Sex & Love
The Morning After Purim
By Mia-Rut / March 10, 2009
I’m writing this curled up in my flannel duckie pajamas, in bed – with a smile on my face. I almost didn’t go out last night, replete with a thousand excuses – I’m tired, I’m too busy, I feel meh, Heroes is on. Pretty lame considering a good friend was meeting other people for a megillah reading and party at a shul where, according to Facebook, I would bump into lots of other people I knew. So, having no real good excuse not to fulfill the mitzvah of getting drunk with other Jews, I packed a costume – Frum Shiksa in a Mask – and headed out to meet my friend’s crew for dinner.
After some cheap sushi and watery sake, we put on our masks and headed to shul. Men and women were seated separately, and although this is not normally my practice, I did find it amusing that the men in this instance were kept in the smaller section behind gates, as if they might not be able to control themselves and lustfully lunge at the nearby women while the hyper-sexual book of Esther was read aloud in Hebrew (which, to be honest, most of the room probably didn’t understand). Soon after the promise of an open bar soon had the sexes mingling sipping cheap booze out of thin plastic cups. A really terrific band playing funky cantorial songs got the crowd dancing. It was a great mix of old friends, people whom I had recently met and of course lots of new faces. Keeping my mask on all night, I was mostly incognito, finding I needed to introduce myself to friends who didn’t recognize me in the loud dark boozy space. But wasn’t that part of the fun of Purim – staying hidden? Isn’t part of the holiday, being someone you are not normally? And last night I was someone I haven’t been in quite a while – a confident, subdued sexual woman – who, at least tonight, had a great deal of control over her identity (the only one person recognized me straight off, but we had a long history of flirting so I think he probably just recognized my breasts). I’m really good at making excuses of why I haven’t gone on any dates lately – the economy sucks, I’m job hunting, I’m thinking about leaving NYC so I don’t want to get involved with anyone. Again, all pretty lame. So last night, while wearing a mask and being the person I’ve been suppressing for a while, I got propositioned – a lot. Cute boys gave me their cards or asked me for my phone number. One very nebbish man, whom I know quite well and dressed like Don Draper, awkwardly (if earnestly) invited me to go home with him. Another rather sexy man in a cowboy hat, I was meeting for the first time asked if he could take me on a date. I was flattered by all the invitations since some people really didn’t know what I looked like behind my mask! Cute Cowboy only saw my face after a bunch of us, all heading uptown, piled into a cab. Who knows if it was only the cheap booze, the illicit things being smoked in the hookah room or the mystery of my hidden face, but perhaps the strong, confident sexual woman I have been suppressing doesn’t need a mask to interact with the world. Yes, the economy is still going to suck, I’m still not sure where my career is going and heck, even what city I’m going to end up in, but last night reminded me I should be living my life to the fullest – every chance I get.
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every time that I drink i get incredibly chatty. im usually very quiet but after a couple drinks i’ll talk your ear off and never feel embarressed. people find it funny!
Hmmm…..Seems they probably ran out of thicker plastic cups and the higher quality booze bcs the turnout was great. Either way, sounds like a really good time and it’s good that you went out! I bet there are pictures uploaded on facebook somewhere…on sixth street…community…synagogue…
Here’s the other question: Don’t many of us wear masks at some point, it not literal, then metaphorically in our psuedo selves? Maybe the attention is why people continue to do it…but mayhaps they should be removed more often.
Well done.
Confidence is a magnet for attraction. Booze is often referred to as ‘liquid confidence’. I’ll let the transitive property sink in. The only confounding variable is when you’ve had so much as to be over confident, or lose your understanding of social nuances.
Also, don’t underestimate the fact that everyone around you was getting shikkured and was probably more at ease approaching you as well.
sh’yihieh lach mazal being a strong, confident sexual woman. As opposed to a sexually confident woman, or confidently sexual woman.
http://www.thestloujew.com
My demeanor and character is somewhere between Albert Einstein and the 1963 Jerry Lewish The Nutty Professor, so I cannot comment on the experience of sexual confidence. Anyway…
I’ve gotten tipsy/drunk once in my life (hence, I don’t know whether I was tipsy or drunk – insufficient data), and it made me more geeky, more talkative, and more gesticulative. I suspect it also brought my latent textbook-case-ADHD out. Picture the 1963 Jerry Lewis The Nutty Professor, add ADHD thereto, and you’ll get some approximation of what I was acting like.
It was at a sheva brachot, and I was discussing the technical aspects of my pseudo-Yemenite Hebrew accent with another fellow, in a very loud voice, interspersed with constant laughter, and accompanied with wild gesticulations and body motions. Suddenly, the bride’s sister turned to me and accusatorily gasped, "Are you drunk?"
Then, on the bus-ride home, still loud, still laughing, and still with wild gesticulations, I discussed a recent technical article I had read about the recent conversion crisis in Israel. I also fit the story of my mother’s conversion to Judaism and the Noachidic philosophy of Rabbi Eliyahu Benamozegh in that conversation.
One more detail: Every time I cited any authority figure – rabbi, professor, non-Jewish clergyman, you name it – I referred to him as "rabbi". So apparently, my mental faculties were somewhat impaired.
Oh, another detail: the alcohol didn’t help me gain one iota of extra confidence to talk to any of the several very attractive women there. (I can only assume that a mask wouldn’t have helped me either, and I’m certainly not the sort to whom women will spontaneously come. I’ve just got to find me a nice geek-et, and I’m set.)
So that’s what happens when I imbibe alcohol.
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