After a fruitless hour at the bar, Kurt and I wanted to try a new venue, so we made our way to the ballroom. The dance floor was populated with dead people, animals, movie characters, mythical creatures, and sexy professionals all dancing shoulder to shoulder, heads bobbing to the beat.
We were watching from the sidelines when I spotted Kelly. A jolt of energy burned through me as my fight-or-flight system reacted to the close proximity of a source of pain. When she caught sight of me we just stared for a moment, coming to terms with the fact that we couldn’t pretend we hadn’t seen each other. I gave her a meager wave. She walked toward me. Guess we would talk and be all adult about it. DUMB.
We spoke for a few minutes, careful to focus only on Murray, the party, and the cool costumes we’d seen. We’d had enough to say to one another to fill three years of a relationship, but now we struggled to fill three minutes. I was anxious for Kelly to leave so I could get back to not talking to the hot girls at the party.
As we hugged goodbye, Kelly violated our unspoken agreement not to speak of the breakup.
“You doing okay? Everything okay? It’s hard, right? It’s been hard. Aw. Anyway. Hard. Yeah. Okay?”
“Yes,” I said, “I’m okay.”
I watched her leave the ballroom, happy she was going, but sad I was happy. The person I’d valued most in my life had become the one I least wanted to see.
* * *
Strengthened by another whiskey and Coke, and with renewed purpose after having seen Kelly, I waded onto the dance floor. Kurt and I were separated now, both on our own missions. It was nearly 1:00 a.m. and time was running out.
After a few songs, I caught the eye of a woman dressed as the Black Swan. It was the fifth iteration of the costume I’d seen—the movie had come out that year—but the best one yet. She wore a beautiful handcrafted feather mask and a black leotard that showed off the body of someone who must have received a generous Barre Method gift card at some point.
We orbited each other until we were almost touching.
“Hi,” I said, creative as always.
“Hi.”
“Great party, right?” More A+ material.
“Yes,” she said with a smile.
I tried to dance closer, but one of the arrows sticking out of my chest poked her in the breast. My costume was getting more action than I was. She giggled and flicked the arrow away as I apologized.
We couldn’t talk much over the music, so we mostly just danced. I reached out and touched her arm. She didn’t pull away, so I moved in closer. My arrows and her tutu prevented us from dancing straight on, so instead we stood nearly side to side, with our hips touching like we were doing a dance from the ’50s called the Hip-Whip or something.
The dance floor around us thinned as people went home, but we stayed till the end. Eventually, the overhead lights came on, revealing a floor littered with dropped tails, bloody axes, and other random bits of costume.
“Can I walk you out?” I asked.
“Yes.”
As we shuffled toward the exit, I hoped Kelly was still in the room and could see me leaving with someone. You only earn points in The Breakup Game if your ex sees the scoreboard.
The cool air was a welcome reprieve as we emerged into the night. People stood around smoking and talking as they waited for their rides. The smell of bacon-wrapped hot dogs, the official late-night street food of LA, filled the air.
“I’m that way”—Black Swan pointed—“on the other side of the park.”
I took her hand and we walked in the direction she’d indicated. As we passed a trash can, I removed my arrows and tossed them in so they wouldn’t interfere with the kiss I hoped was about to happen.
“My car’s on this block,” she said as we crossed a street, “but we could take a walk around the lake.”
She pointed to a lake down the hill in the park, illuminated by the moon and framed by the lit-up buildings of downtown Los Angeles. For weeks I’d hoped this night would result in a romantic rendezvous like this, but I knew it couldn’t happen. Though there are few physiological compulsions stronger than the sex drive, the urge to urinate is one of them. It had been several hours and several drinks since I’d last gone to the bathroom and my bladder was being a real cock-block.
“Ah, no, it’s late, we should get home,” I said. “But it was great to meet you. Could I give you a call?”
“I’ll talk to you soon, I hope,” she said as she put her number into my phone.
I leaned in for a kiss.
