Drinking and Dating (13 page)

“No, thanks,” I said. “Call me crazy, but I’m not really in the mood anymore.”

As soon as his car pulled out of the driveway, I took to my Twitter.

“Headed to Polo Lounge with my #BFFs!”

It was one of those rare nights when I turned off my phone and shut down my iPad. I curled up on my couch with the rest of the wine and watched
Pretty Woman
before falling asleep.

Here are my rules for being a responsible social media citizen, version 2.0:

1.
If an anonymous person who hides behind a fake account and a default profile picture is trashing you, do yourself a favor and click “Block.” This will save you hours of useless agonizing and help you avoid becoming embroiled in a #TwitterWar.

2.
Cyberbullying is an actual epidemic that is scary and very real. If you’re a middle-aged woman receiving a barrage of nasty comments from some assholes, you’re not being bullied. You’re just dealing with assholes.

3.
Limit yourself to uploading only one photo of your child per day. I know that your son was the first child to ever get his face painted at the fair, but please try to control yourself. And never under any circumstances post a sonogram photo. That shit’s just weird. #SorryButISaidIt.

4.
If you’re going to post a “selfie,” do so with caution. Always tilt the camera slightly downward and, please, flip the fucking phone around. Seeing the flash reflect in the bathroom mirror and your toilet in the background is not hot. #LearnFromMyMistakes.

5.
Also, enough with posting pictures of the food you’re eating and meticulously describing each ingredient. It just makes me hungry, and that makes me not like you. #FoodPorn.

6.
Restrain yourself from oversharing about a bad breakup. That’s a surefire way to send any future dating prospects running in the opposite direction—and your friends get tired of hearing about it. Trust me, I know. #GuiltyAsCharged.

7.
Stop “checking in” at the gym on Facebook or Foursquare. (But really, who still uses Foursquare?) If you have a bangin’ body, I’m sure you’ve posted enough bathing suit pictures for everyone to know.

8.
Getting a public figure to respond to your shitty comments on Twitter doesn’t make you look cool. It just makes you look like you don’t have a life.

9.
Regardless of privacy settings, remember that all social media is essentially public. Any of your followers can screen-grab your photos, updates, and direct messages. If you want to share something you wouldn’t want your mother to see, it’s probably not a good idea to post it. My mom, actually, does not participate in social media. #ThankGod.

10.
And finally, an oldie but a goodie: above all, don’t drink and tweet. #StillAHypocrite.

•
11
•

The Unicorn Chaser

He was attractive, just not my particular brand of
attractive.

Not long after my fresh start in the dating world, my best friend Amy wanted to set me up with this guy she knew. He was a successful New York television producer in his midthirties and was renting a summerhouse in Malibu with some friends—a group of committed bachelors. (This should have been my first warning sign, but I was a sucker for beachfront real estate.) I had been on a handful of blind dates and I wasn’t really itching to go on another one, but Amy was persistent. Plus, I hadn’t been having the best luck on my own (my picker was off, for sure), so I finally conceded, but I wasn’t going to make it easy. I half hoped I might dissuade him altogether.

The sun was still shining when I forced him to pick me up at my rental in The Valley—about an hour’s drive for anyone coming from the coast. To be clear, I rarely let a guy pick me up on the first date (after all, it’s only a few steps from the driveway to the bedroom), but I already decided that this wasn’t going anywhere. I even warned him that my babysitter could only stay a short time, so I had a strict eight
P.M
. curfew. (The boys were actually with their dad. #BigFatLie.) I suggested we go to a sushi restaurant near my house, which just so happened to be in a strip mall. I was so over the date entirely that I threw on jeans and a T-shirt—I mean, they were definitely fitted jeans and there might have been a little nipple action under the shirt, but it was still jeans and a T-shirt. I even wore flats. I haven’t worn flats on a date since . . . well, ever.

Needless to say, this wasn’t the makings of a super- sexy first date. It was just another stepping-stone, I told myself.

He pulled up in a black SUV that he borrowed from a friend—which made me wonder if he was moonlighting as an Uber driver. The one-mile car ride to the strip mall sushi joint was already uncomfortable. I quickly realized we had nothing in common besides our mutual friends and the fact that we both worked in television. Was this essentially a glorified business meeting? I wasn’t sure.

Walking into the restaurant, I noticed he had a beanie in the back pocket of his jeans. There are
so
many things wrong with that picture. It’s like, “Come on, dude. You’re a thirty-something-year-old businessman. Why would you ever need to wear a beanie?” And did I mention that it was June . . . in Los Angeles? I decided it must be his version of a security blanket—or, more likely, to cover up the bald spot on the back of his head.

