Faux Real

You meet women from Portland and they’re like, "Dating here is the worst. Everyone is already building a yurt or starting an online vintage store with their 'partner.'” They flash air quotes and roll their eyes. New Yorkers are equally unimpressed: "Dating here sucks the most. There are so many goddamn models, and the only guys who are aggressive enough to talk to you are investment bankers. Ew."

Ew indeed.

But my L.A. girls, fellow commiserators, getters of “it,” will paint you a picture of dating life that actually truly sucks—not because men here fantasize of carrying you over the threshold of their alternative lifestyles, nor because they have jobs… that pay them… No, dating in L.A. is the worst because for every model roaming Williamsburg with her Amazonian stature and perfectly-draped tendrils, we have twenty aspiring actresses surviving on liquefied kale and freezing their faces with Botox... at 23 years old. And their male counterparts, the yin to their yang, to use L.A. parlance, strut about in neon tank tops or drop-crotch harem pants, owning duck face in ways only the smoldering desire for Instagram fame could elicit.

Oh yeah, and they don’t believe in monogamy because open your mind/Tinder/dat pussy tho.

In other words: committed intimacy is to L.A. as women’s lib is to Dov Charney.

So when a friend I recently made in Austin tagged her insanely hot, flannel-wearing, hammock-loving dude-pal into a comment on my Instagram, I couldn’t help but project my pent up reserve of chivalry-laden, heteronormative-for-feminists fantasies all up on him: A guy’s guy who loved Tori Amos in high school, joyfully cooking dinner with vegetables from the farmer’s market, dying to be a dad, to fix things, and to surprise me with a jet ski.

Austin, I instantly surmised, was the gateway to boyfriend bliss, the Mecca of evolved dude-bros, as eager to talk RBI stats as the effects of childhood trauma. And this one in specific, apparent lover of artisanal coffees and maker of impressive shoe choices, brought to me through the fiction that is filters, a cropping tool, and auto correct, was the official representative.

I started following him immediately. He followed me back.

Two weeks later, as I made my morning trek from our company’s parking garage, placed at the competitively-priced location of ten years away from our downtown office, I conducted the usual business of distracting myself from the stench of urine by trawling Instagram.

And there it was. A pic of dude-bro ankle-deep in gentle ocean waves, lightened to vintage perfection via Amaro, his caption reading: #LAvacay.

Panic. And not only because WTF do I do, but also because that same morning there had been some future-altering lunar eclipse, and Sagittarians had been warned that not making bold, life-affirming choices (read: For God’s sake just flirt with somebody, anybody) during this powerful time could lead to missed opportunities (read: Single. Forever).

Obviously distressed over how to proceed with my lone star stallion (I made up a few of these—I’ll spare you), I detailed this astrologically-dictated moral imperative to a co-worker over lunch. “Omigod wait, I have to see this guy,” she said, reaching for her phone to search his Instagram handle. “Holy shit, he’s so hot! You HAVE to direct message him and ask him out. Seriously, it’s in the stars.”

After fifteen minutes of typing, erasing, re-typing, tweaking—the editorial equivalent of hand-wringing—I finalized my move and hit send, my ovaries pumping hopefully.

Within minutes, he’d written back: Hey! I’m here one more night, let’s get together.

The rest of the afternoon involved banter that rallied between clever/hilarious and adorable/quirky. Sexting for grown-ups. He was staying in Hawthorne (wherever that is), and asked me to pick a place between the two of us. A denizen of Los Feliz, I poured over Yelp’s assessment of downtown L.A. eateries and finally selected a well-lauded Tex-Mex restaurant with curated tequilas and fancy cauliflower. I texted my sister to cancel our Friday night dinner-and-Dateline tradition: Can’t make it tonight; I have a date. HE’S FROM AUSTIN.

As I approached the restaurant awning, fringed maxi dress and plunging neckline in tow, self-talk went like this: Be friendly, hold off on the abortion politics, and don’t order salad; it gets in your teeth.

He was tall, so handsome, and had paired red shoes with a gray sweater—hashtag DYING.

“I’m so glad this worked out,” I beamed, ushering him proudly toward the spoils of my hour-long Yelp hunt. “I didn’t know what kind of food you liked, so I thought Tex-Mex would be appropriate.”

“Yeah, I mean, I honestly don’t get what the big deal is about Tex-Mex. It’s like, 'Ooooh, cheese,'” he mocked, wiggling his fingers in the air.

And that pretty much set the tone. An hour and a half of talking to a walking eye-roll—the antithesis to every fantasy I’d conjured—of hearing all about his awesome date from the week before; about how he didn’t want kids; about how he didn’t have a car; about how he was originally from Orange County.

We split the bill.

Once outside, I quickly started in with the escape language, “Well, it was really great to meet you"—but he cut me off mid-sentence.

“Yeah, hey, could I get a ride back to Hawthorne? I don’t want to pay for another Uber.”

The only explanation: he was equally disgusted and gave no fucks.

So imagine my shock when for WEEKS he sent slews of flirty texts: awkward pictures of himself roller-skating, laments about the absence of a burrito emoji, and the supplication of “good vibes” before a job interview. Was this guy serious? Had we even been on the same date??

But in this world we’ve created of fantasy and fiction, of contrived profiles anxiously curated by nagging self-doubt, chasing that myth is the new truth. Our fragile hopes for the future dance absurdly for the camera in this reality T.V. show of modern dating.

And me? After swearing off Tinder and Raya (AND dating altogether), I’m back on, swiping left, clicking through matches, and posting my own carefully-edited photos and quips into the coiffed ether of Instagram, hoping the charade somehow attracts my soul mate, my one true love.

Sigh. The truth is stranger than depiction in the era of the Insta-sham.

#MyWorstDate