I should have been reveling in this perfect little moment, a cowboy kissing a ballerina beneath a streetlight, but instead I was focused on not peeing my pants. The top half of me was dedicated to Black Swan, but below the belt I was doing the pee-pee dance, rubbing my knees together to maintain control.
Convinced I’d made a sufficient impression, I pulled away and offered the traditional goodbye of Los Angeles: “Drive safe.” (Which really means “Good luck with the drunk driving.”)
As soon as her car was out of sight, I sprinted toward the nearest tree in the park, struggling to get to my fly as I ran. The unfamiliar chaps proved hard to navigate (how did people pee in the Old West?) but I did manage to avoid pissing my pants.
Back at the party exit, I found Kurt sitting with a girl dressed as Mystique from X-Men, her body and face covered in blue paint, a bit of which was smeared on Kurt’s chin. We’d both had a successful night.
When I got home, I stripped out of my cowboy clothes and went straight to bed, but before I fell asleep, I pulled up Black Swan’s contact file. I’d gotten a number. I’d kissed a girl. I’d done it.
* * *
As I knocked on Black Swan’s door to pick her up for our first date, I realized I hadn’t seen her face unmasked. What if it turned out she had a great body, but a face like Paul Giamatti? My heart started beating a retreat, but it was too late to back out.
The door opened and there stood a woman who looked nothing like the great American character actor. Her porcelain-white skin, angular facial features, and precisely parted hair lent her a fine quality, as if she were from the upper reaches of French aristocracy.
We went to an artisanal pizza place in Echo Park, a hip neighborhood in Los Angeles, and as we walked inside she expressed her approval.
“It’s a great little place,” I said, not mentioning it was my first visit and I’d only found the place after two hours of internet research. No woman has ever said, “Your mastery of Yelp is melting my panties.”
The first-date small talk was much harder than I would have expected. We discussed work—she had a job. We discussed movies—she saw them. We discussed childhood—she’d been a child. Long periods of silence punctuated each topic as I struggled to come up with something else to say. Our awkwardness reminded me we weren’t on this date because of personality compatibility. She looked good in a leotard and I made a cute cowboy, so here we were eating overpriced pizza.
At the end of dinner the waiter set down the bill, and I grabbed it, ever chivalrous. With appetizers, drinks, entrées, dessert, tax, and tip, the total came to over $100. I hadn’t considered how much casual dating would cost. Could I take out a small-business loan for trying to get laid?
Back at her place, we kissed good night on her doorstep, but it was a proper, by-the-book, sober, first-date kiss, way less passionate than the one we’d shared on Halloween. I drove back to my apartment knowing “It” was missing. We were two kind, polite, attractive adults, but we didn’t have much chemistry. Still, that was okay—I wasn’t looking for a girlfriend. I was looking for fun. By which I meant sex.
Our next couple of dates were variations on the first—stilted conversation over dinner followed by brief kisses to end the night. On the third date she invited me into her apartment, but we stayed just inside the door, making out standing up and wearing our coats. With my rate of progress, we’d make it down the long hall into her bedroom by the nineteenth date, at which point I’d be bankrupt.
If I wanted casual sex, Black Swan was the wrong person to be dating, but, dedicated to my plan, I asked her out again anyway.
A few hours before our fourth date, I received a text message: I’m sorry to cancel last-minute, but I met someone recently and I’d like to see where it goes, so I think it would be inappropriate for us to go out tonight.
I’d been dumped! Or whatever you call it when the person you’ve dated three times decides not to see you anymore. Downsized? That’s what it felt like. Due to a redundancy in my position, I was being let go.
From not getting laid to getting laid off, my first venture into casual dating was pretty much a total failure. It had been so unserious I hadn’t even gotten a chance to tell her I wasn’t looking for anything serious.
Despite the blow to my ego, I was thankful she’d told me this before the date and glad she’d texted instead of calling. In a serious relationship, a face-to-face breakup is necessary—don’t text Divorcing U. My lawyer will hit u up 4 alimony deets—but in a brief, casual relationship, the text is the way to go. It’s the instant death of a bullet to the brain, rather than the prolonged suffering of a botched hanging.
