Why Not Me?

by Mindy Kaling

  I have Preparation H smeared all over my face in these pictures. I have no idea what it does to the sphincter, but it keeps my makeup looking flawless.

  As you are ushered to the receiving line to meet the president and First Lady, they announce you, My Fair Lady–style: “The Honorable So and So and his wife, Madeline.” Just before our turn, the aide asked me how I would describe Jocelyn’s and my relationship, and, of course, I prattled on about our backstory as if he were a therapist, not knowing he wanted a succinct answer. So our formal announcement was literally “Miss Mindy Kaling and her best friend from Dartmouth College, Miss Jocelyn Leavitt.”

  I didn’t have time to feel too embarrassed, though, because all of a sudden we were talking to the Obamas. Here is the part of the story where I feel really cool. Instead of shaking my hand, as he was doing with everyone else on the receiving line, the president heard my name, lit up, and hugged me. He then said to his wife, “This is Mindy. Malia was reading her book in Hawaii.” My book! Malia Obama was reading my book! The one Amazon.com reviewer “My2Cents” called “sort of meh”! I was walking on air.

  And then I saw Will.

  Will stood next to and slightly behind the First Lady, dutiful and handsome in his dark suit. I was still beaming from my interaction with the Obamas, so when I saw him, I called out “Will!” and pulled him into a tight hug. From the way he reacted, I got the distinct feeling that you are not supposed to embrace the man standing to the right of the First Lady, but I didn’t care. He looked great, he smelled great, and I looked great, and smelled like my hotel’s tiny complimentary body lotion. So I impulsively topped the hug with a kiss on the cheek.

  “I’m so sorry I missed the tour!” I said, very loudly, surprised how important it was to me that he know.

  “Me too,” he answered, making such textbook-good eye contact that the hairs on my arm stood up.

  For a moment we said nothing, just two wordless idiots smiling at each other, with the most important people in the world standing a foot away. The First Lady, now on to greeting the people next in line, glanced over at us with a curious look on her face. I realized it was time to leave, so I uttered my classic Mindy Kaling parting line: “Well, this was cool!” and Jocelyn thankfully pulled me away. I wonder if it was the First Lady who told Will he had lipstick on his cheek.

  Jocelyn and I were shuttled by trolley to the dinner, the equivalent of the most beautiful tented wedding you have ever seen, set up in the shadow of the White House.

  Stephen Colbert and his wife were seated in front of us on the shuttle. I tried to work up the courage to say hello to him, but I was too nervous, so I just gazed at the back of his head. I was so close I could’ve stroked it, lovingly. Should I have done it? It’s a close call.

  (I should mention that Stephen was not only seated at the president’s table for dinner but was actually sitting on the other side of the First Lady herself. A year later, when I was a guest on The Colbert Report, I brought this up to Stephen shyly, backstage. He told me that before that dinner, he didn’t even know them. So, the president and First Lady just wanted to sit next to Stephen Colbert because, well, he’s Stephen fucking Colbert. Way to be, guy.)

  The state dinner looked and felt as luxe and fancy as an SNL parody of a state dinner. It’s nuts. If you think about it, it is one of the only government-sponsored events where the décor and food are supposed to be so extravagant that the invited foreign head of state goes home and says, “Guys, you will not believe how they do dinners in America.” The salads were served in delicate glass horticulture bowls. The butter was molded into the shape of a tiny, intricate bow. It was not one of my usual Hollywood events, like GalStyle Weekly’s “Hot Gays Under Thirty” Awards. This was historic. This was the kind of place a girl could leave her glass slipper with the reasonable hope that a prince might track her down. Or, in my case, my Jimmy Choo size 39s with orthotic inserts.

  We got drunk. The kind of drunk where you are eating off the dessert plate of someone very high up at the NSA and you’re not even worried they’re going to wiretap your email later.

