First, a caveat: as an Orthodox Jew, I never “dated casually.” Dating amongst Orthodox Jews is for one purpose only: to determine whether or not the other person is suitable as a spouse. Unless one is very, very serious, it’s extremely unusual to give flowers.
That said: 1) 33
Yes…to the woman who eventually became my wife, on our seventh date.
These days, it’s pretty much routine: I buy flowers for my wife every other Friday, and on special occasions (like if she’s in the hospital after having a baby, or after she passed her LPN exam. Interestingly enough, birthdays and anniversaries, after the first two years, never felt like a flower occasion). I got her a dozen long-stemmed roses for the weekend before we got married.
Never when I’m in the doghouse…I refuse to treat her grievances as if they were so superficial that a material gift can brush them away. But, an interesting anecdote:
A few weeks ago (on Friday, naturally) I stopped at a new florist (because I wasn’t coming from my usual workplace). The florist had a balloon with a picture of a man in a doghouse and a forlorn-looking dog outside it, the wording on the balloon begging the woman to forgive the guy because the dog wanted his house back. When I chuckled at it, the woman working the counter told me it’s her most popular balloon for accompanying flowers! :eek:
Yup. I’ve never given them “on” a date, per se. But flowers will make an ocassional arrival at an SO’s house/doorstep.
I definitely give flowers when I’m in the dog house. Nothing has been more consistent, and nothing has been more effective than flowers. However, I will give flowers on other ocassions as well (V-Day, birthday, special ocassion, random event, etc.).
I don’t tend to date high maintenance girls, so that’s not the case.
Yes. As I stated in the prologue, amongst Orthodox Jews, you don’t date “for fun.” You find out certain basic compatibility issues before even the first date, get a decent reading on someone’s personality over the course of the first few dates, and if you don’t think you have any serious chance of a future with her (or him, but obviously, I’m a guy), you say good-bye and move on.
An Orthodox Jewish couple is generally pretty serious after only three dates. And it’s pretty darned rare to see one that’s dated six or more times that doesn’t end up getting engaged. My sister and her husband got engaged after five, and my brother and his wife after two! :eek: (Which was something of a shock to me, but he became Hasidic, and they do tend to work a bit differently.) All of us are, thank G-d, quite happy in our marriages.
(That’s not to suggest that broken engagements and divorce never happen. But since we don’t date casually, things tend to move more quickly.)
When I was about 19 I stopped with flowers all together as a “gift of love”. My stance on this is pretty basic. If a woman wants me to spend far too much on some roses that only last a few days, then she wants me to waste money. That, is not my kind of girl.
On the other hand, I will give live flowering plants. If the girl wants them dead in a few days, she’s going to have to make the kill herself.
I’m also more of a doo-dad person. I would much rather give someone a gift that they can have for more then a week. Everytime my wife sees the silly carved hippo I gave her (on a date, 12+ years ago, before we were married) she’ll remember that day. If I had given her flowers instead that day, they’d be long gone.
I’ve told my wife several times in the last few years that I would surprise her at work with flowers if I could be assured of where that work actually is. See, she’s a grad student, and as such she has an extremely erratic schedule. Sometimes she’s home all day, reading and writing. Sometimes she’s at the university, in her office. Sometimes she’s at the university in the library. Sometimes she’s at another office doing research-assistant work. And on days when I know where she’ll be, I don’t know when she’ll be there.
So I’ve taken to randomly showing up with flowers when I get home. Doesn’t happen very often; once or twice annually. But it makes her very happy when I do it.
And now she’ll be starting a job with a reliable location and reliable hours, so flower deliveries become much easier to arrange with confidence and, as a result, much more likely. Down side is, it’s three time zones away.