I texted back: Totally understand. Thanks for being honest. Good luck.
With my dating trial run out of the way, I was ready to get serious about nonserious dating. Halloween wouldn’t happen for another year, though; I needed a new source for finding women. It was time for internet dating. I had been rejected by one woman, but I knew that with the power of the internet behind me, I could be rejected by MANY women.
5
* * *
OKAY, CUPID!
My first online date was with a woman named Angela. Her profile, full of references to NPR and comic books, had suggested she belonged to the “cute nerd” phylum, and her looks matched. She had long brown hair, a shy smile, and wore a lot of (somehow) flattering cardigans in her profile pictures.
After exchanging a few messages, we met up for a drink on a Friday night. For the first hour the date was pleasant, if not noteworthy, but then, in the middle of a discussion about the comic book Y: The Last Man, there was a pause in conversation and held eye contact, which led to us making out aggressively right there on our stools. As we kissed, her thumb caressed my inner thigh, and I put my hand up the back of her shirt.
Normally, I wouldn’t be game for this level of PDA, but no one in this Hollywood dive seemed to mind. The group sitting behind us in the booth were too busy taking turns snorting coke in the bathroom to notice us and, besides, anything Angela and I were doing paled in comparison to the octogenarian in a mink coat lip-synching to “I’m Every Woman” as it blared from the jukebox.
After an hour of alternating between talking and kissing, we exited the bar and walked to her car. Though she was parked only three blocks away, the walk took forty-five minutes because we kept stopping to make out. It was during one of these passionate sessions, this one against the window of a closed Subway sandwich shop, that I thought, Online dating is awesome!
For our second date, Angela came to my apartment for a drink before dinner. The combination of a cute dog and a hand-shaken cocktail proved to be a powerful aphrodisiac—we were making out before she’d finished her Manhattan.
That would have been enough excitement for me, but we didn’t stop there. We moved to the bedroom and had sex before we even went to dinner. Sex before the date. It was a concept I hadn’t experienced before, but immediately I saw its merits—it was just like sex after the date, except sooner.
Having sex with a new partner was exciting but strange. Being intimate with someone besides Kelly was the final piece of evidence that our relationship was truly over, and that realization made me a little sad. Not sad enough to stop having sex, but still, a little sad. Despite my melancholy, the session was still fun, because as the saying goes, “Sex is like pizza—even when it’s bad you still have an orgasm.” (Maybe I’ve got that slightly wrong. I don’t know. I really enjoy eating pizza.)
“Thanks for not waiting until after dinner,” Angela said as we lay next to each other afterward.
She was thanking me? For sex? Men were supposed to thank women for sex, not the other way around, right? Growing up, I’d believed sex was something to be obtained from women, a gift they gave once the man had proven himself worthy and of noble intentions. This view of sex had more or less remained intact into my adulthood. While I knew women enjoyed sex, I felt men wanted it more, which meant it took time and skill to procure, like a reservation at a popular restaurant.
But I hadn’t “earned” the sex with Angela. She’d wanted the sex as much as I had and my desire flattered her. There was no talk of it being “too soon” or of what it “meant.” We wanted to have sex so we had sex. I hadn’t thought casual dating would be this simple.
After dinner, we returned to my apartment and had sex again.
“I should probably get going,” she said as she reached for her clothes.
“You’re welcome to stay the night.”
“Really? You’re inviting me to stay over?”
It was a simple, polite gesture intended to save her a drive home at two in the morning. From the look on her face, you’d think I’d offered her the last of my water in the middle of the desert. If basic decorum impressed women, I would do well.
As we were falling asleep, Angela pulled in close for some cuddling. I froze. Having her head on my shoulder felt more intimate than intercourse. Once sufficient time had passed, I pulled away and turned my back to her, free to fall asleep on my side of the bed with a foot of sheets between us. I highly recommend a king-sized bed if you’re going to be engaging in casual sex.