When we were finally seated, I immediately ordered a glass of white wine, thinking that maybe a little alcohol would loosen us up. He ordered a glass of water.
Fuck me,
I thought—and not in the good way. I squawked on about my job and my kids as he sat there rocking a pimp lean. You know the one—where his left leg is straight out to the side and his right elbow is leaning across the table. It dawned on me that this guy seriously thought he was gangsta. I wanted to say, “Honey, you’re not Jay-Z. You’re a New York Jew.” (Ironically, this is why I eventually fell head over heels for him . . . or so I thought.)

After I drained my second glass of wine, I was waiting for my booze goggles to click on, but they never did—which I have to admit is pretty unusual for me. The dinner lasted about forty-five minutes (I would eventually learn that nothing lasts longer than a few minutes with this dude), and I glanced down at the watch I wasn’t wearing and announced, “Well, I have to go.”

It was still light outside when we pulled up to my house well before my self-imposed curfew. “Can I come in?” he asked. Men rarely surprise me anymore, but what about that incredibly awkward forty-five-minute date caused him to believe that there was any chance that I would let him into my house where he believed my kids were? I mean, he didn’t know that the house was empty. I thanked him for dinner and leaned over to give him a weird hug/back pat combo before jumping out of the SUV.

I went inside, put on my heels, slapped on some red lipstick, and hit the town. The night was still young.

I don’t remember the first time we had sex. I remem
ber the car ride to his house, and I remember waking up in his bed with my top still on, but the actual sex? Nope. Not a clue.

But in my defense, I was drunk and alone on Christmas Eve. My children were with their dad for the night (spending the holidays without my boys isn’t something I think I’ll ever get used to), so I needed something to take my mind off of it. Knowing what I know now, I’m not sure there was much to remember anyway.

After our tragic first date, he started inviting me to the weekly soirees at his Malibu rental. By then, I decided that he was a nice guy; he just wasn’t my cup of tea. (I’m actually pretty picky about my tea bags. #TeaBagging. #GetIt?) He was somewhat charming during our phone conversations and witty, but I wasn’t really seeing any sparks fly. So while I wasn’t necessarily interested in dating him, who was I to turn down a Malibu beach party? He suggested I bring a few girlfriends with me, which I didn’t think much of at the time.

When my girlfriends and I got to his not-so-humble abode, it didn’t take long for me to figure out why he had invited them: he was a unicorn chaser. He was the kind of guy who had a mental checklist of every unrealistic quality his ideal woman should have. And what was Mr. Beanie in His Back Pocket’s particular flavor of unicorn? A quick-witted twenty-something Victoria’s Secret model with an MBA (and that’s just the tip of the iceberg). So he and his friends would pack their parties with tall, leggy women who they could pick and choose from before ultimately dissecting. He knew that I met most of my closest friends while modeling, so it was a pretty safe assumption that whomever I brought to the party would also fit this mold.

If that wasn’t another red fucking flag to send me in the opposite direction, the beanbag chair, zebra hide rug, and motherfucking water bed surely should have sent me running. A water bed? Really? These grown-ass men fell into some money and were living out the equivalent of a nineties-themed bachelor pad. I didn’t know whether they’d be serving wine or charging for keg cups. Was someone going to Sharpie an “X” on my hand? Were we going to play quarters? Or maybe beer pong? Actually, I don’t even know what beer pong is, but I’m sure the twenty-two-year-olds did.

At first I was totally disgusted, but then I was surprisingly flattered. His laundry list of ex-girlfriends could pretty much double as the
Sports Illustrated
swimsuit issue, and he wanted to date me: a thirty-eight-year-old mother of two. I do have the vagina of a seventeen-year-old (or maybe more like a twenty-three-year-old now), so I guess it averages out. #NewKitty.

We didn’t start sleeping together immediately. In fact, it took about eighteen months before our Christmas Eve blackout sex. That summer I actually dated a few of the Unicorn Chaser’s friends—including one who was a pretty famous movie star (just google it)—but he and I would spend a lot of time together just trading jabs and goofing around and actually developed something of a friendship. He would offer me career advice, and I tried desperately to talk him out of wearing True Religion jeans. And beyond the fact of having nothing to talk about on our sushi date nightmare, I discovered we actually had a very similar sense of humor and would start beating each other to the punch line of a joke. My interest was slowly starting to rise—despite his ever-present beanie. Whenever I went to one of his parties, he would get drunk and tell me how “into me” he was, and without fail, two minutes later I would see him off in a corner with some other girl.

It only made me
more
interested.

When September rolled around and my Unicorn Chaser headed back to New York, he and I would have weekly phone dates where we would catch up on everything going on. It became a routine and I looked forward to it, but still nothing physical ever happened between us. He was clever enough to subtly drop the name of a girl he was seeing into the conversation, always some twenty-something model type, making it abundantly clear that beyond his mother, I was the oldest woman in his life. We would see each other whenever we were both in the same city, but always in a group environment, so I wouldn’t confuse it with a date. For someone who wanted me as desperately as he claimed to, he never wanted to actually be alone with me. Even if he asked me to meet him for a drink at the Beverly Hills Hotel, he would have a buddy there. He was the king of the backup plan. (One more time for the cheap seats: red flag.)

