November 19, 2009 | 9:24 am

Starbucks

Posted by Ilana Angel

I can’t remember when going to Starbucks became an acceptable date but meeting someone for a cup of coffee is not a date it’s an interview and I think it’s unacceptable and am so surprised when people write on their JDate profiles that their idea of a perfect first date is meeting at Starbucks.

I understand from a man’s perspective that if he is going out on a lot of dates it can get really expensive taking women out for lunch, dinner or drinks but I would rather go dutch on a real date that have him buy me a cup a coffee and have to sit in a Starbucks trying to get to know someone.

For me the perfect first date is going out to dinner and again I am happy to pay for dinner myself because it’s not about getting a free meal it’s about getting to know someone and at dinner you can take your time and talk plus you can learn a lot about a person by how they treat wait staff.

If you date just to date then I suppose Starbucks is a good call because it’s like a factory and you can get a lot of people in and out for not a lot of money but if you are dating to meet someone special then you need to take a more old fashioned approach and go into it with hope that this could be it.

I am tired of dating and frustrated that people are just not honest about what they want.  JDate should add a couple of choices to the “what you are looking for” field and if I may make a suggestion: 1) coffee 2) getting laid 3) happily ever after.  These selections would make it easier.

In addition to a man listing his age there should be the following choices: 1) frat boy 2) pathological liar 3) prince charming.  For the record there is nothing wrong with any of these choices just be honest about what it is that you are looking for and more importantly what you are capable of.

I’m frustrated with my dating life today and by frustrated of course I mean done and by done I mean that I really don’t think it’s supposed to be this hard and the next person who tells me that when I stop looking I will find love should be careful because I am going to have to hurt them.

A friend of mine died yesterday.  He was young and beautiful and it’s heartbreaking but what it does is make you appreciate your life and want to live the best life possible and makes the desire to share it with someone greater and somehow more immediate.

Life is short and full of surprises and you never know what will happen but I know that my life is meant to include a great love story with a wonderful man and for now that knowledge will have to be enough.  Rest in peace beautiful Blue, we will always keep the faith.

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November 18, 2009 | 8:27 am

Twitter

Posted by Ilana Angel

Yesterday I officially joined Twitter and sent my first Tweet which is awesome but I think it’s important to come clean and share that I have no idea how it works or if I did it correctly but my blog is now being tweeted and while I feel very cool to be able to say “hey I just tweeted” the fact of the matter is that I really just don’t get it.

I joined because it was suggested that I tweet about my dates so people can see how it’s going and the truth is that I totally would tweet on a date if I had any idea how to do it which I don’t so right now it’s simply my blog that is being tweeted but I’m hoping to learn and by hoping to learn of course I mean do I really care that much about learning how to tweet?

I’m not clear as to why we need to have both Twitter and Facebook but my Twitter name is very clever and original and the same as my Facebook name which is “ilanaangel”.  I hope to get the hang of it quickly and will then be able to share random and useless updates with all of you but since I’m not quite up and running let me use my blog today to update a couple of things while I figure out Twitter.

1) I think Joanna Krupa would have made it to the finale of Dancing With The Stars if she had not played the Playboy card and flaunted that she was on the cover during the last week of competition.  Big mistake sister.  Middle America was digging the poor girl from Poland story until you got naked.

2) The Republican has changed his JDate profile once again and is now 35 and 5’10” which makes this 3 different ages and 3 different heights in one week and even more fascinating is that he took down his picture which I’m guessing he did so he could hide behind his lies but it’s not working buddy.  We are watching you.

3) I wrote yesterday that I was going to perhaps give being a cougar a try which was my intention until I was at the grocery store and someone made a cat noise as they followed me up the frozen food section.  It was my friend Corey who said he thought it was a good idea and reminded me that he was 33 and his girlfriend was 41 and they were happy.

4) I live in a neighborhood with a lot of people who apparently read my blog which is really nice and at the same time weird because while I get a kick out of being recognized from the blog it’s a little unsettling and makes me think that maybe Twittering might be too much of a good thing and perhaps I need to stick to my blog and the good old fashioned internet.

I can remember a time when my cell phone weighed 10 pounds,  there were 2 computers for my entire school because they were so big, there were rabbit ears on my television which had only 8 channels and I needed to research a map to get directions.

The world has certainly changed since I was my son’s age and I can only image what it will be like when he is my age and at the end of the day I just might not be ready to jump into the world of Twitter and perhaps I just need to slow it all down a little bit.

Technology is fabulous, scary, intimidating and exciting which is just like my dating life and it’s hard for an old dog to learn new tricks and even harder to use an analogy where I am both old and a dog, but here we are and all I can do is give it a try, hope for the best and keep the faith.

