Falafels and Zohans: A Year in Israel

Baby, talk is cheap

In this installment, apart from embarking on a good old rant, I hope to shed some light on the unbelievable differences between the British and Tel-aviv mentality when it comes to approaching and indeed treating the opposite sex….

While I am still gushing to everyone I meet about how much I love living here, there is one thing I have realised I am not loving so much - the men.  This has come as quite a shock and unsettled me a little. After all, the Israeli people are beautiful.  Most of my first month here was spent admiring the stunning creatures that seemed to meet my eyes every which way I looked and I openly met their gazes, fantasising about how model-icious my next love target was going to be in comparison with the boys of my past.

It didn’t matter that everyone around me was trying to prize away my rose-tinted spectacles. Cousins, friends & even practical strangers all told me to be wary of these seemingly exotic creatures roaming the streets. Although I allowed them to elaborate and listened with open ears to stories of what I have labelled TMS – Tel-aviv male syndrome: schmoozing, cheating, multiple-dating and the worst of all, selfishness when it comes to the bedroom department, I was still hopeful for my hot new boyfriend to sweep me off the sand sometime very soon.

Lo and behold a few weeks into my stay, an extremely spontaneous blind date resulted in a few weeks dating an ex-underwear model, who had by this point finished posing and had his own office and a very prestigious position at a large I.T company – not the usual schmuck on the street in other words. Chatty, down to earth and with a love of the English langauge, I really couldn’t believe my luck – especially when I found out our birthdays were six days apart AND that he loved Sex and the City. As he explained in detail, how all his friends were typical Israelis, messing around with any girl they could get a hold of and claimed he was done with all that, alarm bells should have been ringing. But three dates spent chatting from 9pm through to 3am, did much to mute them.
When I asked him why he even agreed to a blind date, explaining that most Londoners avoid them like the plague, he told me that he met two of his ex-girlfriends through them. I really then was hooked, line and sinker.

But a gradual disappearing act on his part led to us ‘finishing’ last week. While I am not going to go into the details of it, I’m sure it will come as no surprise to you that this guy fell deeply under the ‘schmoozer’ category from the above list and operated along the dictate of:
Say whatever you need to get past the front door then run. 
He also fell under one other which I will restrain myself to keep under wraps.

The rose-tinted spectacles started to cloud over, as I really began to absorb how big a problem TMS is in this place in the days following.  Some notable examples:

On a rare day off from work I am enjoying a short walk to language classes and am cornered (and I’m using the word literally) by not one, but two loons.  Both are least a decade older than me and really not blessed in the looks department; one of whom resembles Michael Stife of REM, so I am more than a little confused, and the other a particularly hairy specimen, but curiously both seem to think they are God’s gift. 
“ I’d like to take your number!” the former exclaims, as though he had just told me I’d won the lottery and should be kneeling at his feet. When I didn’t and lied that I had a boyfriend, he replies charmingly: ‘Honey, I’m not the jealous type.’
‘Well he is’ I retort and march off, infuriated by his arrogance.
The second, who accosts me on my way back, really does have a spanner loose and meets my refusal to go and eat ice cream with him with endless shrieking about how uptight I am and that I need a psychologist. Ironic. The only way I get rid of this one is to take his number and promise to call the next day.

Arrogance, whether deserved or not, is rife here in this land of beauties, even when they are not it seems.  Communication is another.  Just as Israelis have no qualms in physically blocking your way in the street, or chase you down if you try to ignore their advances, they also have no problem ringing your phone off the hook if you do decide to hand over your number.  Never before has my mobile made so much noise and while I should be flattered, it’s all a bit of a pain in the backside when you realise they are all suffering from TMS.  It’s also not so flattering when they all call very late at night, hoping you’re already out and slightly inebriated and would meet them for an early morning coffee/chat/ who knows…
This week, a guy, who had been chatting to my friend all night in a bar, rang me. She had given him my number as he said he wanted to ‘thank me’ for something. Turned out he just wanted to see what I was up to and when I told him I was busy, he then rang my friend to ask the same of her.  We nailed that dude. Girls talk and stupidity, it seems is another TMS trait.

Through the twice-daily hit-ons, phonecalls and legends that are circulated amongst my friends, I could suddenly see all the apparent Adonises for what they really are – animals.
Rarely noticing anything other than a girls’ ass/legs/chest/foreign accent, these guys spend all day hitting on anything female that moves or quite simply, that has a pulse. These are professionals, not romantics.  The rose tinted spectacles were back on, but this time for the boys of my British past.

In London, it is an occasion worth emailing your entire address book, if someone so much as raises an eyebrow at you in the street. So scared to utter a word to one of the millions of young attractive bodies that are brushed past every day, the London male resorts to writing into special pages of the capitals’ many newspapers, where lie full descriptions of the ‘girl wearing a pink chequered shirt with the cute laugh’ who caught his eye last Tuesday at 5.04pm.  He then sits, hoping she will read this particular page of this particular paper and get in touch. Crazy?

They also understand the concept of free will and are more often than not prepared for rejection. If they even get that far.  Unlike the Israeli, who won’t think twice before propositioning you, the British man is much more likely to make small talk for the entire evening before downing a triple vodka and chance asking for your digits.  Before you’ve even had a chance to respond, they’ve usually scarpered off, sure that your reply was ‘get lost’.  I used to think it was hopeless, living in a city of such timid communication. However, at least you know it means something if you are the subject of an eyebrow-raise, paper-paragraph or a bumbling conversation. 

So now I think it is a case of ‘less is more’. 
The British man: Less beautiful, less confident, less verbal. Can take years to ask you out.  But a whole lot more of a gentleman than we realise.
The Tel-aviv male: Stunning, confident, communicative. But a whole lot more likely to hunt you down, divide and conquer. Then crawl back into the wilderness where they belong. 

For the first time – London :1 Tel-aviv :0 !!