Dear Girls Above Me: Inspired by a True Story (18 page)

Alexis—This high schooler visited the website’s message board often to write a haiku that had to do with whatever the girls talked about on that particular day. Most of them were quite good. “Girls Above Charlie / so easy on the eyes, yet / so hard on the ears.”

Kevin—My right-hand man. He was always the very first person to comment on Facebook and was extremely good at making sure any naysayers never returned. From his profile picture, I figured him to be about twenty years old … in 1970.

Maddy—Every evening, at six o’clock PST, Maddy would confess to me that she wanted to “comb my beard.” When I finally acknowledged her presence with “All right, Maddy, I’ll let you comb it,” I never heard from her again. Maddy, if you’re out there, does the offer still stand? Or did I ruin the whole thing by being into it? I guess no one likes to comb a willing beard.

Sunny—One day I received a message that said, “I just wanted to tell you that I met my fiancée when we were both reading ‘Dear Girls Above Me’ in a coffee shop and laughed at the same time. Thank you.” My suffering was responsible for a romantic pairing? If this couple procreated, theirs would be a child of my pain.

Carl—This young man offered me five cases of peach Snapple if I let him come over and listen to the girls. Unfortunately, I had to decline, because I already had some peach Snapple, and also I’m not a psycho.

Rebi—She always wanted to know if both of the girls above me were blondes. When I finally wrote back to inform her that one of them was in fact a brunette, she said, “Goodbye forever.” Huh? I miss you, Rebi!

Angela, Sarah, and Lena—One day, all three of these girls asked for my hand in marriage. When I clicked on their profiles I noticed that two of them were in middle school and the other was already married with two kids, but a proposal is a proposal. I let all of them know that they needed to get my mom’s approval before we could begin planning any legally binding ceremony. My mom said I should go for it with Angela because she was president of her school’s debate team.

Once I had decided to make letter-writing a full-time job, I realized that I needed to prepare myself for the worst-case scenario—the girls above discovering my secret identity. I needed a blueprint that I could throw into action at a moment’s notice, kind of like Macaulay Culkin in
Home Alone
. But instead of two desperate criminals invading my house, I would be facing two prima donnas with expensive handbags and a serious attitude problem. A far worse scenario.

THE GIRLS ARE WORLD TRAVELERS

Dear Girls Above Me,

“Claire! I just met this Asian guy who had a British accent! How is that even possible?” Let me ask my white South African friend.

Dear Girls Above Me,

“I think I wanna learn a new language. Maybe a little parle vu espanol, por favors?” I’m not sure which Rosetta Stone to get you.

Dear Girls Above Me,

“He’s going on a family vacation to Amazon? To like the headquarters or something?” More likely than that measly rainforest.

Dear Girls Above Me,

“He said he was French Canadian? Wait, France and Canada aren’t even near each other!” Wait, neither are Africa and America!

Dear Girls Above Me,

“He said he was Spanish but not a Mexican. What the hell, that doesn’t even make sense!” It does to the entire country of Spain.

Dear Girls Above Me,

“Her wedding is in Costa Rica?! Wait, don’t Americans get kidnapped in Mexico all the time?” Good thing you’re not going there.

THEY LOVE THEIR CELEBRITY MEN

Dear Girls Above Me,

“Umm, Bradley Cooper is not the Sexiest Man Alive. What about Gos, Effy, Chan, Laut, and Gylly?” Oh no, I totally understood that.

Dear Girls Above Me,

“Hey Olympic website, stop being so annoying and just tell me when David Beckham is swimming!” I think you’re confusing your abs.

Dear Girls Above Me,

“I hate to say this but even if Ryan Gosling proposed to me with a Zales ring, I would say no.” Because it’s Ryan Gosling, right?

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

My previous relationship had lasted several years; the one before it lasted even longer. Even in my precollegiate days I never found myself between girlfriends for any meaningful period of time. I was the Green Bay Packers of relationships.

Here’s what I mean by that: It’s extremely rare for a football organization to have an elite franchise quarterback. And it’s almost unheard of to go from one franchise quarterback to another within a season. Most organizations need many off-seasons to rebuild their team, and then, maybe if they’re lucky, another golden QB strolls in and saves the day. Well, the Packers went from Brett Favre to Aaron Rodgers before there was enough time to even change jerseys.

My romantic life had been the relationship equivalent of that. From high school to college and then grad school, I was in three serious relationships. So if you think about it, I actually have the Packers beat. Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers are amateur hour. I had
three
franchise relationships without having to ever suffer a lonely, miserable off-season.

Now, however, things were different. I was rebuilding. I didn’t even have a draft pick. (Not sure what the equivalent of a draft pick would be for this analogy. Match.com maybe?) The point is, I’m a relationship guy. Dating is an entirely different ball game. And after a solid ten-year run of relationships, the prospect of dating seemed quite daunting. I mean, just think about all that’d happened in the span of years I’d been out of the dating game.

CULTURAL LANDMARKS THAT OCCURRED SINCE I WAS LAST ON THE DATING SCENE

Facebook was invented

The Kardashians were invented

Twitter was made

A Kardashian sex tape was made

Our first African-American president took the oath of office

Two Kardashians took the oath of marriage

A spacecraft passed through space, landing somewhere on Mars

Two babies passed through a Kardashian birth canal, landing somewhere in Calabasas

Basically, what I’m trying to say is, I had a few things to brush up on and I needed some sort of CliffsNotes crash course on today’s dating landscape—

“Ugh, Chad just texted me ‘Dinner tonight?’ Doesn’t he know that drinks are text-approved but dinner deserves a phone call?” Cathy adamantly asked.