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November 17, 2009 | 5:44 am

Cougar Town

Posted by Ilana Angel

Laurel Johnson and the Cougar

It took me a minute to get onboard but I now love the show Cougar Town, Wednesday nights at 9:30 on ABC, and even though I have never dated anyone who was more than 3 years younger than me, and even then it bugged me a bit that I was the old one in the couple, I envy those who can date young and yummy men. 

“Jules and Laurie” from Cougar Town remind me of myself and my friend Laurel who is 27.  I spent a lot of this past weekend with Laurel and it occurred to me that we had the best time with a million things to talk about and there is a huge age difference so it begs the question: is there any good reason for me not to date a younger man?

Laurel and I have an interesting relationship in that the line blurs between who is old and who is young.  We are both teachers and students to each other which is fascinating because I have said to male friends who dated much younger women that they could not possibly have anything to talk about but Laurel and I always have things to talk about and there is a 16-year gap.

She reminds me that I am young at heart and I remind her that she can accomplish anything she wants.  I really love her and by love her of course I mean that I will continue to love her as long as she does not want to date the same men as me because then she becomes my competition and I will have to kick her @$$.

The big roadblock for me is kids.  If I date someone who is much younger and invest time into it and then fall in love with him and he decides he wants to have kids of his own and by then I’m 45 and it’s not going to happen so what do I do then?  I will not only be dumped for a girl with fresh eggs but I will be forced to deal with the fact that it is because I am old.

Maybe Laurel and I should tag team on JDate as a package deal.  We can date fathers and sons, which would be great because she could take the son and I’ll take the dad and if all the stars align and we want to try something new I could date the son and she could date the dad because she is proof that younger can be really great.

At 43 I am in my sexual prime and the most comfortable I have ever been with myself as a woman and a younger man might appreciate that more than a man who takes Viagra and enjoys the early bird special. Laurel thinks I need to do some cradle robbing and she tends to be right about a lot of stuff in my life so maybe this is one of her ideas I should listen to.

All this time I’ve been thinking how great it would be for Laurel and I to date a father and son team and it turns out that maybe the key to that success is my dating Junior and Laurel taking Gramps.  I know I would be a cougar to date a man 16 years younger but would the older man be a cougar for dating Laurel?

This cougar idea is something to think about and if you have not seen the show you really should catch it because it is hilarious and relatable and it was put on the air by Stephen McPherson who I am courting for a job so if you all watch it I can take credit for the ratings boost and he will be indebted and therefore hire me! 

At the end of the day I write all the time about how open I am to love and that I have no expectations about who my Beshert will be but if I’m going to be honest that’s not totally true because I have been closed off to younger men and my Beshert could be one and my friendship with Laurel has shown me that which is exciting because it expands my dating pool.

I’m going to visit Cougartown and will let you know how it goes.  No promises but it’s worth a quick trip to scope out the possibilities.  I know I will find my Beshert as will Laurel and before last weekend I could have guessed how old they would be but if I were promised a million dollars now to name what their ages would be I’m not sure I could do it as she has given me a new option.

To Stephen McPherson, have your people call my people and by my people of course I mean me and I will gladly come and meet with you as soon as I return from my holiday to Cougartown.  To my darling and fabulous friend Laurel thank you for everything that you bring to my life.  We are both on the path to love and all we need to do is keep the faith.

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November 16, 2009 | 7:14 am

Soulmates

Posted by Ilana Angel

According to Wikipedia: a soulmate is somebody with whom one has a feeling of deep and natural affinity, love, intimacy, sexuality, spirituality, and/or compatibility. A related concept is that of the twin flame or twin soul – which is thought to be the ultimate soulmate, the one and only other half of one’s soul, for which all souls are driven to find and join.

One theory of soulmates, presented by Aristophanes in Plato’s Symposium, is that humans originally consisted of four arms, four legs, and a single head made of two faces, but Zeus feared their power and split them all in half, condemning them to spend their lives searching for the other half to complete them.

Some people believe that souls are literally made and/or fated to be the mates of each other, or to play certain other important roles in each other’s lives and according to theories popularized by Theosophy and in a modified form by Edgar Cayce, God created androgynous souls, equally male and female.

Later theories postulate that the souls split into separate genders, perhaps because they incurred karma while playing around on the Earth, or “separation from God”. Over countless reincarnations, each half seeks the other. When all karmic debt is purged, the two will fuse back together and return to the ultimate.

If this is true then we each get only one.  There is just one person out there who is destined to be our soulmate and when you think about how many people there are in the world how are we ever expected to find that one person out of billions?

Are there different levels of soulmate?  My child’s father is not the person I was supposed to spend the rest of my life with but I have a delicious child who completes my life so could it be that my son is my soulmate and that is the great love of my life?

