Crazy Is As Crazy Does

Have you ever been scared of something not quite rational? Everyone understands the fears of snakes and spiders and murder republican clowns but sometimes something comes along that scares you and you want to explain to people how terrifying it is. You want the people outside of you to be in your body for a moment so they can realize that the terror is real and you aren't just imagining it.

Boy #12 (Who I will call Crazy Pants) terrified me. But a lot of people did not understand the terror. I hope I can convey here how I felt in that time in a way that makes you, my reader, appreciate what I felt back then.

I live at home in my parents house in our out-of-town community. I am searching for apartments and jobs, anything to get me back to New York. I get the first real resume I've seen since Boy #11 who you can learn more about here: https://thearcher13.wixsite.com/mysite/post/the-drought-and-the-trick .

It's been another two months of nothing. I wonder if I'll ever find someone.

Then I get sent Crazy Pants through a dating site. He looks cute, and out of townish, and about right for me hashkafically. We set up a phone call to see if there is chemistry.

I remember that phone call well, I took it in a conference room in my office and I sat on the floor behind the table so no one could see me and I stared out the window. We spoke for 15 minutes. He expressed his desire to live out of town, in the small town where I was. In fact, he kept repeating that he was really hoping to one day live where I was from. He also mentioned his love for skiing.

There was nothing wrong with this phone call. I was moderately happy, Crazy Pants seemed to be socially normal and could handle himself through a phone conversation-not all of them can. I was concerned that he was dating me because I fit his out of town ideal and not because of the many other positive traits that make me, me.

Because we met through a particular online site we were setup with a shadchan. I had never met her before this and have not spoken to her since. She told us we should text each other directly to set things up as she would be in Canada with no service on her phone but that we could call her and leave messages and she would get back to us when she had wifi.

Shabbos came and went. About an hour after shabbos I receive a text:

"hey, hope you had a great shabbos. I was thinking about coming in next Sunday and staying until Friday morning, will that work for you?"

I had never met this guy and he wanted to spend 5 days in a row with me. My heart began to pound and the blood rushed to my face. Something felt very very wrong.

I tried to text him back and cool his unearned passion. "I'm more of a two days kind of girl" I said equanimously. "I also work 9-5 with only 30 minutes for lunch. If you came for a whole week what would you do all day?"

He responded "I have someone I vaguely know there and I can just hang out there and wait for you to get out of work, it'll be great."

I just want to say that someone I've never met before waiting for me to get out of work to take me on a date for 5 days in a row is how I die. Most of my dates were one and dones. What was I going to do if the first date went bad? Sleep in my office so he couldn't find me? Sneak out the back door? Have the security guard tase him?

I was leaning towards the tasing.

I wrote back "I would really be more comfortable if you came for a shorter period of time or if I went to you."

He wrote back "ok we'll see."

I am 95% sure that this is the yeshivish equivalent of rape. (No wait, the yeshivish equivalent of rape is....rape. Ok so this is the yeshivish equivalent of like frat party rape.)

The next night I was on the couch watching the SAG awards with my mother. Emma Stone had taken a well deserved best actress for La La Land. My phone buzzed. I looked at the text. It was from Crazy Pants.

This is it, word for word. I will never forget this.

"BTW we need to do Dor Yesharim ASAP"

(For those of you who don't know, Dor Yesharim is a genetic matching service that checks you against a potential spouse for genetic diseases. I am much more partial to J Screen which checks for 5 or 6 times the diseases that Dor Yesharim does. I think if we have science we should use it as best as we can and that's what J Screen is doing. Anyway, back to our regularly programed content."

I screamed and threw my phone across the room where it nearly shattered Emma Stone's glorious ginger face on the tv. My mom jumped, surprised at my sudden hatred of Emma. I began to sob hysterically and read her the text. I went to my room and cried on my bed. I was absolutely terrified of Crazy Pants, this guy who had suddenly implanted himself in my life and was planning our future babies before we had even met for our five consecutive first dates. I was literally scared that he was going to show up at my house with flowers.

I called the shadchan and begged her to call me back. She did so in a huff, angry that I needed help. She insisted his behavior was totally normal. I tried to explain to her that every single encounter I had had with him, even though they were all over the phone, made my skin crawl. I tried to tell her how scared I was. She told me he had already booked his ticket and I should be grateful to get dates at all. If I didn't go through with this no one would want to set me up again.

Aren't shadchans just the very best? The way they carry out Hashem's work in the exact way He would want them to-by taking people who are down and CRUSHING THEM INTO DUST.

I begged and begged until the shadchan relented and said I could have skype date with him (Ah, the days before Zoom.) before he flew down.

Here comes a part I was not proud of.

Sometimes I am the Archer and I need to strike down some prey. This guy made me feel like prey more than anyone else had. I needed to come back with an Archer move to protect myself.

soIactedcrazyontheskypedatesohewoulddumpme.

Like full on actual crazy. I went as hard as I could and I can go HARD. We hung up. The shadchan called me furious. "I don't know what you did," she said "but he's no longer interested and he's cancelling his ticket. I will not be setting you up again."

I try not to wish bad things on people but I hope that every single time that woman is trying to catch a bus or train she sees it leaving just as she arrives.

I went over to a friends house and bawled my eyes out over the situation and how terrible I felt about myself and my life. I have never met Crazy Pants nor the shadchan and yet they both hurt me more than I could say.

A few weeks later I had an opportunity to speak to a prominent Rav in my community. I told him about the Dor Yesharim text and the Rav exclaimed "he said WHAT????" So, it's not just me.

I've seen this guy now at a few singles events and on all the dating sites. During COVID I saw that he had gotten engaged. Then, I got sent his resume again, when he opened up his dating profile on that same site about a week after his engagement ended.

I don't know why G-D needed me to go through this. It did push me toward a rock bottom that I needed to reach to crawl back up but it hurt so terribly. Nothing hurts like fear. So, even though I never met Crazy Pants in person he remains boy #12 because he may have made me cry more than anyone else.

Congratulations.