Back in 2005 a friend of mine called me and told me the good news, he was engaged! “OMG!” I screamed, “I can’t fxxxing believe it! You’re fxxxing kidding me!”
But he wasn’t kidding; he really was engaged and had been so for a few days already. He told me to head over to Only Simchas to see the pictures. I did so and saw that the fools that managed Only Simchas allowed comments, so I promptly left one equally obscene, expressing my excitement. Engagements are exciting, (almost as much as divorces, but as a young bochur eager to get married I didn’t know that yet.)
My friend called me within hours in a panic, he was afraid his new father-in-law would see my mazel tov message and ask him who wrote it, he’d have to admit that I was a friend and the engagement would be over…it hadn’t occurred to me that adults might check this site too! I took my comment down.
I was chastised, but older and wiser. From then on instead of wishing obscene mazel tovs to friends, I became a stalker. I finally had a place to ogle happy-looking kallahs smiling unreservedly, sticking their tongues out at the camera, looking at their suited chossons with deep longing, dreaming of the wedding night…well, at least that’s what I imagined they were longing for, in reality most of them were probably simply dying to get out of their parents’ house where they had to babysit their 10 younger siblings and get into their own apartments where they could clean the dish and fork from breakfast three times, cook for 12 people and complain happily that they don’t know how to cook for two and then take a nap out of blissful exhaustion.
You would think that with the advent of Facebook there would be no need, and no place, for Only Simchas, but you would be very, very wrong. Over the years I’ve only increased my Only Simchas stalking. On Facebook there are no pictures of chassidish chosson and kallahs standing 5 feet apart, the kind where you can tell that the photographer had to beg them to fit inside the lens. That you only get on Only Simchas. In fact the occasional photo that does make it to Facebook is usually stolen from Only Simchas.
The MO couples, on the other hand, are a whole other bite of cake for me. I’m not friends with any MO people on Facebook, and certainly not ones that are getting engaged. So where else would I go to see kosher hugging and kiss-blowing if not for Only Simchas?
Meanwhile the real yeshivish are unfortunately underrepresented everywhere. I believe that the yeshivish are bigger believers in ayin harah and da’as torah than the chassidim; they’re the only ones who keep their pictures private and don’t use the internet, which is unfortunate. But they’re such terrible dressers that I don’t think we’re missing much anyways.
I also go to Only Simchas to get my Jewish celebrity news. I’m a huge fan of Chaim Yisrael but I don’t do Hebrew, so I don’t follow his Facebook page where all his sweaty Israeli fans overrun his posts with their Israeli comments; I wouldn’t have known that he had a baby boy if not for Only Simchas.
And now Only Simchas has added a news and videos section. I haven’t asked them, but I assume it’s because everyone’s tired of the VIN/YWN/Matzav Jews-are-the-best-and-Obama-hates-Israel approach to news. The yid who has to hide in the bathroom to check the news needs a little chizzuk every so often to remind himself why he’s still doing this, 20 years after graduating elementary school. So you go to Only Simchas and find out that Mariah Carey recently visited Israel and the Western Wall. Shoyn, you feel a little better about yourself, it’s good to be a yid. Then you see a headline about some arrests that are about to happen in Orange County for welfare fraud and you assume it’s going to be some of the same chassidim whose engagement pictures you were enjoying last week. Shoyn, you feel a little sad. (You may also find yourself sad about the spelling in the articles, but don’t let that get you down, we’re still better than the goyim).
Anyways, don’t get caught up in these things, head over to the humor page. You’ll know you’re on the humor page because a third of the headlines will yell “LOL!!” at you or have a smiley emoticon. Shoyn, there’s humor and simcha in the world again; it’s good to be a yid with a smartphone in the 21st century so we can all share each other’s joy. (And I hope they add a divorce section soon).