Monday, February 7, 2011

A Dating Story

I went on a date once with a guy from my university's medical school. He looked completely normal, and I was having fun until we got to the restaurant and he launched into an endless diatribe about "those nasty Jews who have overtaken Hollywood and mass media to spread their propaganda and their values of greed and capitalist competition."

"Well, you know what they are like," my date concluded his impassioned speech.

"Oh yes, I do," I said. "I know exactly what they are like given that I see one of them every time I look in the mirror. By the way, I always pay for my own meal, but you made me remember that I'm a greedy Jew. So now I will go back to my friends to discuss our Jewish conspiracy to overtake the world, and you can pay the bill."

And then I left while he sat there in astonishment. I'm sure that now he is telling people that Jews are so sneaky that we often look in ways that makes it impossible to recognize us.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good for you! Sounds like one of those awful, awful events that, a decade or two later, become kinda sorta funny in retrospect. Personally, I'm still waiting to receive my first dividend check from the Global Zionist Conspiracy!

Clarissa said...

I know! All these years of hearing about how the Jews have all the power in the world, and still I sit here with no power and even less money. How annoying is that?

Anonymous said...

Oh my god. I've pushed my shift button several times before I realized I can't think of anything to say.

Great comeback. Mine surely would have been laced with a lot more profanities.

Clarissa said...

I had a lot of time to think my response through because his diatribe was really long. Why this person decided to unburden his antisemitic feelings with a person he saw for the second time in his life is still a mystery.

eric said...

That's really creepy--and your response to this cretin was perfect. It seems so uncanny when people go anti-semitic. I remember back when I was in the Marines, and some good-old-boy types in my platoon were passing around anti-semitic slurs, not knowing there were many (myself and my room-mate included) who were Jewish or had some in their background. Such imbecility does not make for good unit cohesion, for sure!

el said...

I am sure that now he is telling people that Jews are so sneaky that we can insult somebody & then make him pay for us, while looking good at the same time. /a joke/

Anonymous said...

You should be grateful he come out as a bigot so soon. Imagine you had actually married this guy or something LOL

Anonymous said...

Hm. I would rather to piss-off him paying for him (me Jew as well and in similar situations mine helplessness to defend us made really being pissing off some of them).
Thrilled really by your personality.
Sorry for the obsession with one topic: it seems yours 179 and mine 180 are very different:you are really really much more adapted yourself to the world and to the communication with the world.--In this situation with a guy I would not be able to be as great as you--I would be immediately turned to a speechless state:-) I wonder if it is the result of circumstances or you just build up your way through.I guess it is the all-together to be not just Aspie,but depend on being right or left-handed,to be born at specific astrological sign etc. You are very verbal and so much more right-brain,so...it all gives you fortunately much more of advantage and allows you to defend yourself and your ideals .
Great and comforting blog of yours.

Clarissa said...

Thank you, Anonymous! It has been a long and complex journey for me. Ten years ago, the idea of saying a word in public gave me panic attacks. I preferred to go hungry all day long because ordering food or even a cup of coffee was completely untenable. I would go through the day praying that people wouldn't notice me or try to talk to me. Often, when people addressed me, I'd just go completely blank. Well, that still happens but less often.

I have opted to make the sociability limitations of my autism as invisible to others as possible. They are still there, of course, but people don't notice them as much. It was a long, difficult and often painful process.

The neurological aspects of autism are, of course, still with me.

Tom Carter said...

Good story, Clarissa, and a great response.

Some years back I read Kirk Douglas' book, The Ragman's Son. Unlike most Hollywood stars' autobios, it's a great read. He's the son of Jewish immigrants from Belarus, born Issur Danielovitch, grew up as Izzy Demsky, changed his name to Kirk Douglas when he started acting. He tells a story of when he was a young and very randy guy, not yet rich and famous. He was romancing an upper-class woman who went off into an anti-semitic rant of the kind you described. He kept silent until later in mid-boink, when he informed her that the fellow doing her was a Jew. I thought that was pretty cool...but then, I'm a little warped anyway.