Sabbath with a Twist of French

Brace yourself, this will be a long blog entry, but quite worth the reading….

Yesterday, I was supposed to go to a Shabbos (that’s Hebrew for “Sabbath”) potluck being thrown at a synagogue in a ritzy area on the North side of town. The organization in charge of the event puts together four large potlucks during the year, and tonight was to be one of them.

This particular (did I mention ritzy) synagogue was massive with several party halls. I arrived at the main gathering hall and got my name tag. There were four people I knew already from some of the other events I’d been to lately and they wanted me to sit with them. A good idea for comfort or a bad idea because it’d prevent branching out? Eh, what did I care? I was hungry and I had a veggie platter with humus that needed to be brought to the buffet table. Then, I went to the beverage table to pour myself a drink. A scrawny woman in a fancy dress was trying to open the wine she had brought. She just barely introduced herself when a guy came over and said hello to us. He had a French accent. Although he clearly made eye contact with me and continued to do so, she seized on the opportunity and took over the conversation. He was one of the few single men in the room, and I suddenly felt like a contestant on The Bachelor. (Wow, remind me never to go on that show.)

As I sat and ate, I noticed something interesting. These gatherings were a bit like a junior high school dance--all the boys wanted to sit with each other and all the girls wanted to sit with each other. For a mixer, there wasn’t much mixing going on. There were about eight people at each table. I could count six women to one or two men. Damn, it must be good to be a guy. The one thing I did notice and despised was that some of these men were already married and were dragged there by their spouses. I had to do something that I’ve never done before: check the finger before approaching the dude. Seriously, if you’re married you have absolutely no business dragging your man to these events! You greedy hussies!—Ahem…excuse me….Where was I?

There was one dude I recognized, a pathetic little figure of a man that I actually knew from the past. A librarian at school once made me go with him to his synagogue because he wanted to try to fix me up with this particular pathetic little figure of a man. I think the little figure recognized me, but I kept quiet.

The evening flew by, as it usually does at these little soirees. Soon it was time to go home. Only this time there was a twist. Frenchy the Bachelor had returned to my presence. Ha, beat that Scrawny Woman in the Fancy Dress! I learned something painful, eye contact really is very important. I’m not one to hold eye contact with boys I don’t know because I’m a bit shy (hence I used the word “painful), but it worked out well here. Turns out Frenchy the Bachelor has a father and sister who are in the same profession as me. All of his family is back in France. He’s been living in America for ten years. The synagogue was ready to close at 10 pm, but Frenchy the Bachelor kept me in the parking lot till just after midnight talking about France, being a Sephardic Jew, and why taking up the guitar is a good idea. He was tall for a Jewish man and had long wavy hair. Not an ugly man, but not staggering in the looks department either. His long hair was strange, in some sort of time warp, very 1980s with sunglasses used as a headband to hold back the hair. Is that how the Europeans are doing it nowadays? Frenchy the Bachelor was at his high point when he talked about playing the piano, his career in research, or when talking about France. He earned his low points for me when talking politics, talking about Jazz (for some reason he’s not the first dude my age who’s more into Jazz than good old fashioned rock n’ roll), and about the time he was bitten by a monkey. He’s got a PhD and does research for the major college in town, so he literally once was bitten by a monkey and nearly died (or maybe the story was embellished by him for effect). He’s not Schmooie, mainly because it sounds like he would one day like to return to live in Europe and as much as I love travel, I don’t think my family would want me that far away. But he’s definitely the type you want to brag about to people and say, “yeah, I once dated a French guy.” I will use this to my advantage when I find you Schmooie. I’ll say, “you think you’re so great, well, I’ll have you know before you there was a French man who tried to sweep me back to Paris!” He taught me some French too. So I shall end with “nice to meet you” or as he put it “Au Chaunte.”