Don't Mince Words

I was recently told that I was living my own romantic comedy.  Dot com-crash-to-Wall Street girl leaves New York for Los Angeles for personal growth.  Discovers the emotionally unevolved, focuses on health, gets laid off more, and then moves to a small town where she has a job and a sensible romantic life.

This is finally my fucking movie.  Finally.

Living in New York was truly one of the greatest experiences of my life.  I connected with a lot of smart and wonderful people.  But I also saw the evils.  I lived in fear for nearly nine months after I turned a dirty cop in to internal affairs.  After 9/11, I figured if I was going to get whacked by the mob, it would be a better death than burning in a building.  Needless to say, it all worked out and I happily left corporate slavery and chose LA as my backup plan when San Francisco was still in flames from the dot com bomb.

As I continue to look forward, it’s easy to reflect with the benefit of hindsight.  And I am one of those people who wouldn’t change anything in my life because even the bad stuff shapes the future path.  All those awful Los Angeles dates served some purpose (I know what I don’t want).  My odd projects, contracts and jobs all taught me that no workplace is perfect (I know what I don’t want).  Working is a fool’s errand.  You just have to try to pick your fools wisely.

The same holds true with dating.  When I was in the beginning interview stages in Santa Barbara, I went to the online personals to get a sense of the mid-40s dating scene in Santa Barbara.  Call it socio-romantic ethnography.  My random how-much-does-it-suck inquiry revealed dating there wasn’t much different than anywhere else:  crazy ex’s, drama, kids, liars, and the chemically altered.  And from that honest baseline, I developed a friendship with SB Man through a very, very long interview process.

But that’s not all.

My girlfriends in Los Angeles squealed when I told them that I saw SB Man four times in one week after I moved.  “It takes about six weeks to rack up that kind of time with one man in LA.  No one wants to make that kind of time commitment for fear of looking….available,” one admitted.

In New York, you knew your life was good when the trifecta of job-apartment-love was in balance.  Here, I know that my patience and perseverance prevailed.  I just don’t know how the movie is going to end.

As of today, I’ve lived in Los Angeles seven years.  It’s not really something to celebrate more than mark the time in awe.  It has flown and yet it has stood still.  I spent the afternoon with a New Yorker that relocated three years ago.  She’s still adjusting, but mocks the place just like I do.  It’s can’t-put-your-finger-on-it weird here.  After a bottle of wine, we concluded we liked the weather.

Dating is still hard.  Finding work is harder.  I’ve got the seven-year itch.

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An old friend was in town with her 20 year-old daughter for the weekend. We were all over the place doing the usual touristy-type stuff. When they were getting ready to leave to go home, the daughter said, “Is every guy in LA gay?”

“Can you tell how hard it must be for me to date?” I replied.

She agreed it must suck. She figured it out in 55 hours. It took me months.

I know I’ve spent the past six years bemoaning the labor of dating in Los Angeles. I’ve felt like I’ve been one part relationship anthropologist, one part therapist, and an off-and-on investigative journalist. But I know my observations and experiences aren’t far-fetched because I run into men and women everywhere that have similar stories.

I recently connected with an acquaintance from home, also in her mid-40’s, who has lived out here four years. Over lunch we compared and contrasted our dating stories.

“What happened to the old ritual of courting?” she asked. “I feel like I have one or two dates with a guy, then everything after that is a hang-out. They don’t want to do stuff or bother to get to know me.”

I followed that with my thoughts that there are not a lot of masculine men in this town. That theory was confirmed early on by Dr. Pat Allen who said a town with creative men is a town filed with effeminate men who don’t play the male role. They want to be chased… like women. That doesn’t leave us a lot left to date.

My friend also made a comment about conversation. “I learned very quickly to dial it down. I think I offended people because I would not hesitate to offer my opinion.” That made me laugh hysterically because that was one of my first lessons in a corporate environment. “God help you if you have an opinion. You have to keep everything neutral so as to not shock sensitive people,” I added. But a lot of that has to do with the fact we grew up in D.C. Everyone is smart and reads and has opinions about everything. Out here, there are a lot of people who don’t have degrees, let alone advanced degrees. So, girls like us have to dumb it down.

I proceeded to tell her that I had hit the jackpot dating and I felt like all my bad date payforwards were redeemed.

“Get this – I’m dating a guy that has had the same job for 10 years, earned a MBA, owns two cars and some property, is NOT a California native, and is divorced with a wife and kid living across the country. He plans three or four dates a week, picks me up, and doesn’t hesitate to pay,” I told her with great sarcasm.

She was amazed. “So, you have real conversations and real dates.”

Dating is a numbers game, no matter where you live. You just need to know what you want and be patient until you find it. My new friend just left for an internship back in D.C. at the Library of Congress. She’s working on her second master’s degree. She says she’s happy not dating in Los Angeles. “As long as there is good weather, that’s my company.”