  I saw John Kerry talking to Bradley Cooper. I’m from Massachusetts and I’m friends with Ed Helms, so I figured I had hit the conversational jackpot with these two. I was drunk and feeling a little important, so I wandered over and interrupted them. “Hi! I’m Mindy Kaling. I’m from Massachusetts. Ed Helms was in The Hangover and was also on my old show, The Office,” I said cockily. By this time next year, John, Bradley, and I would be sipping hot cocoa in Teresa Heinz’s Idaho ski chalet. “So, we have him in common.”

  “Yes,” Bradley responded. “I know Ed.”

  I would give our interaction a solid B-minus.

  Bradley Cooper later revealed on The View that he was not wearing underwear that night. Doesn’t that make this not-great photo a little sexier?

  I sat back down next to Jocelyn, and Mary J. Blige began her performance. My drunken bravery streak continued, and I texted Will.

  ME: Where are you? Mary J. Blige is singing. Elena Kagan looks hot as hell. How are you missing this?

  He responded sweetly that he wished he was there and hoped I was having fun.

  Having fun? WTF? Is he my aunt? Hours later, back at our hotel, Jocelyn and I dissected every detail of his texts. Had I been imagining that he was into me? Was my fondness for him completely one-sided? I felt foolish, like when I was eleven years old and wrote to Christian Slater’s agent telling him how much I loved him and would he let me be his intern-slash-girlfriend when I went to high school in three years? I never got a response.

  I got texts from the writers asking what happened. “We’re engaged!” I wrote back. Then, quickly, “No we’re not. That was a sad joke. Nothing happened. Go back to work.”

  WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENTS DINNER

  April

  A few months later, The New Yorker invited me to be a guest at their table at the White House Correspondents Dinner. I didn’t bother telling Will I was going, because, well, I had done that before. We were just friendly, platonic acquaintances, like me and Chelsea Handler.

  But Will found out and texted me. He asked if he could finally take me on that tour of the White House and West Wing. I said yes.

  It’s funny when you decide you don’t like someone. I am the kind of person who, if my feelings are unrequited, can completely detach from someone emotionally if I simply put my mind to it. That’s why I’m always saying I would be a great serial murderer.

  That’s what I did with Will. It was like flipping a light switch. He was no longer a Washington, DC, crush on whom I had pinned my whimsical hopes and dreams. He was a pleasant and civic-minded tour guide from Tennessee. He didn’t seem as tall to me anymore. His accent was more unsophisticated than adorable. I could look at him and go “Meh.”

  The tour was lovely and, to be honest, I was happy I was actually paying attention to it rather than to Will. The Oval Office, the Navy Mess Hall, those are all historic places that deserve not to be sullied by romantic motives. As I was leaving, he told me to text him after the dinner. I said I would, but I knew I wouldn’t. Light switch.

  Attending the Correspondents Dinner as a guest of The New Yorker was a dream realized, especially since none of the editors touched any of the rolls in our artisanal bread basket, which meant I could have at ’em. While I chewed on my eleven brioche rolls, I saw the likes of Gen. David Petraeus, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, and that guy from Magic Mike, who also played a hot werewolf and was supposed to have a huge wang. It was an extremely glamorous night.

  Just before two a.m. I got a text from Will asking if I wanted to “meet him for a drink.” We all know what two a.m. drinks mean. If I’m texting Chelsea Handler at two a.m., friendly acquaintance is going right out the window.

  I didn’t respond and left for L.A. that morning.

  MY WEIRD NEW MALE FRIEND

  May

  Will came to L.A. in the spring for a week and wanted to see me. I no longer considered
him a romantic option, but he was a well-connected DC person who could maybe make it so I didn’t have to pay my taxes. We ended up meeting at a bar the writers frequent, and ran into Jeremy and Matt, who joined us for a drink. That was such a great coincidence, because until that moment, I think they thought it was plausible I had made Will up. After that bar, Will and I headed to another bar. It was fun but it didn’t exactly feel like a date, and that was OK.

  But then something happened and suddenly it did feel like a date, in a big way. We slipped into a cab to meet some of his friends at a dive bar across town. When the cab pulled away from the curb, he turned to me and said, “Put your seat belt on.”

