Leonard Cohen
DISCLAIMER: I am a straight shooter. I may have a lot of flaws, yet lack of honesty is not one of them. This text maybe a bit more honest than it should, but it’s not a guide, it’s just a list of personal experiences from a heterosexual male in Israel. I am not a dating teacher as much as a student of the game. I am single so if this article is a novel, then you already know how it ends – I don’t get the girl.
1. Take Israeli women’s suspicion about your intentions as flattering. They are merely recognizing your masculinity.
In Los Angeles you can go out with the girl the same day you first talk to her, and know within the first 10 minutes of conversation where the whole thing is going to go. In LA the only thing women care about is if you are an Israeli or not. Israeli men are abrasive and do not take no for an answer, unless the question is “will you pay?”
But what is a disadvantage in LA is a familiar trait in Israel. Here men are more macho and more assertive. Israeli women may like that more or less, but they always act accordingly. So to the assertiveness of men the Israeli women answer with a defensive attitude that would make the Amazons look like a bunch of subservient housewives. Here women expect men to step over the line and to pursue them to exhaustion. On the one hand they will put you immediately back in your place but on the other they will be a bit thrown back if you don’t try. Israeli women will think that if you are not aggressive you are either gay or European – categories I know only too well from America (https://thewayiseeitla.blogspot.co.il/2014/08/underwear.html)
2. Pay a fortune for your first date.
The second thing I notice is that women measure a man’s engagement through the money he spends on the first date. While in other countries, the amount is divided through the first dates, here what you pay first is what counts. In Israel it’s normal to ask a poor smuck to pay 200 shekels for drinks while his date barely knows his name, and he can’t even call her a gold digger.
3. Make it clear to the girl you are not a tourist.
If you are an Oleh Chadash make sure to state your condition. English or bad Hebrew just make you sound like a tourist who wants to look at the view before he leaves. She will always ask a million times, like all Israelis, “Why did you make Alliah?” Be creative, the truth will be too boring for a date, and way more honest than the question.
4. Be a sportsman. Laugh at the amount of boyfriends in Israel.
All girls in Israel have a boyfriend. Yes, there is a lot of competition in this country but also a lot of bullshit. You win some and in Israel you already lost them all. Remember Blondie’s wise words ”Once I had a love and it was a gas / Soon turned out to be a pain in the ass”. Women, who mention their boyfriend as a conversation stopper, think of men as much as you think of their excuse.