/adviser/therapist for my many single friends (all of whom are convinced that they are the last Single standing). I don't claim to be particularly good at this job, considering that I was a pretty poor manager of my own dating life back in the day, but being a third party observer does give me the distance and perspective that is impossible to have when you are the one telepathically willing the phone to ring, ring damn it. Also, having a happy ending to my dating story allows me the kind of blind optimism that is very hard (and dangerous) to abide by when you are actually out there on the playing field.
Jerusalem attracts hundreds of single Diaspora girls, who like me in my heyday, come clicking down the cobblestone streets with their kitten heels (until they switch to Naot sandals after getting their heels caught in the cracks once too many times). You can find them everywhere: sipping coffee and typing on their laptops in the coffee shops on Emek Refaim, being hit on by the vendors at the shouk, browsing the shops along Ben Yehuda and Hillel street.
These friends of mine are not just looking for their next Zionist fantasy as I did (they are slightly older and much wiser than I was). My friends are smart, successful and attractive women who know who they are and what they are looking for. I love being the fly on the wall for their dating stories. It is my way of reliving those breathless days, full of the excitement, anticipation and nervousness of the unknown.
Or course it's easy to remember it that way – when you are married and your idea of foreplay is looking at baby clothes on the internet. My friends are anxious and often times frustrated by the inadequacy of the selection out there, by the ambiguity and indifference of men, and by the time passing by.
Here is what I tell them: Enjoy this time my dear sister, when your perfect guy is still out there riding his white horse looking for you (or, let's be realistic, sowing his wild oats before he's finally ready to settle down), because right now he is still perfect and the future is unknown, unexplored territory. You are independent, the owner of your own destiny! In a few years you will wake up next to your Awesome Hubby, and he will be wonderful, and your life partner and your hero in so many ways, but he will be real and he will never again be whatever you make him to be in your mind on any given day. And if your intimacy is ever controlled by a committee of old ladies (which I pray you can all avoid), you will miss these days of adventure, risk and uncharted territory. Enjoy it while it lasts, it's only a matter of time before reality takes hold.
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