  “What? We’re in the backseat,” I replied. I never wear a seat belt in the backseat; I barely like doing it when I’m driving because it presses on my boobs funny. Instead of responding, Will slowly reached over, his face inches from mine, pulled my seat belt across me, his fingers grazing my body, and buckled it, completely serious. “It’s not safe,” he whispered. I could feel his warm breath on my face. I wanted him to kiss me so badly. At the next bar, I think I met his friends, I might have talked to them, I don’t really remember. All I thought about was him saying, “It’s not safe” as he put my seat belt on for me.

  Then he dropped me off in a cab and we said goodbye in the car. No kiss, just a hug. A heartfelt hug coming from a straight man who has spent the evening drinking with you is like him buying a billboard in Times Square that says I AM NOT ATTRACTED TO YOU. I walked into my house, got into bed with all my clothes on, and cried.

  At work the next day, people were excited. “Jeremy and Matt say Will exists!” they said, wanting to know details of our night together.

  “He’s not interested. I think I just have a weird new male friend,” I announced to them, explaining my night. They booed.

  And at that moment, I got a text. It was Will, on Air Force One, about to take off back to Washington:

  I should’ve kissed you. That’s on me.

  I stared at my phone, so angry I almost threw it across the room. This guy was driving me insane. What did I do to deserve this? I was just a friendly thirty-four-year-old TV actress looking for a boyfriend who didn’t have a neck tattoo. OK, fine, at this point he could even have a couple of Grateful Dead bears marching across his neck and I’d deal with it. What I didn’t need was some hot-and-cold long-distance flake wasting my time. It hurt my feelings and made me feel like something was wrong with me. I deleted all our texts and emails and didn’t respond further to any communication from him.

  Then, more than a month later, on my birthday, a package arrived for me from Washington. It was a present from Will: a large box filled with treats he had selected especially for me. There was a comedy book by the comedian Don Novello, whom we had talked about on one of our dates; a huge box of chocolate-covered fruit from his favorite chocolatier in Seattle; amazing photos of the president, the First Lady, and me; and a handwritten note on White House stationery describing why he selected all the gifts and wishing me happy birthday. It was one of the more romantic gifts I’ve ever gotten.

  My writing staff ate the chocolates in puzzled silence, none of us knowing what to make of this gesture. My assistant, Sonia, broke the silence by saying, “I think this is what they call mixed signals.” Sonia was right. This was 100 percent authentic, real mixed fuckin’ signals.

  BACK FOR MORE

  July, where this story started

  Will (now renamed “Trouble Don’t Pick Up” in my phone) came to L.A. with the president and asked me to dinner. I listened to his message but didn’t return his call.

  But then I kept thinking about him.

  Well, maybe I could go, I thought, gazing at “Trouble Don’t Pick Up Missed Call.”

  And then it became: Maybe I should go.

  Why was I even entertaining this? Well, I don’t know why exactly. Maybe because, well, in spite of everything, I was still intrigued by Will. I’m not proud of it, and it’s a little embarrassing to write, but sometimes you like the idea of someone so much, you just want to do whatever it takes to make it work. And Will was so much better than the other guys I’d been on dates with. He was smart and accomplished, and he wasn’t competitive with me. Most important, he was genuine and his job was honorable. I didn’t know a lot of people whose job I could describe as “honorable,” and, well, I liked being around someone like that. And, it’s worth reminding you that Will was a handsome blond man, and how often do you see an actual adult blond man these days? He was basically a priceless orchid. So yeah, maybe I wanted to give him five or six more chances than the average guy I might date.

  So, against my better judgment, I called Trouble Don’t Pick Up and said, “Sure.”

  It had been two months since I had last seen Will. I told myself I wouldn’t sleep with him and expected that to be easy. Why shouldn’t it? The last time I saw him he had hugged me like my mailwoman Rita does when I give her her Christmas bonus. As it turned out, he was a little more attracted to me than Rita was.

