It's Not Me, It's You: Subjective Recollections From a Terminally Optomistic, Chronically Sarcastic and Occasionally Inebriated Woman (12 page)

I
was walking down Franklin Avenue in Los Angeles with my two funny, pretty friends, Suzy and Bonnie, lamenting our single status, wondering why it was so hard to meet a decent guy, when we spotted a girl we all knew in passing. This girl was a “little person” who stood no more than three feet tall in heels. She was also about twenty pounds overweight, which on a little person is not something a few minutes on the Stairmaster can take care of, and her eyebrows were a mess. But, there she was with her husband. We all watched with fascination while her good-looking, normal-size spouse patiently helped her out of their van customized for her height-challenged stature and occasional wheelchair use. It was clear to us that he was enamored with her—Suzy, Bonnie, and I didn’t even have casual sex possibilities.

“God!” Suzy said. “We must be such cunts.”

I had been single for the better part of my twenties and early thirties. When I was alone and complaining, I got a lot of shitty advice—especially from friends of mine who were already coupled up. “You’ll meet the right person when you’re ready.” What does that even mean? How does one get ready to meet someone? Are there exercises? Quizzes? Can I hire a tutor?

“You always find someone when you’re not looking.” Really? ’Cause I’d bet that billionaire who invented Match.com would let out a huge laugh right now. Am I just supposed to wait for the boyfriend fairy to drop a cute, smart, nerdy Jewish guy on my doorstep while I’m in my sweats lying on the couch crying over an episode of Discovery’s
Health Miracles
? And then there’s my personal favorite, “You have to love yourself before anyone can love you.” Well, I happen to know many people who can’t stand themselves and have still managed to find someone who begs to differ with them.

I cried at quite a few weddings in my life, not out of happiness for the couple but sadness for myself. Let’s not get into specifics; crying is crying, so I’m sure the brides were unaware and probably didn’t miss me when I spent half the reception alone in the bathroom sulking, so I seriously doubt it took anything out of their special day. And if it did bother any of you that I was sobbing louder than your mother while you said your vows, maybe you shouldn’t have been such a stickler about me bringing a “plus one.”

So, I’d heard all the bad advice and more while spending
the better part of my prime hoping the right guy was going to happen along while I was too busy loving myself to notice. When I did finally meet the man I eventually married, one of my friends said, “Good for you. You did the work on yourself and the right guy came into your life.” Wrong. I did eventually find “the one” but I credit luck, AOL, and some particularly bad dates with other people for my husband, Jon. I didn’t suddenly develop a better, more evolved personality.

In the old days of the Internet, everyone had AOL—sadly, I still do, mostly because I’m deathly afraid of change, not because I like AOL. But back then we were a proud community; we felt we belonged to one of the first networking sites and we filled out our member profiles, listing our hobbies, jobs, marital status, and age, with great gusto.

It just so happened that I enjoyed looking up these member profiles, finding people who were online at the time and then sending them a random instant message along the lines of “Hi, I’m seventy-five years young and looking for a good time. You game?” Usually the recipient of my communication either completely ignored me or immediately asked for my height/weight/pic, which is gross. Come on, I’m seventy-five!

One night I found the profile of a guy who said he was in television and he listed his hobbies as “sleep.” If there’s one thing I like, it’s a person with few to no hobbies, so I decided to mess with him. I instant-messaged him: “Hey, I see on your profile that you’re in television and I’m thinking of buying a new one. Do you have any tips?” He responded: “I’ve always been partial to Toshiba.”
Yes, a sense of humor!
And with that we started a daily banter that went on for four months, building into a full-fledged relationship in my mind. It was the classic story of girl meets boy online, girl flirts with boy, boy doesn’t want to meet girl because he believes she may resemble a short, chain-smoking Fran Lebowitz. But every night we’d instant-message while finishing work from our day, sorting laundry, watching television—like a couple, who had never met.

Although we had this great rapport online, he never asked to see a picture, let alone meet me, which, at first, I loved but after a while I found it a little annoying. So, in the meantime,
I continued to date people who had an interest in seeing me in the flesh.

I met Fredrik, a German architecture student in a local pub. We talked for a while and in spite of the fact that he drove a 1970s-style, fully carpeted VW Bus that smelled like it may have transported a dead body at some point in time, he seemed mildly interesting and didn’t mind that I asked him straight-out if as a German he still felt bad about the Jews. He was intelligent and, for me, intelligence overrode the bad car. But on our first date, I discovered he resided in a youth hostel, where he rented one small room and shared a bathroom with the other seventeen residents, and drank wine out of a coffee mug despite the fact that he was in his thirties. The lack of any sort of stemware I could live with, but, having a bashful bladder as it was, there was no way I’d be peeing at his place
ever
, which is sort of a deal breaker.

I agreed to a second date strictly to prove to myself that I’m not a snob. But I did insist that he come to my place because I didn’t want to smell like his VW until my next shower. At the end of what was an awkward evening, where I discovered that his sense of humor was best suited to write funny coffee mug slogans, he told me he couldn’t see me again because “your apartment has very bad lines, architecturally speaking” and “I don’t see myself with someone long-term who doesn’t have an eye for aesthetics.” Even though I was relieved, I did fight the urge to yell, “You live in a fucking youth hostel. You are forced to pee with people who are not your friends!” Jesus, my two-bedroom, two-bath apartment
(thank you, rent control) a block from the beach
had
to be a slight step up.

