He's A Great Shidduch But He Doesn't Try To Say 'Creole' During Sultans Of Swing (PreOccupied Territory) ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Thursday, July 30, 2026

He's A Great Shidduch But He Doesn't Try To Say 'Creole' During Sultans Of Swing (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.
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Jerusalem, August 2 - Mrs. Abramowitz, thank you for setting me up with Avigdor Marcus. He’s sweet, motivated, attractive even, and we share important values. On paper he looks like exactly the kind of young man a serious girl should be happy to meet. We had coffee, talked about our families, our plans for the future, and he was courteous, funny, and clearly committed to Torah learning. I left the café thinking, for a few hopeful minutes, that this might actually work.

Then I remembered the red flag.

When that Dire Straits song comes on, he doesn’t even attempt to speak the one word the vocalist repeats in a seemingly random place. Not a half-hearted mumble, not a delayed echo, not even a knowing nod that acknowledges the moment is approaching. Nothing. It raised a serious red flag the first time I noticed it, and the more I thought about it afterward, the clearer it became that this is a deal-breaker. I’m sure it would be for anyone normal.

I’m not talking about getting the timing slightly off, or even way off. That would be forgivable. Not everyone can tell precisely when to say “Creole” so it lines up exactly with Mark Knopfler at around the three-minute mark. I’m talking about a complete failure to acknowledge that the word exists at all. The compulsion to say it is involuntary in any genuine human being. You feel it rising in your throat the same way you feel the need to answer “Amen” when someone else makes a bracha. Avigdor simply sits there, polite and blank, as if the most diagnostic three seconds in twentieth-century popular music are not happening.

This is not a minor cultural preference. It is a more reliable indicator of in-group membership than the original Biblical shibboleth ever was against the Ephraimites. Those poor souls only had to mispronounce one consonant at the Jordan fords. The test was crude, binary, and easily coached if you knew it was coming. The “Creole” test cannot be coached. It operates below conscious control. Either the word forces itself out of your mouth or it does not. There is no middle ground, and there is no faking it under social pressure.

I cannot share a life with someone missing such a fundamental piece of what it means to live in this world. If, at his age, he has not yet absorbed that this small act is a basic requirement for belonging to a society of normal people, then I am not going to be so naïve as to believe I can change him. Too many women make that sort of mistake. They convince themselves that love, or shared values, or a nice apartment in Ramat Beit Shemesh will eventually override a missing instinct. History, both ancient and recent, suggests otherwise.

So with genuine gratitude for your efforts, Mrs. Abramowitz, I must decline a second meeting. Avigdor is a wonderful young man in almost every respect. He simply fails the one test that actually matters.

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