What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding

by Kristin Newman

She didn’t believe him, and so was now saying “I love you” to a man who wouldn’t say it back because he was afraid of making women mad at him when he didn’t follow through on promises. “I love you” was a promise he wasn’t willing to make.

and Skyped from Israel with the man who kept telling her he was nowhere near even wanting to move in together, let alone get married or have kids, like she was ready to do. Which was what he had been telling her for almost two years. She vacillated between making excuses for him, declaring she was ready to end it, and, way too often, calling herself “unlovable.” Astrid was a lawyer, and an über-tough broad for a tiny ex-gymnast, so all of this always came in the form of “jokes,” but it was wearing on her. She was thirty-five, beautiful, smart, well-traveled, successful, and acutely aware that her romantic history comprised a long list of less-than-worthy men who had all eventually left.

Getting on a plane was her medicine, too.

I believe Jerusalem is the most important place on the planet. You don’t have to be a believer to be moved when you stand on that ground, every single stone bled over, and watch people from three major religions and every country in the world file in by the busload every minute of every day to the place they believe was chosen by God.

think: Jerusalem belongs to the world. Not to the Israelis, not to the Palestinians.

speaking. Israelis have no patience for niceties or bullshit or small talk. They love direct questions and will always give you direct answers.

Mohammed flew there overnight from Mecca on his way up to heaven. So now the Jewish temple must be built there or else no Messiah and so on and so on,” Omri finished up. All that fighting, all because of geography.

Temple Mount. Despite this being the most contentious building in the world, it looks fantastic surrounded by all of that Israeli stone. It’s my opinion that if the two sides could just focus on the pleasing aesthetic their two cultures have produced in this city, as well as their mutual love of hummus, we could solve this thing.

I always say that I need to travel to keep from dying of boredom from my own internal monologue. I think that, generally, most of us have a total of about twenty thoughts. And we just scroll through those thoughts, over and over again, in varying order, all day every day. Maybe your twenty are much more interesting than this, but mine include:

When you travel you’re forced to have new thoughts. “Is this alley safe?” “Is this the right bus?” “Was this meat ever a house pet?” It doesn’t even matter what the new thoughts are, it feels so good to just have some variety.

They are lovely people, but we are not cut from the same cloth sociopolitically. I’ve always said I’d be happy to be married by a rabbi if I married a Jew, but that I could never under any circumstances get married in a church. It just represents too much of a belief system I’ve rejected. Plus, Jews don’t try to recruit you—you’re either one or you’re not, which I appreciate.

Do we want the same things out of life? Do we bring out the best in each other? Do we find each other attractive? That’s it. In that order. You’re not allowed

“In Judaism, the way you learn to love someone is by giving to them,” she said. “The more you give to a person, the more you end up loving them. If love is just a feeling, and that feeling changes, then what? Love has to be something you choose to build.”

I was also starting to notice that, just like Astrid, a lot of my beautiful, smart, well-traveled girlfriends, who claimed that they ultimately wanted to get married and have kids, were still exclusively picking very handsome younger men who told them at the outset of their relationships that they were not interested in a commitment. My friends would ignore these facts, and their relationships would eventually implode. They also turned down dates with reasonable, not-quite-so-adorable available men.

They reminded me of confetti and cigarette-filled cups on the floor after the party is all over.

I was sick to my stomach. I was no longer the girl with an Argentine lover. Now I was just alone, and thirty-seven, and going home to get back on Match.com. It was only in that moment that I realized what a life raft Juan had been for me all of those years alone on my couch, even when we weren’t in contact.

Basically, ancient man lived to procreate another day if he was on the lookout for things that might eat him, like a bear. So, mild anxiety that there might be a bear behind that tree keeps you ready so you can escape if there is indeed a bear behind the tree. An ancient man with no anxiety often became a delicious amuse-bouche. So when I sense impending doom, and Rob seems relaxed

“All tenderness comes from your first pain.”

all of those buttons that get pushed in your life, all of the things that bother you and worry you irrationally more than the same things bother other people, they all have to do with your first big heartbreak.

The world is a thing that exists only to tear the two of you apart, which brings you very close together.

And if you can somehow remember that all of life, and every relationship, is going to end, man, every moment becomes sweet. Every kiss could be your last, even thirty years into a marriage, even if you marry a much younger spouse who is

It’s all as fleeting as a once-in-a-lifetime weekend on an exotic island. The challenge is to hold on to that.

means despite the lonely moments, the nights in bed saying “I love you” to no one just because it had been so long since I had said “I

just thought love was going to look different than it turned out to look, and so I ran away from it a lot.