How to Meet Cute Boys (5 page)

DATE ONE: KENNETH BREEZE, THE ACTOR

How We Meet:
I approach Breeze in front of the guacamole dip at a party and tell him to drop the chalupa. He asks me out.

Stats:
Was the guy in the AmPm commercial who says, “There better be a jumbo chili dog in it for me!” On a good day looks like Jared
Leto.

The Date:
Breeze arrives at my house wearing a cream-colored sweater and jeans. I hand him a glass of Merlot, and he insists on taking
my new computer for a test drive. But he’s a PC person, whereas I’m a Mac person, and this sends Breeze into brand-identity
posturing. He peppers me with questions about my G3, and in an attempt to defend my computer choice, I start gesticulating
wildly and, yes, that’s when I spill red wine all over his shirt.

Breeze rips off his sweater and starts scrubbing it in the kitchen sink. “How is it?” I ask from the doorway.

“Probably ruined,” he says. “And it’s Armani.”

Ugh.

We go to dinner at Mr. Chow, a trendy Beverly Hills restaurant. Breeze gripes about his latest audition, brags about the directors
and casting agents he knows. I start feeling better about myself—he’s a consummate name-dropper. But when we leave the restaurant,
I commit the ultimate dating faux pas: I slip on my heels, butt hitting the ground, feet flying into the air, right in front
of the crowd waiting for the valet. Breeze offers me his hand, saying, “Apparently, coordination isn’t your strong suit.”

Postdate Phone Status:
He doesn’t call me, I don’t call him. I consider this a tie. Even though I spilled, and even though, okay, I fell on my ass,
how tacky was it of him to tell me the label his sweater?

DATE TWO: EVAN KATZ, THE PRODUCER

How We Meet:
At a Fourth of July barbecue in Beachwood Canyon. Katz introduces himself, saying he wants to know everything about my life
as a journalist for a script he has in development.

Stats:
Produces teen comedies for Universal. Has a fondness for wire spectacles. Owns a cat named Robert Evans.

The Date:
Katz takes me to a local Italian restaurant, Ca’Brea, where he’s on a first-name basis with the hostess. Over pap al pomodoro
he tells me about his collection of African art and passion for black-and-white photography. I’m thinking: He’s smart, he’s
got taste, what’s the catch?

After dinner, we go to a cocktail party. Katz is a perfect gentleman—even goes to the bar to get me a cocktail napkin when
I mistakenly splash scotch on his Prada suit. (I’m a klutz. I get that now.) Everything’s going great, until a mutual friend
approaches and whispers, “Ooooh, now that you’re Evan’s beard, you’ll get to go to all the great parties!”

Postdate Phone Status:
Katz is gay but closeted, so it’s a friend thing. Sometimes he brings me to events as his date, while I help him pick out
sweaters at International Male.

DATE THREE: ELLIOT EILERMAN, THE MUSICIAN

How We Meet:
A setup. I meet a friend for drinks at Snug Harbor in Koreatown, and Eilerman’s sitting in my seat.

Stats:
Not that I’m mad. Looks a little like Sean Lennon, plays guitar in a rock band that gets some radio play on KROQ. Lame band.
Cute guy.

The Date:
We hit it off. When he asks if I want to check out his temporary digs in the Oakwoods, a Studio City residential hotel (dubbed
“the Cokewoods” by actors who get put up there by Warner Brothers), how could I say no?

After a few hours, he’s playing guitar for me and I attempt to do the right thing by asking him what time it is, making excuses
about having to work the next day. But Eilerman shakes his head. “I’m not telling you,” he says.

“Because?…”

“Because if I tell you what time it is, you’ll leave.”

Five minutes later we’re rolling around on his Murphy bed. No, we don’t do it; I have a sliver of restraint.

Postdate Phone Status:
Did I mention that Eilerman has an ex-girlfriend he’s obsessed with?
No?
Well, nobody told me either. Imagine my surprise when he told me he “just got out of a serious relationship.”

I did what any self-respecting girl would do: Said I never wanted to see him again, then we went on a few more dates, had
sex half a dozen times and, after listening to him rehash their endless arguments (“And I was like, ‘What do you mean I never
wash the towels? You’re the one who decided we should each
do our own chores!
’ ”), I really
did
never see him again.

DATE FOUR: ETHAN DAVIES, THE WEB DESIGNER

How We Meet:
I’m waiting for my car after dinner at Itacho in Hollywood, and he strikes up a conversation. He mentions that he has a pit
bull named Dixon whom he takes hiking every weekend in Runyon Canyon.

Stats:
Cute. Brown hair, brown eyes. A little dumber than me. (Question from Ethan: “Like, do you follow the news much?” Answer
from Ben: “Well, I
am
a journalist…” Response from Ethan: “Oh, yeah. Cool.”)

