Peter, six weeks
It is month before my thirty-second birthday, when Kendra convinces me to go online.
“Come on,” she says. “This is ridiculous. No one meets in real life anymore.”
We are sitting at Arts Deli, two sandwiches between us, on our second diet cokes.
“I’m not swiping,” I say. It feels like a time suck, a black hole. Reducing people to a list of top three activities and two photos.
“Why are you morally opposed to a plethora of ready-made men?”
I take a highly carbonated sip.
“They aren’t ready-made.”
Kendra raises her eyebrows at me. “This is happening.”
We go back to Irina’s and settle at the counter. She’s in New York this week and always encourages us to drink the good stuff while she’s gone. Irina gets sent bottles of Dom like they’re Evian, and Barolo like it’s a bouquet from Trader Joes. I choose something reasonable, and pour.
“Coffee meets Bagel,” Kendra says. “Joel knows a guy at work who just met his fiancé on there.”
“Well if Joel knows a guy.” I lick some stray drops off my pinky finger.
Kendra gives me a look. “Do you enjoy being this negative?”
I hand her a glass. “I honestly don’t know.”
The truth is I haven’t that actively looked for love. I’ve been dating forever, true, but it’s always felt more like waiting, less like pursuit. The papers would come to me. They just showed up, along with the men. But maybe there is something empowering about putting myself out there, about being the one to start. Maybe.
Kendra wiggles her fingers in the air. “Let’s see it,” she says.
I hand her my phone.
Making the profile is easy.
Los Angeles born and raised. Entertainment. Loves coffee. Witty banter a plus.
You have to choose attributes, I let Kendra handle that part.
Communication. Emotional intelligence. Authenticity. Ambition.
“Really?” I ask.
She shrugs.
Personality:
Funny. Decisive.
“That’s it?”
“Should I add ‘serious but silly?’”
“If that’s how you see me, I need a new friend.”
Kendra takes a long sip. She picks my phone back up. “You absolutely should have more than one friend,” she says. “But if you’re only going to have one, you can’t do better than this.”
She shows me the screen.
I appreciate when my date…keeps it honest.
“Fine,” I say. “Make it live.”
Peter, 38, and I both “like” each other, which prompts a text box to open. He writes first. I’ll give the banter my best shot.
It makes me smile. His profile is basic- ideal for a guy. No selfies, no pictures of holding up dead fish. Just: LA. Dedicated to friends and family. Can’t cook, but know how to book a reservation. You won’t starve.
It’s a bonus, I write. What really counts is which side of the 405 you live on.
I’m pleading the fifth until I convince you to let me take you to dinner.
We meet at the bar at Cecconi’s, a popular restaurant in West Hollywood that I can walk to from my apartment. There’s a big courtyard that used to be a driveway but in 2020 got converted into outdoor seating. The bar is always overflowing with people who are too dressed up to be out in LA.
He’s there first. I spot him at the bar. Blue, button-down shirt and grey jeans, loafers, an abundance of blonde hair, glasses, and a really nice smile.
“Hey,” I say.
I go over and he gives me a small half-hug with a hand just barely touching my waist.
“Nice to meet you.”
He’s already drinking a beer and when he asks I tell him that I’ll have the same. I don’t drink beer, I don’t even really like beer, but it’s seven pm on a Tuesday and it feels like a thing to sip on.
He stands and offers me the stool. I sit.
“So,” he says. “How’s your week going?”
There’s a dance you do when you’re dating, a routine. Where are you from, what to do you, how’s your week been? The questions come, one after the other like the brush, spit, swirl of a morning tooth hygiene regime. It’s the same every time..
Peter is nice. Nice nice.
He notices when I need a refill, orders me a water, asks if I’m hungry (no), stands up when I leave to go to the bathroom- at this point, we’re at a table in the bar area.
He’s from Michigan, and has been in Los Angeles since he graduated UCLA. He’s an in-house lawyer for a private equity fund in Century City, and he smells great.
After two beers, a crudite basket and some burrata he asks if he can drive me home.
“Come on,” he says. “Please don’t make me trail behind you like a creep the whole way.” He gives me a soft smile. “I’m definitely not letting you walk home alone.”
The word “let” shouldn’t be sexy, but it is. There is something about being just slightly looked after by a man that is appealing. I like feeling protected, sue me.
“Okay,” I say.
He comes around and pulls back my chair. “Dinner Friday?”
He looks at me earnestly as I stand. He’s not trying to hide his enthusiasm and it’s nice, it’s good. It’s how it’s supposed to feel, isn’t it?
The older you get, the easier it is to blame yourself. As I brush my teeth that night I think about the fact that maybe it’s me, maybe I’m not attracted to men who are good for me. Is it possible that I just can’t recognize the relationship I want? Are my expectations too high? What are my expectations?
Friday dinner goes a lot like Tuesday. We go to a sushi spot in Venice Beach. Peter is handsome and doting. He asks me questions all night, listens when I talk, and again, stands up when I leave the table. At the end of the night as we are walking back to the car, he kisses me.
It’s not a bad kiss, not at all. He’s a good kisser, solid, knows what he’s doing. But I find, as it’s happening, that I’m not really there. Instead I’m hovering just to the left of us, watching.
Two more dates and two weeks go by. There is no paper. And in absence of that number, I keep seeing Peter. He makes reservations at an Italian place in Los Feliz I mentioned wanting to try in passing. We share pasta and calamari and make out in the car after. He invites me over to watch the finale of The Real Housewives of Potomac- a show we are both obsessed with, independently.
We have sex. I spend the night.
In the morning he makes me coffee and brings it to me on a tray.
“How did you sleep?” he asks.
“Not badly,” I say, and it’s true.
“Next time let’s shoot for just decent,” he says, handing me a cup.
He gets back into bed and we do it again. It’s better this time, as most second time sex is. Afterwards, I wear his t-shirt home.
Three more weeks. He wants to drive up to Montecito for the weekend. He wants to meet my parents. I feel a growing sense of what I can only describe as claustrophobia. Not because Peter’s overbearing- the opposite, in practice. He doesn’t check in during the day, he doesn’t send me a ton of texts- in fact, he’s not a huge phone guy at all. But there is something I just can’t put my finger on, something about him or us that makes me feel like the walls are closing in.
Which is why twenty-four hours into our forty-eight in Montecito, when I notice a piece of paper slip under the bathroom stall at dinner, my heart starts hammering. I feel the blood through my fingertips- the terror at what this slip of fate might say. And I find that what I want is an out. What I want is the universe to tell me: you are right in what you think it will feel like. He doesn’t have to be wrong for him not to be right. Keep going.
In the privacy of stall # 3 I unfold the paper.
Peter, six weeks.
The rush of relief, is so palpable it sends my chest soaring.
Our time is nearly up.
The next day we take a walk on the beach. Peter wants to know if I’d like to go to San Francisco at the end of the month and I tell him I don’t think so. There, on the windy sand, I explain that maybe we are better off as friends. He doesn’t fight me on it, exactly. But he gets cold- I don’t blame him. He suggests we pack up quickly, but to his credit, still carries my suitcase to the car.
I imagine what it would feel like to make this decision without evidence, to guess at it, and I feel an overwhelming empathy for women everywhere who have nothing to go on but hope and gut. Everyone who has to believe in the future enough to decide the present is not enough, not yet.
We drive back to Los Angeles, this time with the radio on. When Wide Open Spaces starts playing, I mouth the words into the open window.