Hair Gel

We are up to boy #16 and BOY OH BOY is he a story.

And ladies?

HE 'S STILL SINGLE.

We're going to call him Hair Gel for reasons that will become apparent.

After a long hiatus living in my out of town community with my parents I returned to NYC and the glorious 6th borough: Washington Heights.

You may have heard of Washington Heights as they made a movie about it.

I have some serious complaints about that movie which I will handle in a separate post so GET EXCITED.

But picture this: Archer is living in her new place in Washington Heights. Her room is big enough for a bed and a desk and that's it. She's just moved in and has her first date lined up whilst she is still unpacking. It's kismet.

The date was set up by a shadchan who had known me for a long time and had set me up on many dates. Meanwhile, I had asked a dear friend of mine to be the goalie-to stand between me and the shadchans and do the reference calling and stop any bad things from getting into the goal.

I'll also explain more about this in a later post.

And Hair Gel was Goalie approved. So I was excited. This had real potential.

He pulls up and parks by a fire hydrant and shoots me a text to tell me he can't move because he's parked by a fire hydrant. I leave my tiny, cozy, little-did-I-know-this-but-completely-infested-with-mice apartment to go meet him.

I took him in with my eyes first. An outfit that was....out there. Floating in the cosmos with Elon Musk.

And the hair gel.

He must have used an entire bottle to get that tussled but put together look. The problem is while Edward Cullen has the face and the natural hair consistency for this look, Hair Gel did not.

Hence all the hair gel.

If you lit a fire within 50 feet of this guy the entire Manhattan would burn to the ground like a modern day Sodom. Which, we deserve, no lie.

I hopped into his car and he took me to Carlos and Gabby's in Riverdale, a popular casual Mexican food restaurant. I noticed that his backseat was filled with stuff and he explained that he was on his way to his old sleepaway camp for shabbos.

I quickly realized that the hour we spent together was a pit stop. He was headed to camp, he needed to stop for dinner, and he also needed to date at some point. Wah La-One stop shop geographically perfect girl at your service.

I don't remember exactly what we spoke about. I remember the one feeling I had: Hair Gel thinks the world could not possibly exist without him here, holding it on his precious and entirely unique shoulders. Arrogance wafted off of him like the scent of his hair gel. As we spoke, I tried to understand where I picked up this feeling. It was no where specific, but it was embedded in every word he said and every action he did. It made me uncomfortable, adding to my discomfort at my realization that I was a pitstop date.

He drove me home, rather quickly, as he had to get to camp. Camp, for a 27 year old man. Every girl's dream. On our way home we discussed how he is a total hero who devotes his spare time to helping special needs kids. When I said the phrase "special needs kids" I was quickly scoffed at. "It's kids," he said, "who happen to have special needs."

And ladies?

HE 'S STILL SINGLE.

I come from a family where a member is considered to be someone with special needs. In the actual special needs community and not the made up one inhabited by people who spend two weeks with a special needs child and then think that they are experts, we recognize that this whole language thing is nice but it really doesn't matter when the kid is screaming in the grocery store. It's also just another fun way to mansplain to your date that she's a garbage monster who uses the R word and uses children who may or may not have special needs to fuel her oven, ala Hansel and Gretl.

But thanks Hair Gel. Now I know.

I cried after this one. Not because of anything he did, but because I was so sure that moving back to New York was the answer and that the right guy would hear that I was back and would immediately find me.

He hasn't. But meanwhile I made New York my home, moved from the mouse infested apartment to one where light shines through my windows in the morning, and built an existence that I love.

And Hair Gel?

Hair Gel is EVERYWHERE. He is at every single single's event that me or my friends have ever attended. I attended one where he sat in the corner with a (male) friend and didn't talk to anyone which kind of defeats the purpose of the single's event.

He dated my roommate at the time who was at a completely different hashkafik place than I was. He has dated girls across the spectrum and I have shadchans saying his name to me all the time.

I think he cannot figure out what he wants or why girls don't like him so he is trying to be everything.

Also. He keeps changing his name. When I dated him he had an english name. Then, for awhile he was going by his hebrew name and he had a beard. I assume the beard was also gelled. Then he switched back to english but with a different pronunciation.

This guy has been through more total life changes than the entirety of the Kardashians combined.

If I had to give him a piece of advice I would tell him to look up.

Not at G-D. At his hair. See, Hair Gel, how gelled together it is? Everything in its place, the way you decided it should be when you sat gelling it for four hours. You want your life to look like that as well. Everything in its place and decisions made about who you are and what you want your life to be.

It also helps when you talk to people at single's events and when you treat women like they know as least as much as you do.

But perhaps the fact that Hair Gel is STILL SINGLE LADIES is actually a gift from Hashem.

Because if a fiery romance gets anywhere near his head we are all doomed.