Angela and I went out one more time, but neither of us followed up. I think we both knew it wasn’t heading anywhere. There was no breakup or explanation of why the relationship had stopped, because it hadn’t been a “relationship” to begin with. We’d shared a few nice nights together and moved on with no hard feelings. In other words, online dating was awesome.
* * *
Though Angela was the first person from online I dated, she was not the first person I messaged. That honor belonged to a woman with Audrey Hepburn looks and the screen name LE-GAL81. Other than her groan-inducing screen name (she was a lawyer), her profile was as cute as her picture. She loved frozen yogurt, dogs, and hiking. I had a dog! That I sometimes took hiking! After enjoying frozen yogurt! I was smitten with my perfect match.
I obsessed over her profile, visiting it several times a day, and compulsively scrolling through her pictures. I wrote and rewrote my message to her, perfecting my hilarious (not hilarious) Trader Joe’s anecdote. After probably the ninth draft, I sent the message to my digital dream girl. I didn’t bother writing to anyone else because internet dating had already worked, matching me with my true love. OkCupid may have considered us an 84% match, but the universe had us at 100%.
Timeline of Thoughts after Sending an Internet Dating Message
Day 1: Of course she hasn’t written back. A same-day response would seem desperate.
Day 2: She wants to write back, but she’s busy. That’s good. I’m GLAD she hasn’t responded yet—it means she has a life.
Day 3: She’s probably overwhelmed by the beautiful prose in my message and moved by the amazing connection we have when it comes to ice-cream flavor favorites. She’s taking her time with her response because she wants to get it right.
Day 4: No matter that she hasn’t responded. Our relationship will last years, so who cares if it’s delayed a few days?
Day 5: WHAT’S THIS GIRL’S GODDAMN PROBLEM?!
LE-GAL81 never wrote back and I took the rejection hard. Certainly she’d found something deficient about my profile and, by extension, me as a person. A week passed before I sent out more messages, but my mood quickly rebounded when I got a reply from a beautiful Spanish girl. She had long, voluminous hair, olive skin, and a perfect smile. But there was a catch. The Spanish girl turned out to be Evan’s ex-girlfriend. Mill
ions of girls online and I message one of my best friend’s exes. Laura (pronounced with a rolled Spanish r) had actually gone to college with Evan and me (they dated senior year), but I didn’t realize who she was because we hadn’t seen each other in almost a decade. She didn’t recognize me, either, until I mentioned where I went to school.
Omg dude. I went there too and we know each other! You dated Maria, who I had classes with, and I went out with Evan, and this is so awkward. Haha! Did you realize? Was this Evan’s joke? Or did you not recognize me?
“Online dating for a month and you’re already messaging my ex-girlfriends,” Evan chided me the next time I saw him.
I assured Evan I wouldn’t ask Laura out. It was a shame, because our initial exchange had been promising, but the look of relief on Evan’s face told me I’d made the right choice. Not only had Evan and Laura dated, they’d stayed friends and were still very close. Understandably, he didn’t want two of the closest people in his life hooking up.
Some good did come from connecting with Laura, however. Once it was established we weren’t going to date, Laura and I could openly talk about our dating experiences. Hearing a woman’s perspective was helpful.
She told me she sometimes got DOZENS of messages in one day, many of them short, vulgar, and grammatically incorrect. (Come on, guys, it’s not I want to put my dick in YOU’RE pussy.) Laura sometimes got so frustrated she would delete her whole inbox and start from scratch.
This information helped me understand that rejection, or more accurately, being ignored, was the norm when online dating, so I shouldn’t take it personally. LE-GAL81’s failure to return a message was probably more about the process itself than about me. Maybe she didn’t respond because she was taking a break from dating. Maybe she accidentally deleted my message. Maybe she didn’t even know how to read.
With this knowledge came courage. I began searching online profiles at all hours of the day, and the more time I spent online, the more efficient I became at finding good matches. Soon I could determine a woman’s attractiveness based on a thumbnail picture alone. It’s sad that this impressive skill has no real-world applications. We know the bomber was the most attractive of these three suspects, but we only have one-inch by one-inch mug shots—can you help us, Matteson?
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