  SHAKE IT OFF

  So yeah, Will spent the night. The next morning when he was leaving, he was so shy and adorable in my foyer that when he left and I closed the door, I covered my mouth with my hand to muffle my crushed-out squeal.

  AHHHHH YOU ARE SO CUTE YOU ARE SO FUCKING CUTE YOU ARE SO CUTE!

  I was so into him. Sonia brought me a McDonald’s Extra Value Meal #1 (the meal she rewards me with after a late night of writing or, extremely rarely, a late night of passion). I was already concocting Will’s and my happy ending, in the way only a woman whose job it is to write romantic comedies can. We’d probably get engaged in a year, he’d become a senator, and I’d move to Washington, giving up my career to become a full-time political trophy wife. I’d learn the chronological order of the presidents and get really smart about the news. Just that slightly crazy, embarrassing stuff you think about the night after you first sleep with someone.

  But as you probably guessed, since I am not currently the wife of a senator, it didn’t work out that way.

  Will and I continued to text and email, and would try to see each other, but it never seemed to crystallize into anything more. Whenever he would visit L.A. with the president, I was shooting the show; whenever I would invite him to a party I was throwing, he was traveling. It felt to me like I was making more of an effort than he was, and when I sensed that, I pulled back, not returning his calls or texts because I felt hurt. But none of that mattered, because I knew the truth, which is if someone really wants to see you, they always find a way. Always. That hurt my heart, but I realized, unlike in past relationships when I was younger, it didn’t need to be dramatic. Will and I didn’t know each other that well; I couldn’t even remember if he had any siblings, or what month his birthday was. I knew I had the power to make this a big deal if I wanted to, but the truth is, I wasn’t in my twenties anymore—in a good way! Obviously there’s a part of all of us who wants to pull a full Courtney Love about every breakup—it’s so dramatic and makes you feel like: See?! You’ll remember me one way or another, dammit! But spending a lot of time and energy nursing a breakup is just not a good use of my time now. Which is too bad, because if you heard my haunting rendition of “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” while I wept in the shower during a breakup, you would be moved as hell.

  Sometimes a story just needs an ending, and I used to not be a creative enough person to think of an ending to a romantic story that isn’t a wedding or a death. This story didn’t end in fireworks, because the truth is, fireworks are something from my twenties. I could have made fireworks, but I chose to make a nuanced memory of a person who is neither a hero nor a villain in my life. All I had to do now was move on. In the words of both Mariah Carey and Taylor Swift, I knew I could shake it off. How could it not be true if both songs have the same name?

  A PERFECTLY REASONABLE REQUEST

  WHAT I’M ASKING for is not that much. I just want a boyfriend who is sweet and trustworthy. That�
�s it.

  He doesn’t need to have a perfect body or look like George Clooney. I want a guy who wants to curl up on a Friday night and watch Netflix. He can even pick the show. I mean, ideally, it’s serialized and female-driven, and maybe not that boring political one. But honestly, I don’t care. It’s not important.

  All I want is someone reasonable who is basically a good guy. Someone patient, who doesn’t mind if I’m taking an extra few minutes getting ready before we leave the house. But who is impatient with the same things that I am, like when we are waiting too long to be seated for dinner and he should maybe go talk to the hostess. Because otherwise, why did we make a reservation at all?

  I want a guy who is a feminist, someone who knows that all that means is that men and women are equal. A man who admires strong women, like Hillary Clinton or Ruth Bader Ginsburg. But not that really accomplished woman from his office who seems cool and put-together. I don’t mean her. I’d like him to resent her irrationally, actually. I mean older, strong women in the theo- retical.

  And I don’t need some über-rich hedgefunder either. He just needs to be successful enough to financially support himself. And me and our children if I take time off from work after the babies are born. I just want him to love his job; I don’t care about how much money he makes. Just as long as it pays enough to give me the option to go back to work part-time if I decide to pursue my hobby professionally, which is photographing cool manicures for Instagram.