Israel’s News Blog Magazine: Daily Stories Video and PhotosBy Maurice Picow
In today’s fast paced, high tech oriented society, finding a suitable life partner is becoming more and more challenging. In modern Israel, especially for non religious females aged 25 and onwards, this ‘challenge’ is becoming an outright nightmare.
In the wake of several popular TV programs, including one entitled Take Them, Sharon, dealing with a young 30+ Israeli unmarried woman desperate to find a mate, single women are finding it increasingly difficult to meet the Israeli version of “Mr. Right”. In the case of the young woman in the ‘Sharon’ program she being exposed to no less than 25 eligible bachelors may not have resulted in her latching on to the man of her dreams, but it did result in excellent viewing ratings for the producing television station, Channel 2.
Both Israeli men and women are finding it increasing harder to meet compatible partners due to longer working days, often in the evening hours as well. While the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and local universities and colleges continue to be the ideal places to find potential mates, meeting suitable partners afterwards becomes more and more difficult. If a young woman is still single by her late 20’s, and especially early 30’s, she finds that men nearer her age often prefer younger women. “Men in this country are very ‘macho’ and self centered” one young woman named Yael was quoted as saying. “They are spoiled by their own mothers and expect a woman to not only do everything to please them (including of a sexual nature) but also to give up their (the woman’s) circle of friends and individual activities in order to cater to her boyfriend’s whims”.
Internet dating services, including JDate and Cupidon are widely used, and have been somewhat successful in helping alleviate the shortage of potential males. While many women swear by this ‘high tech’ method of meeting men, many others will not even consider it. Dangers of meeting psychological disturbed people are also one of the drawbacks of using this method.
With a higher ratio of women than men a reality in the Jewish State, the odds are definitely in the men’s favor. This factor is especially true when having children are concerned, as a woman’s ‘biological clock’ is striking 11 p.m. by the time she reaches her late 30s , while a man can be a grandfather and still be fertile (Playboy Corporation head Hugh Hefner fathered a baby girl at age 72).
While the situation regarding availability of ‘male material’ is not likely to improve, all women can do is live with this reality and not let it dominate their lives. As the old saying goes, compromise is the mother of invention, and perhaps it’s just as well to find “Mr Half-Right” than no partner at all.
One Comment
No, I think “Mr Half-Right” only leads to feeling total frustration. I think an older woman on her own needs to accept the situation and have a lot of single women friends. She also needs to remember that not all couples are necessarily happy. And that some married women with children are left by their husbands, which is a much harder situation for a woman than simply being single.
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