2011 is barely a month old and I already have stories to share and as my birthday fast approaches,(no I won't tell you how old I am turning, but its old enough to not like birthdays anymore), I am looking back at where I thought I would be right now.

Honestly, I thought I would at least be in somewhat of a serious relationship by now, and possibly planning towards that big day and soon after that, a family. I also realize I'm not so old that I should start looking into having my eggs frozen, not yet anyway. But I still thought I would be on some sort of track to that life by now. I don't blame myself of course; I am a perfectly good find, like buried treasure waiting to be found. (And I'm modest too!) I just don't understand why I can't find someone I could seriously be thinking about right now. And I've been looking, believe me!

This week found me looking in the most fabulous of pick-up spots, a bar in Hollywood. Starting out the night at the club Dreis in Hollywood for a friend's birthday, my posse, Natasha, Yarden and I headed down the street to a fabulous dive bar that is totally alive on Thursday nights. Being the old woman I am, and not having been out on a week night in a long time I decided to take advantage of the night and enjoy it. Natasha decided to head home early and so Yarden and I got a seat and chatted over some drinks.

We talked and talked, and talked, immersed in conversation, yelling over the music and just catching up.

After we had been sitting there for a fair amount of time, out of nowhere a man comes rushing towards us and interrupts our conversation.

"WHY ARE YOU TWO TALKING TO EACH OTHER?" He yells at Yarden.

"Who are you?" She responds.

I love Yarden's frankness!

"I'm Mike this is..." as he starts to introduce his friend.

'Why did you just interrupt our conversation? That was very rude!" Yarden scolds.

"I just wanted to know why you two ladies were talking to each other with so many guys around..."

"No, you were so rude just coming over here like that, interrupting our conversation. I mean maybe if you had come over and introduced yourself, that would be different but it's not very nice just coming over and interrupting us. You're very rude."

"No! I'm drunk...YOU'RE rude!" Mike exclaims.

I start laughing. Mike the alcoholic just stands in disbelief that he has just been scolded like a 3 year old with his hand in the cookie jar.

His friend grabs him and they walk away. Yarden and I laugh. I think that was just fabulous.

We finish our conversation, and when the lights come on and the bartender calls for closing time, Yarden and I stay seated to avoid the rush of drunks to the door, and as we wait, a guy who had been sitting across from us the entire night stands up and walks over to us.

"May I ask you a question?" He asks me with a European accent.

"Sure." I smile.

"Are you Jewish?"

.

.

.

I am NOT JOKING!!!!

Seriously friends, I would not, and could not make this up.

Now most of my faithful readers will think this is a lie, as you may recall, I have had more than a couple instances of this.

I have literally been asked this question by random men all over the country. This is actually the fourth time. The FOURTH TIME!!!

I mean I wasn't even wearing my 'I heart bagels' t-shirt or my 'ask me if I'm Jewish' hat.

I look at him in disbelief. I just stare at him.

He must have caught on because he continued with: "Uh... has someone already asked you that question?"

I recover. "Yes. Yes, someone has. THREE someones, in fact. Maybe YOU can tell me why you would ask me that."

He shrugs. "I don't know, I just thought I would ask."

I look him in the eye, very curious and determined to find an answer, "No. No, you sat across of me the whole night and something came into your head that made you wonder if I was Jewish and that made you get up and ask me, and I am just curious as to what that was."

He looks at me, and says, "Well you have a certain something that caught my eye. I saw you and your friend talking the whole night... in deep conversation and you looked very invested in your discussion and you have a certain look, you look very intelligent. I don't mean intelligence like you get from reading a book, but you just look very knowledgeable."

If this is a pickup line, it's the best I've ever heard.

"I see something in you, call it an old soul, or a worldly soul."

(Later, when telling this story to Natasha, who did not initially believe me because this has happened waaaaaay too many times to be possible, this was the part when she gave me a strange look and said: "So basically he said you look like God's wife." Hmmph.)

I then ask if he sees the same thing in Yarden, seeing as she's Jewish too.

He starts to say yes and then asks if she is from Russian ancestry. He also mentions that he thought she was Asian from across the room, and we laugh.

So I finally ask him if he is Jewish, since I get a feeling he's trying to relate to me.

"No, I'm not." he answers. "I'm Armenian."

He then starts to talk about how close the Jewish and Armenian cultures are, food, spirituality and culture wise. Somewhere along the way he introduces himself as Arman. Arman the Armenian. I know, right?

As we all get up to leave and the bar empties out, Arman and I switch phone numbers and he asks if I want to get a drink sometime, I say sure and we part ways. Yarden and I laugh about it all the way to the car.

Well, a few days go by and I get a text from his number asking me who I am...

The moral of the story...

I tell him and I never heard back from Arman, and I'm not really disappointed. But I do find it funny that this Are-You-Jewish-thing seriously seems to be a running theme with me now.

It truly is the Return of Are You Jewish part 4!

In the meantime I'm still looking. And I am talking to someone on J-date right now; we might have a date this week! I will let you know how it goes! I'm pretty sure he won't ask me if I'm Jewish, the whole JDate thing really eliminates that part of the getting-to-know-you process.

<-- Goodbye to 2010, a year of bad dates!