That night I instant-messaged with Jon for hours and we made fun of Fredrik for most of it. I knew I was falling for him. There was just the slight problem that he had yet to express a desire to meet. But, if I went out with someone else, I’d feel like I was cheating on him a little bit, which was crazy!

So while the man of my dreams slept, I moved on to the next guy who had a few things working against him from the get-go, starting with the spelling of his name, which was Geoffrey. Geoffrey was a member of a Smoked Fish of the Month club. The night he pulled some dehydrated carp out of his closet, I pretty much knew I never wanted to see his
penis. I went out with Geoffrey very casually a couple more times strictly out of boredom, but his annoying qualities were adding up faster than a guest list for a Greek wedding. So, even though I knew I was completely done and would have much rather stayed home on my computer with my real boyfriend, I had to go out with Geoffrey one more time because I’d agreed much earlier to go to a big party with him and I felt bad canceling right before.

Our last date was an unmitigated disaster. He picked me up for the party and immediately tried to dress me up a little more. “Aren’t you a little casual?” Jesus. Jon would have never made a comment about my outfit. Jon liked me exactly how I was. “Maybe you could put on a skirt?” With a name like Geoffrey, I should’ve known he’d have a little fashion advice up his sleeve.

I wasn’t a stranger to industry parties and I was pretty sure I knew how to dress, but at this point, I just wanted to get through it even if it meant putting on my high school prom dress to make this douche happy.

Naturally, every woman at the party was in jeans. Geoffrey continued to annoy me by making pompous comments and eating the last of the brownies. I was embarrassed, pissed, and just wanted to go home and be with Jon.

Luckily, the house was only a five-minute drive from my apartment. But when we got to my place, even though I was ready to drop and roll out of the car while it was still moving, Geoffrey told me he was too drunk to drive and could he please just come up and have a cup of coffee. So I let him up.
Cue sinister music. “Could I just lie in your bed for a few minutes? I just need to sober up before I drive home.”

“Fine.” I didn’t want to be responsible for him on the road, but it didn’t mean I had to talk to him.

I lay in my bed with Geoffrey fully dressed, wishing he would go home so I could check my email. I almost started drifting off, but I was distracted by a distinct and repetitive thumping noise. It was steady at first but then picked up a little bit. Did I dare glance over? Big mistake. Geoffrey had furtively removed most of his clothes and was lying in his boxer shorts abusing himself.
This can’t be. There is no way this guy is masturbating in my bed! How could he be doing that when he knows I hate him?
I turned away and suddenly, without warning, I felt a warm splat on my hip.

“What the fuck? Are you out of your mind? You just came on my hip! Get out!”

“Sorry,” he said, sheepishly. Like a three-year-old who got caught putting glitter glue on the leather chair.

“Get. Out. Now.”
He dutifully put on his pants and left my apartment. And that’s when I went online, saw my guy waiting up for me, and promptly asked his ass out.

I knew I was in love with this guy and I refused to endure one more date with any other men, men who could spurt on my hip with no warning.

The day before our coffee date, I started getting excited. This was going to be a pivotal moment of my life! Just think of the possibilities. AOL would probably want to sponsor our wedding, seeing as how it was highly likely we were their very first success story. Members meeting and marrying based on a silly profile. I wondered if he’d end up proposing to me online—maybe in an email or instant message? I went online and checked out wedding invitations that had a “computer theme.”

The night before the meeting, I started getting monumentally nervous. I changed clothes until there was a huge cliché pile on my bed, ’cause how does a person dress to meet the love of her life at
9 a.m.
? You can’t really show off body parts or wear a ton of makeup; you have to feign a “this is how I look every day at work kind of vibe,” which is tough unless you’re a Vegas casino cocktail waitress or perhaps a swimwear model. Also, I wondered if there were any diets that would allow me to lose ten pounds overnight. I’d already eaten dinner but I figured I’d at least try to fast for the next eight hours while I was sleeping.

The next morning, I’d finally settled on black pants and a red shirt (red is a confidence color) and decided to get there twenty minutes early so I could stake out a good seat to see him come in.
Would we start making out immediately? Would we play it cool? Would we at least hold hands?

When I arrived, there was a young guy sitting outside with a maroon, definitely not red, backpack on the chair next to him. He was cute in a Jonathan Taylor Thomas way, definitely not the nerdy Jew with whom I imagined a life together. So, I bypassed maroon backpack guy and went in to grab a coffee before securing a seat to look for my new boyfriend. After a few minutes of not seeing any red backpacks coming in, I had an unnerving thought: What if the baby-faced guy is him?

“Excuse me, are you Jon?” I sort of half whispered, since the thought of anyone thinking this was a blind date was less than appealing.

“Stefanie?” he said. He had a sexy voice—in spite of not being my type. But it was awkward. He was a real person. And having never seen a picture of him, I was completely unnerved.

We made small talk for an hour while I nervously obsessed on how strange it was to be sitting face-to face with the man I’d spoken to like a lover for four months. He didn’t seem as disconcerted by the situation as I was, but considering his expectations had been almost nonexistent, he had nowhere to go but up. So, when he walked me to my car and said, “I’m better over drinks and during the later hours of the day. Can I call you?” I wasn’t sure what to do. Damn, I’d been talking to the guy online for months, so how could I just say “no, thanks” without him thinking I was making that decision based on his looks, which weren’t bad at all. He was actually sort of hot, just not what I expected. Plus, I figured it
would be best to break our engagement face-to-face—luckily, I’d had enough sense not to actually put the order through on the invites, since the printing charge was nonrefundable.