I was watching an old episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm the other night. It was the one where Larry David is attending a friend's movie premiere and is humming a piece of music from the composer Wagner.

I understand Larry!

He is then approached by a man on the street, who asks Larry straight out: "Are you Jewish?"

I cracked up laughing, only because I know this scenario all too well. You may remember I was in a pub with some of my friends a while back when a man approached me and asked me that question out of the blue.

But what you don't know is that this has not only happened once, or twice... but three times, and twice in the same location! And the location is not even a Jewish hub!

The first time it happened, I thought to myself... who asks that question? I could never imagine walking up to someone and asking if they were Catholic, or Christian or anything at all, and I wondered to myself, do I have 'something extra' that would lead others to ask that question??? It doesn't happen to any of my other Jewish friends, after all.

The first time I was asked this question was almost a year ago, some random guy who asked if I was Jewish only to tell me then that I killed his God, (a nice Catholic boy, you see.) The second time happened in the same EXACT same place, but with a totally different random guy, and this time I had witnesses!

It was my birthday and we all went out to celebrate. I was innocently standing at a table with my friend Monique, when this guy walks up and out of nowhere just asks me if I'm Jewish.

I stare at him in disbelief. It's not the same guy as before, I know that for sure. I look him dead in the eyes, highly annoyed, turn to Monique and yell over the bar music, "CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS???!" As I walked away from the table, he yelled after me, "Well, are you?!"

I can't understand this random interest in my Judaism. Johnny, Natasha's boyfriend suggests perhaps it's because we're in LA and there are lots of Jewish people who live here. (which makes no sense to me at all.)

I used to think that ok, he might have a point - it might only be an LA thing, until I was in San Diego a few weeks ago, again with Monique, and we stopped at an ATM at 2AM. We were then approached by a couple of South African guys who just walked by us and stopped to ASK IF I WAS JEWISH!

I couldn't take it anymore. I finally gave in and asked the travelers why they would ask me such a question. What desire do they have that this answer could quell?

"Yes I am. Why are you asking me?" I look at them and wait for the answer.

One of them replies in a friendly sort of way. "Oh, we're from a village in South Africa and there's a big Jewish community there. You look a lot like them!"

Uhhhh...

The friendly man continues and says they were just curious and wanted to know.

So apparently there is an entire South African village that has my face. Hundreds of Natalie's parading the street, etc.

A Natalie in every hut?

It's so strange. And I used to think it was only me, but apparently, Larry David has gone through this experience too, I guess it's the pickup line of the year?

Speaking of pickup lines, last week I went out to dinner with a really nice guy I met on Jdate. We spoke online a few times and he didn't seem insane. Then he asked to take me to dinner. I liked the idea of an actual dinner date and we went out.

I met him at this really nice Italian place, (I love Italian food!) after being almost an hour late. (cringe.)

You see, we made plans to meet up twice before and I kept canceling because of an issue I was having with my schedule at work. We finally rescheduled and then the day of the date, I got so sick, horribly sick! But I knew I couldn't cancel on him. So I forced myself through the day working a 10-hour shift and then when I came home, seeing as I had a few hours before the date, I decided to lay down for a little bit.

I set my alarm, informing myself that I was only going to lie down for 30 minutes. And what did I go and do? I fell asleep for TWO HOURS, I woke up ten minutes before we were scheduled to meet up and totally freaked out. This always happens! You say it's only going to be 20 minutes and it turns into two hours!!!!!

I call him immediately, telling him I'm running late for undisclosed reasons. I couldn't cancel because he was already at the restaurant. I was mortified. Luckily he was really nice and told me that it was fine and that he was waiting for me.

I scrambled. I have never gotten ready that quickly in my entire life. I was out the door in ten minutes and broke every speeding law to get to that restaurant! And I still got there an hour late! I felt TERRIBLE. By the time I got there, the restaurant was closed. Thanks to divine intervention they seated us anyway because he made a reservation.

Despite all of this terrible behavior of mine, he was totally cool and understanding. Sometimes men are great. Women are nothing like that. If he had done this to me, I would have hated him (and then written a blog.)

So the very nice guy orders some wine and salads for both of us, and as we start to talk my phone starts blazing noise from my purse. I grab it quickly to silence it.
"Sorry about that" I apologize.

Yeah, this is going well.

A few minutes later my phone goes off again. He gives me an amused look. "Do you need to get that?"

I look and I have missed calls from my brother, Natasha and Monique. Oh no.

See, on the way to the restaurant I called everyone and told them I would call from the bathroom to tell them it was all good, (I mean I was meeting a stranger after all.) So seeing as they care about me, they all had the name of the place and 911 on speed dial. I had totally forgotten about it. I excused myself and called everyone back quelling their fears that I had been kidnapped. I mean you never know these days.

We finished dinner, and I think we had a good time all things considered. I mean we talked most of the evening, he told me about his drug addict ex-girlfriend whom he financially supported for five years. (It's hard to find a guy in this city who hasn't dated a psycho-chick.) He wanted to know what I was looking for in a guy... He walked me to my car at the end of the night and I thanked him for everything and apologized again for being so late. I told him I had a great time and said goodnight.

He said he would call me during the weekend but... he never did. I texted him and I never heard back. Too bad, I would have liked to gone out again. He turned out to be my best date from J-Date so far, though I'm not sure if that says too much!

In other J-Date news I've been playing it low key, not much action. But I do have yet another wedding this weekend, and you never know who you might meet!

Here's to keeping it positive!

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