Right. Thanks for reminding me, Cathy. That was another big change. Texting had become the primary way to communicate in the beginning stages of a new relationship. Some other helpful snippets overheard over the past few months:

“Ugh, he showed up with a condom. I so would’ve fucked him if he hadn’t expected to fuck me.”

“Never date a guy who doesn’t routinely update his Facebook profile picture.”

“I find it so sexy when he orders a drink for me, but when he orders my dinner it’s like, whoa, getting a little aggressive there, OJ.”

I had a week before drinks with Katie, and if this was what dating had turned into, I desperately needed to prepare. The girls above went from a nuisance to crucial in the amount of time it took Michael Phelps to re-up his Subway endorsement deal—er, I’m sorry, I meant the amount of time it took a Kardashian husband to be traded and signed to two different Los Angeles NBA teams.

The point being, I became a courtroom stenographer. Anything I
overheard Cathy and Claire discuss in the dating realm was immediately transcribed and committed to memory. At this point I had grown quite adept at deciphering their lingo and breaking it down into human-speak. Yes, it was time to get back out there, and with each passing day, I was growing stronger. Not physically, of course—in fact, I think I may have put on a few pounds—but I was getting date strong.

That being said, there were a few hiccups along the way. Like the time I was transcribing a riveting conversation between Cathy and Claire about the mixed messages that “swallowing too early on in a relationship” might send. Their friend Becca had stormed in, interrupting the entire flow of this captivating discussion—

“So I stopped at Starbucks this morning and you’re not gonna believe who I met and have been texting back and forth with all day!”

“A cast member from
Entourage
?” I groaned to myself.

“Turtle from
Entourage
!”

I mean, that’d been my go-to response after each overreaction to a celebrity sighting. It was bound to happen; I’d just been playing the same lottery numbers over and over until I won.

“He was totally hitting on me while he was waiting for his Very Berry Coffee Cake to get warmed up. And the best part is, he’s not, like, fat anymore. I think we’re gonna end up meeting for drinks! Can you believe it? Me and Turtle!”

Maybe I was irritated because Becca had barged in on my eavesdropping dating seminar. I mean, this was
my
time with Cathy and Claire. Didn’t she know that? Or maybe I was just upset because I couldn’t fathom anyone generating that level of excitement based on scoring a date with Turtle. When television’s history book is
finally written, I’m fairly confident that Turtle will have his spot securely immortalized two notches above Screech.

Then, suddenly, like most of the vapid conversations before it, this back-and-forth led to something quite troublesome that I hadn’t previously considered.…

“I would never date Turtle,” Cathy proudly declared as if she deserved some sort of medal for this bold proclamation.

“You’re telling me you wouldn’t have drinks with Turtle from
Entourage
?”

“No, I’d totally have drinks with him. But on the friend tip.”

“But he’d go out for drinks with you thinking it was a date.”

“Well, he’d find out very quickly that it wasn’t.”

Uh-oh. My brain was a computer that had just crashed. Was it conceivable that Katie assumed we were just two old friends reconnecting and catching up over drinks? I mean, was it actually possible that Katie didn’t even consider Friday night a date?

I’d love to say that the idea of this horrific prospect’s coming to fruition was a one-time concern, but it wasn’t. It was a fear I was all too familiar with, an awkward dating trend I’ve been unfortunate enough to experience on every single first date I have ever been on. And that dating trend is:

I never know if the girl I’m on a date with knows that she’s also on a date.

By and large, all the relationships I’ve ever had blossomed into a romance
after
we were already friends. So there was never any need for a “first date.” We already knew each other fairly well; I skipped right from friend to boyfriend. I said “by and large” because there
were a few rare instances where I’d meet a girl and go out on what I hoped was a date.
Hoped
being the operative, italicized word …

I have yet to experience a first date where prior to it I was able to say with 100 percent certainty that it was in fact a date. Over the span of my three marathon relationships, there were times when a big fight would happen and we’d take a breather from the relationship. It usually never lasted more than a month or so, but on those rare relationship time-outs, sometimes I’d find myself going out with a girl I’d just met. It was always really tough for me to gauge whether or not the girl was interested in dating me, wanted to make a new friend, or wanted to network socially and make a new contact. This is L.A.; even people’s pets meet for drinks at five for networking purposes.

Most of the time, on a first date, guys are trying to measure how well they’re doing, gauging whether or not their date is responding favorably to them. Not me. I find myself in the unique position of dedicating my energy to figuring out if my date even knows she’s on a date.

CLUES THAT MY DATE KNOWS SHE’S ON A DATE

She doesn’t tell me that she’s really pulling for me and my ex to patch things up

She doesn’t
volunteer to help
me and my ex patch things up

She laughs at my Seinfeld impression

She doesn’t laugh at my Seinfeld impression

She goes through the charade of pretending to reach for her purse to contribute money to the bill, but then lets me pay after reminding me that I don’t have to

She has sex with me (this one is a big clue)

If I’m being conservative, I’d say that up to this point, 84 percent is the highest level of assurance I’ve ever felt going into a date that the person facing me knew she was also on a date. With Katie, though, this was a whole different situation. We’d known each other for years but had been out of touch for just as many years. I’d say I was 96 percent confident that she knew this was a date and understood that I wasn’t just trying to build up contacts in my LinkedIn account. Just kidding. I’m not a douche. I don’t have a LinkedIn account.