Can you go through life constantly searching for this person and never find them because maybe they got tired of searching for you and are with someone else who is really close and perhaps good enough?  Is finding an almost perfect match a more realistic way to look at love and if you do find an almost perfect match do you shut off all parts of you that look or do you keep one eye open?

I have always believed in the theory of a soulmate but to be honest I never really took the time to look up what the true meaning of it was and now that I have I’m thinking it may be near impossible to find.  I will keep looking of course but I must say that it is a little discouraging.

Searching for love is draining and waiting for it to find you is exhausting so where you add in the desire for a soulmate where do you draw the line between a true soulmate a really, really good match?  At the end of the day I can put faith in God that there will be guidance in leading us to one another and place faith in my soulmate that he will not settle and keep looking for me.

I pray I won’t be so tired that I’m sleeping when we come across each other and will remain hopeful that each day brings me one step closer if I keep the faith.

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November 14, 2009 | 8:59 am

Soulmates

Posted by Ilana Angel

According to Wikipedia: a soulmate is somebody with whom one has a feeling of deep and natural affinity, love, intimacy, sexuality, spirituality, and/or compatibility. A related concept is that of the twin flame or twin soul – which is thought to be the ultimate soulmate, the one and only other half of one’s soul, for which all souls are driven to find and join.

One theory of soulmates, presented by Aristophanes in Plato’s Symposium, is that humans originally consisted of four arms, four legs, and a single head made of two faces, but Zeus feared their power and split them all in half, condemning them to spend their lives searching for the other half to complete them.

Some people believe that souls are literally made and/or fated to be the mates of each other, or to play certain other important roles in each other’s lives and according to theories popularized by Theosophy and in a modified form by Edgar Cayce, God created androgynous souls, equally male and female.

Later theories postulate that the souls split into separate genders, perhaps because they incurred karma while playing around on the Earth, or “separation from God”. Over countless reincarnations, each half seeks the other. When all karmic debt is purged, the two will fuse back together and return to the ultimate.

If any of this is true then we each get one.  There is one other person out there who is destined to be our soulmate and when you think about how many people there are in the world how are we ever expected to find that one person in billions of options?

Are there different levels of soulmate?  My ex-husband is not the person I was supposed to spend the rest of my life with but I have a delicious child who completes my life so could it be that my son is my soulmate and that is the great love of my life?

Can you go through life constantly searching for this person and never find them because maybe they got tired of searching for you and are with someone else who is really close and perhaps good enough?  Is finding an almost perfect match a more realistic way to look at love and if you do find an almost perfect match do you shut off all parts of you that are looking or do you keep one eye open?

I have always believed in the theory of a soulmate but to be honest I never really took the time to look up what the true meaning of it was and now that I have I’m thinking that it is near impossible to find.  I will keep looking of course but I must say that I’m a little discouraged.

Love is complicated and searching for it is draining but waiting for it to find you is also exhausting so where so you draw the line between hoping and searching?  At the end of the day I can put faith in God that there will be guidance in leading us to one another and faith in my soulmate that he will not settle and keep looking for me and remind myself that each day brings me one step closer if I keep the faith.

Shabbat Shalom.

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November 13, 2009 | 8:11 am

Aaron Carter Fan Club

Posted by Ilana Angel

Yesterday I blogged about my love affair with ABC and I got an email from someone who I can only assume is the President of the Aaron Carter Fan Club and by assume I mean that I must guess who it was because they were too much of a coward to put their name on their comment. 

“F You” wrote to share the following:  “now that Aaron Carter is gone you can watch DWTS? What did aaron do to you? How about you go KILL yourself before you talk about somone you dont know. That kid has worked so much on the show.. no one is asking you love and vote for him,.. but have some respect for another human being. hope you rot in hell you fucking jew.”

Although I was tempted to correct the spelling and grammar I left the post exactly as it was written because who am I to censor someone else’s words.  I think the words would have been more powerful however had the writer had the courage to put their name on it.  My favorite part of the posting is where I am asked to have respect for another human being in the same sentence that I am called a f-ing Jew.

There is nothing to say to this person but I would like to point out that the show is called “Dancing With The Stars” not “Dancing like a hyper little monkey who cries every time they dance to make people feel sorry for them and then work really hard to be a good dancer but have it be too late because you’ve already grossed out everyone who is watching so your dancing does not matter as much as your annoying personality and trying to recapture a sliver of the fame you used to have With The Stars”.  If they make that show Aaron will win for sure!

I also got an email from Drew who suggested I watch Mercy on NBC.  I’m not sure why I have not watched this one Drew but I will give it a try.  I loved ER and I miss it so this might be a good fill in for that void.  I will let you know what I think about it and thanks for the tip.

I’ve written about my friends Michelle and Jeff who are the cutest couple ever and I love them and aspire to have a relationship like they do because you simply cannot spend time with this couple and not smile because they are poster children for not settling and waiting for your Beshert because if you are patient you will get it right and that translates into happily ever after. 

