Nail in my head
From my creator
You gave me life
Now show me how to live

Israel's unique culture is defined by opposites. There's a crazy statistic that a quarter of all kids in elementary school know someone who has died in a terrorist attack.

It is amazing how Israelis have internalized the situation and go about their lives normally. In some ways Israelis like to get down and party more than any other group I've seen. In other ways they are more responsible and "tight." After finishing work, most 20-somethings go to sleep for a few hours and only "go out" at 11pm or later. They get home by 5am and are off to work by 9am. They love to dance and throw house parties yet rarely get drunk. Actually, that's not true - they do get drunk - but off of 2 beers or 3 Bacardi Breezers. It's as if they don't know what being drunk is and so they call themselves drunk after barely drinking.

Family ties are very important. In such a small country people are always pretty close to their families and visit often. As I said in a previous posting, settling down is very important and people get married at much younger ages than other places in the world. That's one of many factors which makes people more serious, down to earth and sometimes less fun.

It is hard to imagine the full extent of what 3 years of army service does to 18 year old boys. How would you go on with your life after 3 years of searching ambulances for hidden explosives or guarding a high traffic crossing point which is bombed, or threatened to be bombed, on a weekly basis or having to go into the center of a city whose entire population wants your country destroyed to find a suspected terrorist? After the army most 21 year olds, as a result, spend 6 months working crappy jobs to save up money and then go traveling around the world. The stereotype dictates a year-long trip to Thailand or Australia where you'd loose yourself in drugs and do nothing but try and forget the last 3 years of your life.

They then return to Israel and enroll in a 3 year college program. So by the time Americans have been in the work force for 4 years, by age 26, Israelis are just graduating college. Whereas Americans have the luxury of going through college, spending a few years at work, and engaging in a dozen meaningless relationships before approaching the age where "settling down" is an issue, Israelis are thrust into that position after graduating college.

But the human soul still wants to have some fun after college and when just starting to work!

WARNING - MASSIVE STEREOTYPES AHEAD! As a result, guys become what they know most women want in a short-term relationship but not in a husband - assholes. And girls, both as a rejection of the pressure to settle down young and as a reaction to guy's asshole-ness, become the only thing they can become - bitches.

The other phenomenon which occurs is women becoming lame, plain, vanilla, boring, and altogether not cool. They don't have to work hard to find guys and have no reason to develop social skills because there isn't much competition in such a small, secluded country where everyone knows everyone and everything about everyone.

A big part of this is "chicken and egg" - do guys become assholes because of what they see women searching for (or as a result of insanely difficult military service and the pressures it causes) or do women search for assholes because the Middle East is a rough place and "nice guys" don't cut it (or because assholes are the only guys they see)?

Now, before you start calling for jihad against me, of course I realize there are many, many who don't fit the above stereotypes. There are plenty of nice girls who are smart, cute, cool and funny and want a good guy. They are plenty of cool guys who don't want anything to do with bitches. There are plenty of both groups who maintain dignity, are regular/nice people and start dating, stay together, date for a few years and get married. And there are some who would act the same way even if they were born elsewhere. There are bitches and assholes in every country.

Nevertheless, I think what I've described is a fair, albeit basic, overview of dating in Israel - its pressures and their causes and ramifications. Also, as the case is elsewhere in the world, by the time a person reaches 30 the situation is very different and people grow out of easily-defined over-simplifications.

I now welcome all the criticism and enlightenment people wish to offer.