If you live in an area with a generally small Jewish community (anywhere on earth), you are bound to recognize a lot more people than you would like to in your region on JDate.  Also, if you are Jewish, you are probably forced to go to mixers or socials where Jewish singles awkwardly pretend that they don’t recognize half of the people there from their profile pictures on JDate.  What’s worse, you recognize people whom have never met you in person, but have rejected your instant message request a number of times.  This is probably the worst thing that could happen to a human being.

I’ve broken several bones, had a concussion, my parents divorced, several of my dogs have died or been ‘given away’ (died). I’ve dealt with depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder.  I have lost family members, and not just to death.  In college, my brother went missing for over 24 hours.  Someone eventually found him sleeping on a sidewalk.  My childhood dog ran away several times for no reason except for the fact that he was forced to live outside in our backyard and that my little brother was prone to riding around on him like a horse.  There was a point somewhere in here that I was originally trying to make.

Despite my suburban hardships, few things have felt worse than the punch-in-the-gut feeling I get when I see people in real life that have previously rejected a conversation with me.  Intuition tells you to avoid them at all costs and, if forced to converse with, pretend that you have never seen them before.  I stopped listening to my intuition after giving out my contact info to a girl that had just watched my band play in high school.  What if I turned the tables on them?  Instead of avoiding her, assault her with questions.  “Hey, you rejected a simple conversation with me.  What up?”  She will most definitely deny she has ever seen you.  That’s why I always carry physical copies of my profile pictures in my wallet.  “Look at this.  Why would you not want to engage this face socially?”

I don’t actually carry my profile pictures in my wallet, nor have I confronted anyone verbally about not chatting with me online.  These are just things I think about.