The Date:
I meet Davies at the base of the hiking trail. The dog is
amazing
. Doesn’t tug at the leash, does fetch. I basically decide that Ethan is a dog-training genius and fantasize about future
brunches with him and Dixon. But then he tells me that his last girlfriend of three months broke up with him after he proposed
marriage. He later found out she was seeing another guy the whole time. “Wait,” I say, “why were you asking a girl to marry
you when you’d only known her for three months?”

4. The Web Designer: Looking for love

“She was from Australia, and she was having a problem with her green card so I thought I’d help her out. Of course, she still
owes me about two grand.”

Postdate Phone Status:
Nonexistent. Davies is one of those rare guys who would do
anything
to be in a relationship, which is why nobody wants to be in a relationship with him.

DATE FIVE: DAVID JETTER, THE SCREENWRITER

How We Meet:
We’re introduced by the aforementioned Evan Katz, who produced Jetter’s first feature,
Geek Out,
which he pitched as “
Rushmore
meets
Road Trip
.”

5. The Screenwriter: Enormously endowed?

Stats:
Katz cited Jetter’s “enormous endowment” as his main selling point. I accused Katz of sampling the goods, but he claimed
to have heard it from an ex-girlfriend.

The Date:
Jetter takes me to a Thai restaurant famous for its singing Elvises. It’s fun, although Jetter is a strict vegetarian, which
means we don’t want the same things to eat and this leads to tense ordering negotiations. Even worse, I start to notice a
pattern. In the parking lot, the attendant asks for four dollars, and Jetter looks at me and asks if I have singles. “Of course,”
I say, handing him four ones. When the check comes at dinner, he asks, “Do you mind if we split this?” tallies up my portion,
but
doesn’t
deduct his share of the parking. By the time we get to the candy counter before a movie, and Jetter starts to say, “Do you
happen to have a …” I just interrupt, “Don’t worry, I got it.” By the end of the evening, I’m out thirty-two dollars; Jetter’s
up thirteen.

Postdate Phone Status:
Incapable of getting the hint (or picking up the check) Jetter still calls now and then. Whenever he asks if I want to go
to a movie/party/dinner I do the math in my head and conclude that it would be cheaper to stay home.

Five dates, five chances, five duds. No wonder I’m starting to suspect it might be better to bunker down at home with my cat
and the latest episode of
Sex and the City
than to actually venture out into the war zone. Then again, the guy I liked most was a two-timing pig, and the guy I liked
least was engagement-ring-toting marriage material, so it’s possible that
I’m
the one with the problem. Either way, one thing is certain: These guys could be perfect someones—for someone else.

I decided it was too tragic to sit around fretting over my failed dating life, so I got ready for lunch with the Mother. When
I was in high school, we went every weekend. Of course, my baby sister, Audrey, was living at home back then. Now she lived
in San Francisco, shacked up (not that Audrey would ever call it shacking up) with her boyfriend.

I threw on jeans, sneakers, and a sweatshirt, and walked a couple of blocks to Eat Well, a diner around the corner. The Mother
hated it because they were always blasting punk rock, but I liked the buttermilk biscuits.

I grabbed two menus and took a table near the kitchen just as I saw the Mother striding through the restaurant, mouthing the
words,
“No booth?”
She looked fabulous as usual. Even in blue jeans the Mother carried herself like Sharon Stone—
after
the actress married the multimillionaire, gained enough weight to make her look human, and got the chic haircut. I feel like
whenever a guy I’m dating meets the Mother there’s this tiny
pffft
of disappointment because I didn’t inherit her self-possession or perfect bone structure. Audrey looks like her, though.

“Do you see an open booth?” I said as she harrumphed into her seat. “Hello to you, too, by the way.”

She smiled. “Be a bitch, why don’t you?”

I told her I shared her point of view.

“Sorry,” she said.
“Hello
.” She spread her napkin on her lap and pretended to study the menu. It was only going to be a couple of minutes until …

“So, did you have a date last night?”

There it was.

“No,” I said. “You?”

“With Julio.”

I had no idea who Julio was, but I let it go. The Mother had no illusions about my lifestyle; I had no illusions about hers.
When I was six, the fact that my father had an affair with his racketball instructor helped convince her it was time to get
a divorce. So she took her 2.5 children (I always thought of Audrey as being one and a half times the kid that I was), moved
us to a condominium in the San Fernando Valley, and took up real estate. As my dad spiraled into a Topanga Canyon, surfing,
existential, ride-the-wave-of-life sort of existence, she started an aggressive dating campaign. The guys came and went like
clockwork, and Audrey and I were left at home with the asthmatic, diabetic baby-sitter, Ms. Britton-Baff, who never let me
watch
Three’s Company
because she thought it was too “lustful.” I made it my personal mission to torture Britton-Barf, as I called her, by occasionally
going into Audrey’s room and screaming at the top of my lungs,
“Oh my God! Where are you taking the baby?”
This would send the baby-sitter puffing up the stairs, after which she’d chew me out until she got too winded to go on.