The following summer, the Unicorn Chaser was back in Malibu at his nineties bachelor pad beach house. (Seriously, where was Brandon Walsh? Or even David Silver?) He invited me over for a party (translation: with his friends and about twenty model-looking girls in bikinis) and spent the entire afternoon flirting with other women right in front of me. And guess what? It worked. Seeing him get all this attention from hot young women made me want to devour him. It had been nearly a year of buildup and home girl was ready!

I begged my friend to stay with me while the party started to wind down. Getting my Unicorn Chaser alone was going to be a challenge, so I needed to enlist her help! #DesperateTimes. And like any quality wing woman, she agreed to make out with his friend . . . on the beanbag chair. #TrueFriend. I knew damn well that there was no real future with this guy, but when have I made smart decisions when it comes to guys? Besides maybe divorcing one.

With my friend fully engaged in a tenth-grade heavy petting session on the beanbag chair, I excused myself and headed toward the kitchen, hopeful that my Unicorn Chaser would follow me. I knew what I wanted, but he was going to have to come to me. I was pouring myself another glass of wine when I heard someone behind me. I spun around expecting to see my Unicorn Chaser, but it wasn’t him. It was one of the model groupies who had been flirting with him—and me—all night.

“Who makes this?” she asked, rubbing the side of my waist.

“Cavalli,” I said, not quite sure what to do but not hating the attention. She leaned in to kiss me, and I thought,
Why not?
If my Unicorn Chaser wasn’t going to give me any action, I might as well get some from the hot twenty-something model. #WaistUpLesbian.

We were in a full-blown make-out session when my Unicorn Chaser finally found us in the kitchen.

“Oh,” he said, sounding surprised and amused at the same time. The groupie girl was clearly a little embarrassed and excused herself immediately, which meant I was finally alone with my Unicorn Chaser. He was so turned on that he walked right up to me and kissed me. I guess seeing
me
flirt with the hot, sexy models made him want me too.

We made our way down to the cold, hard marble kitchen floor as his hand made its way up my dress. I immediately thought about how disgusting the floor was and how expensive my dress was. Did I like him more than my dress? But before I could react, I felt a few of his fingers find their way inside. #ShockerStyle. While it wasn’t the incredible make-out session I hoped it would be, it wasn’t completely unenjoyable. After a few minutes, he pulled his tongue out of my mouth and whispered, “It’s getting late.”

Just like that, I lost whatever power I had. The dynamic had completely shifted, and I gave Mr. Beanie in His Back Pocket total control.

“Yeah, you’re right,” I muttered, not quite sure how to handle the situation.

“I’ll call you guys a car,” he said. At least he was offering to send us home in a town car; it
was
the gentlemanly thing to do, after all. He spent the last twelve months trying to get down my pants, and here he was with two fingers up my kitty cat and he’s rejecting me? Are you fucking serious? #FuckOff. Something about me that night wasn’t meeting his standards, and it made me want him even more. #FuckMe.

Five minutes later, a yellow cab—not a town car—appeared in front of the Malibu beach house to drive my girlfriend and me home. I paid.

“There’s been an accident,” I said. My Latino boyfriend
was ten minutes away, and I needed an excuse to flake. We had been dating casually for about six months, and I had offered to make him his favorite home-cooked meal. I was sipping a glass of white wine (#DrinkingAndCooking) and chopping green onions, bell peppers, and mushrooms when my Unicorn Chaser called. He was staying at a friend’s house in Bel Air and wanted to see a movie with me.

“It’s my, um, cousin,” I lied through my teeth. “I already ordered a cab to the airport.”

It was a horrible thing to do, but I hadn’t seen the Unicorn Chaser in months, and this sounded like an actual date. The Latino said that he was already down the street and would come help me.

“I’ll drive you to the airport,” he offered.

“No, the cab is already on the way,” I said, before adding, “but if you could watch the dogs that would be awesome.” If I spent the night with the Unicorn Chaser, it would be helpful if my Latino could watch the dogs. To be fair, the Latino had me jumping through hoops for months. It was his turn to repay the favor.

“Um, okay,” he said, begrudgingly. “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

Fuck,
I thought. I ran into my closet and grabbed my black carry-on Tumi bag with cranberry ribbon and tossed it by the door. I’ll tell you this, if I was going to fake an emergency trip to Sacramento for a cousin who wasn’t injured, I was going to really commit. Looking back, I should have won an Emmy for my performance. At least someone in my family would have an acting award.

By the time my Latino arrived, I was putting the chopped vegetables in Tupperware.