Love

I am not a social butterfly.  I can dress, dazzle, chat, and spin with the best of them, but by nature, I am a loner; it’s who I am and I embrace that label.  I relish my solo evenings.

I work, I write, I visit E-bay checking in on the gold and white pottery auctions, tearing pages from magazines, cataloguing the furniture I will buy in my next life. I eat pasta doused with weird combinations of toppings I dig out of the pantry and eat it in front of the TV watching back-to-back episodes of any Law and Orders I have tivoed. I like to hang alone, finding peace in the quiet, finding my voice in the empty air of my house. Even after J-date, after tapas and wine and a dance that never slowed and still hasn’t with the man I now love, I still longed for time away. Even when everything became more entertaining with him there, and the funny things I saw and did had weight because I finally had someone to share them with, I needed my time alone. While the kisses on the Ferris wheel, the late night phone calls from LA to Idaho, the electricity when we touched excited me and made me happy, I still needed to lack, to be without. 

At some point during college, probably while I sat drunk moribund glued to a booth in a club birthed by a pomade-slick headed Philadelphian, a forgettable hip-hop jam shivering my sternum, at some point I realized this is not the best arena to showcase whatever it is I have to offer women. Now, a couple of years later and back in Los Angeles, those clubs and plenty of overcrowded, overloud bars in my rear-view mirror, the thesis hasn’t changed.  I have friends¹ who, god-bless them, don’t require that (trivial) intermediary step of exchanging coherent words in between seeing a girl and kissing her.  Some sort of atavistic ceremony played out to the new Kanye.  I don’t know.  Maybe I should let more chest hair peek out of my button-down shirts. 

The point is—I know I’ve missed the generational hover-craft—if I’m trying to win over a girl, I’d much rather go on a date.  Like, take her out to dinner.  Talk to her. Impress her with my knowledge of wine.²  Which defense of an increasingly archaic³ form of courtship is probably making you think either a) what a chivalrous young squire or b) kids still watch Woody Allen movies? What you aren’t considering is how many variables have to be weighed when deciding what place of repast will translate into the appropriate setting for a first date.

Today we ended Faith’s life. She was, according to the records, 19 years old.

She had cancer and while still able to go up and down the stairs, take short walks, and eat two square meals a day (her favorite 8 minutes of the day), the tumors were at a point of not just being an annoyance. They caused her pain, and it was clear that as they were now spreading quickly, there was more of that in her future. And so we made an appointment and drove her to the Vet in the Palisades.  I was able to hold it together through the signing of release forms, and the initial wait in the entry, but when it was time to take her back, Gary and she went together for the last walk down the hall.

They tried to get her lay down on the floor, but she wanted to sit up, so Gary wrapped his arms around her and they administered the drug.  He said she peacefully began to breathe more slowly, until she was no longer with him.  He said she looked angelic.  The doctor left him alone with her and he said he lost it, beginning to cry, his tears spilling down onto the front of his blue t-shirt like drops of heavy rain. When he came out of the building, I was waiting in the car, and while we knew we’d done the right thing, the strong thing, the best thing for her – it was so incredibly hard.

Since I've recently become single, I find myself going places and doing things that I normally wouldn't do all in the name of meeting women. This usually means after a long tiring day of work I'll force myself to visit a bar or a party that I normally wouldn't go to. The most recent of these events was when my work hosted a networking event called "Girls in Tech." As you might have guessed, it's for women in the tech industry.

When I first heard we were hosting this event my first thought was "Oh God, am I going to have to help set it up?" Then, I decided that I wasn't going to go until I found out two things. The first was the promise of free alcohol and the second was that there would be many girls, in tech. Now I'm in the tech industry so I figured this would be a gold mine to use my newly realized skills of seduction.  I could say things like "so, um, are you in the tech industry?" and "sooo, what's the deal with dialup? Am I right?"

The night came and after about 15 minutes they ran out of alcohol... This should never happen at a networking event. Liquor is the key that opens the door to networking. After talking to a few women – I was really happy because I got all their numbers and they seemed interested in me. Then it dawned on me that, of course, they were friendly and gave me their numbers, this is a networking event. After realizing this sad truth I was ready to leave but then a co-worker ran inside and said, "There's a taco truck outside bringing in food!"