I wrote this with ChatGPT, Grok and Gemini: August, 1993. I\u2019m 27, horny, and full of unprocessed spiritual ambition. Like Paul on the road to Damascus, but instead of Jesus, I met T.\u2014a woman who flew out to see me at my parents\u2019 house in Sacramento. Very romantic\u2026 until my Seventh-Day Adventist parents caught us mid-fornication, which, apparently, is not covered by the honor thy father commandment.<\/p>\n
Next morning, I\u2019m not just out of their will\u2014I\u2019m heading out of the state. I flee with T. to Florida, hoping we can start fresh. But within a week, she\u2019s back with her ex-boyfriend, whose main qualification appears to be… more girth. <\/p>\n
So I turn to where all lost Jews go for redemption: the Jewish singles ads.<\/p>\n
Boom. I meet an heiress. Upper West Side, Manhattan. She flies me out. And not just to sleep on the couch\u2014she puts me in her apartment, gives me more than $10 a day to wander the city. This is what Moses promised: the land flowing with vegie burgers and MetroCards.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s very bossy. She has opinions\u2014on everything. Sex, Torah, and what I should do with my l ife. But I figure, hey, I can take it. This is New York City! I\u2019m a struggling writer with a foreign accent and unresolved daddy issues. I can clean up here.<\/p>\n
So while she\u2019s at therapy working out her childhood, I\u2019m placing another singles ad in the Village Voice. Like an idiot. Because God sees everything\u2014and apparently, so do girlfriends in Manhattan.<\/p>\n
She finds the ad. Confronts me. Her therapist says I\u2019m \u201cusing her.\u201d<\/p>\n
Using her? Lady, I\u2019m giving you my body, my charisma, my spiritual neurosis… for free!<\/p>\n
It gets worse. I crawl back to LA. Back to Beverly Hills, living out of my car\u2014which now won\u2019t start. And I\u2019m courting a nurse who hates me because I left her for the heiress for a three-week romp. A beautiful, nurturing woman who gives insulin shots and tough love in equal measure.<\/p>\n
But guess what? Her friends and family all say I\u2019m using her. Why? Because I borrowed $500 to fix the car I was living in so I could continue dating her.<\/p>\n
Using her? No, no, no. I was investing in our future.<\/p>\n
But I get it. It\u2019s hard being the suffering servant of Isaiah 43 while trying to date middle-class women with boundaries. Every time I try to find a life partner, I get accused of being a con man with a library card.<\/p>\n
In the end, all I wanted was a place to sleep, a woman to love, and maybe a little walking-around money for vegie burgers and bagels. Is that so wrong?<\/p>\n
Is that using people?<\/p>\n
Or is that\u2026 the American dream?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I wrote this with ChatGPT, Grok and Gemini: August, 1993. I\u2019m 27, horny, and full of unprocessed spiritual ambition. Like Paul on the road to Damascus, but instead of Jesus, I met T.\u2014a woman who flew out to see me … Continue reading