So Michelle gets in touch last night to say she is grocery shopping at a kosher market and it’s full of single men and I need to come shopping so I asked her how she knew they were single men and she said she knew because they were shopping like bachelors, which translates into buying one piece of chicken which is too funny and by funny of course I mean I will be there next Thursday shopping for one piece of chicken and by chicken of course I mean tofu.

To those of you who follow my blog regularly I must tell you that the Republican is back on JDate and this time around he has listed his age 33 and his height as 6’3” which is hilarious since he told me he was 40 and that he was 6” when really he is about 5’10”.  This guy is an idiot and if JDate had a place to complain about people where I thought they might actually read it or care, I would tell them this guy is a pig and they should ban him.

To Stephen McPherson I don’t think I mentioned yesterday that I think you are a smart and handsome man.  Truly.  I’m not kidding.  We can talk about how brilliant you are when we talk and by talking of course I mean call me.

I’m glad it’s Friday and I hope you all have a great day and a peaceful Shabbat.  Be kind, love your kids, call your parents, if you see members of the military thank them for their service, be tolerant, laugh, live your life without fear, forgive someone, appreciate your friends, be responsible for your actions, don’t give up on your dreams and remember to keep the faith.

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November 12, 2009 | 8:43 am

I Heart ABC

Posted by Ilana Angel

Last night I discovered that while I have been searching for love I actually fell in love.  It’s official. I heart ABC.  I am having a love affair with ABC Television which is weird because I can remember a time when I watched nothing on ABC and by watched nothing of course I mean they had nothing good.  Now so many of the shows I love are there and spending a night in is more enjoyable than going on a date with someone who lied about his age, height and wife.

It’s odd to me that the ratings for some of these ABC shows are not higher and it begs the question who is Mr. Nielson and who at CBS is trading sexual favors for a few boxes?  I’d like to have a Nielson box in my house because ABC rocks and if the shows I watch are cancelled because someone at Nielson said nobody was watching them I’m going to have to kick some @$$.

Important to note that I don’t work for ABC and by not working for them of course I mean I want to work for them and they should hire me to be their online blogger because I love them and I’m a blogger and that just makes sense.  I figure if I reached out to Mike Fleiss forever and now we’re BFF’s then I should be giving a shout out to Stephen McPherson.  Stephen, Steve, sweetie, call me.  You need a blogger and it should be me because who better to talk about your shows than someone who really loves them?

While I anxiously wait for the new season of The Bachelor to premier in January I’ve been watching some really entertaining stuff.  In terms of reality television it does not get better than Dancing With The Stars and now that Aaron Carter is gone I can watch the last couple of weeks with complete joy.  Extreme Home Makeover always makes me cry and Find My Family is going to kill me but I will watch it and love it.  Super Nanny performs miracles and Shark Tank is brilliant and it’s not because there are so many Canadians on there, its just brilliant.

Modern Family may be the best sitcom on television and if you are not watching it you must because it is hilarious and smart.  Cougartown took me a minute to get because I don’t know any divorced women who look like Courtney Cox Arquette but that said, it has grown on me and you cannot watch it and not love her and her friends.  It makes me laugh out loud and that is hard to do because I’m so jaded and bitter and by jaded and bitter of course I mean I love sitcoms and am jaded because there is a lot of not funny stuff on television and this one is a winner and people need to watch it and bitter because clearly the Nielson boxes are in the homes of people who have no sense of humor.

Desperate Housewives, Lost, Ugly Betty and Grey’s Anatomy are still great and I’m not tired of any of them and the new shows like V and Flash Forward are just good television.  When the FBI agent on V turned out to be an alien my son and I started screaming at the television, which is always a good sign and when Jessica Capshaw gave the speech to Hector Elizondo about being gay I was bawling like a baby.  Of course there are a couple of duds and by duds I mean there are only so many hours in the day that I can watch television so they are duds because I can’t get them on my personal schedule.

I can think of no better job than to watch ABC all day and blog about it and by no better job of course I mean Stephen MacPherson must call me.  I would happily “take a meeting” to get started on my blogging.  It is comforting to know that when I cannot bring myself to go on another JDate I can always snuggle up in bed with ABC but with that said, when I meet my Beshert, and I will, I won’t break up with ABC I will just make sure that he falls in love with her like I did.

Once I start working for ABC I will of course still blog for The Jewish Journal and will still travel on the JDate Hell Train because I’m a great multi-tasker and I’m on a focused mission.  I will find love, share the joy that is ABC Television and my JDate experience will not be complete until I have dated all the men who are married, convicted felons and don’t know the difference between 5’4” and 5’10”.  It’s important to have a goal and all goals are attainable if you just keep the faith.

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