Chapter 19: Lawrence of Jaffa: Amnesia or Attention Deficit Disorder?

Meet Lawrence. Lawrence is 69 years old, and he lives in Jaffa. For him, Jaffa is not just a neighborhood in southern Tel Aviv - it's the French Riviera, Tuscany, and Casablanca all rolled into one. He's so proud of his location that he bothers to point out that it's "the furthest from Tel Aviv," because Jaffa is overseas. I, a casual Tel Avivian like myself, have already started packing my passport.

In the picture, he looks like a combination of Indiana Jones and a biker in his mid-70s: an adventurer's hat, a black leather jacket, and a look that says "I've seen it all, but I still don't know how to switch to Hebrew."

Communicating with Lawrence is a truly anthropological experience. On Tinder, he corresponds in sentences that look like Hamitzer's riddle script, or simply in pure gibberish because switching from a Hebrew keyboard to an English one is probably too complex an infrastructure project for him.

When I asked him what story he was telling, he answered me with: "f,c,h runi vhxyurh "f,c vjhsv ak hux; ci n,h,hvu". Translation for the general public (after I deciphered the foreign keyboard): "I wrote the stories, the riddle writer of Josephus." Do you understand? Neither did I.

After a period of silence, when I already felt that my basket of experiences in Tinderland was too full (Wonderland it is not), I decided to take the plunge and send a message on WhatsApp. I thought to myself that a 69-year-old man who "wants to fly through life" would remember the woman he sent his phone number to.

The WhatsApp dialogue was an instructive lesson in the psychology of the typical Tinderland:

Selective amnesia: When I wrote to him, he replied with the utmost honesty: "I didn't understand who you were, where we met, when you became silent."

Lack of focus as a way of life: When you remind him who you are ("It's Yael"), he suddenly "connects" with "ahh ahh... hahaha."

And the icing on the cake? He called me "Yalushera." I have no idea who Yalushera is, but I'm guessing she shares the same fate with me in Lawrence's short-term memory.

But the climax came at the end. Once I finally managed to get his attention, Lawrence informed me that "I'm now going down to sit with friends at the flea market" and concluded with "Tomorrow is a new day."

And since then? Silence. Lawrence of Jaffa went down for a drink at the flea market and simply evaporated into the stone alleys. He disappeared and never came back, leaving me with one big question: What did he want from me in the first place? Maybe he's still there, in the market, trying to figure out how to change the keyboard to Hebrew.

Update from the field: The latest dialogue

I thought Tommy would close the circle with some coherent explanation. I wrote him a response after a few days that he was still hanging out at the flea market.

Good evening Lawrence. Now do you understand? I have no energy for clowns.

He immediately replied: You don't understand how deep your messages are from her. May you find some of your dreams.. Mito (I didn't change it, exact from the original) and he even added: And Meow too

It looks like his keyboard was in a particularly bad chainsaw accident.

I already answered with obvious impatience: 😂 Tell me, do you have a keyboard problem or do you simply suffer from dementia? You didn't have a single coherent sentence, not even one. Oh yes, actually a coherent meow. Come on, good luck. Next!

And finally, one coherent sentence arrived without typos, yet Lawrence must have the last word: You're right........Wow, you're so aggressive that it's really unpleasant to read your messages. Lacking faith, scolding, disappointed, and you've embellished.

Conclusions:

In Tinderland, I learned that there's a new law of physics: The more a man is convinced he lives in an exotic foreign country (like Jaffa), the shorter his memory becomes. Once you've answered him, you've gone from the mysterious "Yalushera" to something much less urgent than a drink at the flea market. Which means that sometimes the quickest way to become invisible is to simply answer them.

So if you find yourself corresponding with a local Indiana Jones who sends you messages that look like Mossad ciphers due to keyboard problems - don't get excited. He doesn't really want to fly with you, he's just looking for someone to help him decipher what he himself wrote.

In the end, these men are like a WhatsApp message sent by mistake in gibberish: awkward, incomprehensible, and making you realize that deciphering the Enigma code is a small feat compared to trying to figure out what Lawrence of Hippo wanted from you. When a 70-year-old man starts whining at you on WhatsApp instead of having a conversation, you realize that Tinderland is not just Sodom and Gomorrah, it's a psychedelic zoo.

At this point, you simply give up, erase the "meow" from your memory, and continue searching for the ultimate retreat where you will meet a prince on a white horse (or at least a cute donkey that is coherently and in standard Hebrew).

Chapter 19: Lawrence of Jaffa: Amnesia or Attention Deficit Disorder?