I've Got This Round

by Mamrie Hart

  While I didn’t have physical requirements on lock for my future beau, I did have a specific list of personality traits I was looking for. I told my friends to hook me up with any of their hot, successful, funny, ambitious, kind (did I mention funny?) friends. Tall order, right? Oh, I forgot tall. Add that in there, too. And it was tough! I remember sitting with Joselyn, racking our brains over a bottle of sparkling rosé, about who I could date. Every name mentioned was someone who was either married, had a serious girlfriend, or just came out. Then I remembered a guy I had done a show with a year or so earlier. He was handsome and funny but definitely married.

  “Not anymore,” Joselyn said between sips. “Homeboy is divorced.”

  “I am just going to throw it into the universe,” I said, holding up my pink bubbles in the candlelit oyster bar. “Universe, I would like to go on a date with [so-and-so].” I felt ready. I felt bold. I felt like we should open another bottle of rosé, and, damnit, we did.

  The next morning, I had to get some coffee in my bloodstream to make up for the rosé-a-thon. I hopped in that hot new car of mine and popped over to my local coffee shop. Windows down and latte in hand, I drove back to my house, eager for the day ahead. And just as I rolled up to a stop sign, there across from me was the dude in his car.

  I had manifested him. Literal MANifestation.

  We both proceeded through the stop sign, rolling past each other slowly with our windows down, definitely checking each other out. But it was too fast to say hi.

  I immediately sent him a DM on Twitter (the modern-day Civil War letter romance) and basically said, “We just made eye contact, but it was too fast to say hi, so hi.” This was the first time I had ever slid into someone’s DMs. I was anxious. Normally the only place I do some sliding is at water parks and Cha-Cha/Electric Slides at weddings. I put down my phone, immediately picking it back up to reread my message twenty times to make sure it wasn’t dumb, when DING! He responded. “That was you? Looking good!” I was in. Three days later, and we were meeting for dinner.

  I was freaking out from nerves, as evidenced by the sheer amount of bodysuits I tried on, overanalyzing each crotch-hugging look in the mirror before trying on the next. What if it’s not a date in his brain? I thought. What if he’s just being nice, and here I am showing up with date-level cleavage? What if we run out of things to talk about in the first five minutes and it’s just awkward silence over our entrées? What if he tries to kiss me? OHMYGOD, what if he doesn’t try to kiss me?

  I was filled with more “what”s than the beginning of Macklemore’s “Thrift Shop,” but all that anxiety dissipated when I got there. It was easy to talk to him, and he seemed like the nervous one. The date ended up being off-the-rails fun. FUCK, I thought to myself. Here I am on my first first date in more than ten years and I already like this guy. Is this too much? Should I pump the brakes? I proceeded to do what anyone going through inner turmoil does: I questioned my decision and then rationalized it.

  BRAIN: You should be playing the field.

  HEART: I hate sports!

  BRAIN: You gotta sow your wild oats.

  HEART: I have zero interest in farming.

  Our dinner date turned into dominating the jukebox at my favorite dive, making out at my house, and then saying good-bye early the next morning because we both had flights to catch. We were both going to be gone for a week and a half, and I was curious to see if that meant any communication. I didn’t know what the rules were on this type of thing, but I didn’t have to wonder for too long, because he texted me midday. We continued texting a few times a day, just casual, cute “what are you up to?” stuff. Four days after our first date, he asked when I was coming back.

  Me: I’m headed to NC tomorrow to meet my new niece, but I’ll be back Monday.

  Him: You’re kidding me. I’m going to NC tomorrow for four days. We should meet up.

  Are you fucking serious, universe? First, I manifest the dude I’d met once to pull up to the same stop sign as me; now we were going to be hanging out in my home state? I released the emergency brake in my brain. This was an Indiana Jones–style boulder coming down the hill, and there was no stopping it.

  For the sake of word count, I’ll speed up the next two months. We hung out a few times a week, going to concerts, overnights at the beach, and comedy festivals, and every night ended with dancing. We were having a blast. One night, he asked me if I was his girlfriend. I was terrified at the idea of being someone’s person again, but looking at him in a seedy bar in Santa Monica after another perfect night, I said, “Of course.” It was fast. And it was magical.

  And it was over before I knew it.

  At one point around the two-and-a-half-month mark, we couldn’t see each other for ten days because of travel schedules. But still, because we were a modern couple, we FaceTimed every night.* He sent me love songs to listen to. I would send him cute selfies that looked effortless but I probably took sixty pics for every one sent to make sure I looked hot. And then, when we were finally in each other’s presence again, he sat up and turned to me and exhaled. I knew what was coming from that one breath. I literally said, “Holy shit, you aren’t doing this to me” off a single exhale. And I was right. It took all of five minutes for him to tell me he “just had a little voice in [his] head saying it isn’t right” as I paced and shook my hands like the Crazy Eights improv exercise. I was shocked. I didn’t need details. I didn’t need to hear how great I was. That I was the kindest, funniest person he’s ever dated. I needed to get the fuck out of his apartment because he didn’t want to be with me, and I didn’t want more words to replay and overanalyze in my head later.

  I walked out of his building in complete shock. I felt like I’d just been in a car crash. One that you don’t see coming; you’re just punched in the face by airbags. The type where you walk away from the wreckage fine, but you can’t believe everything is totaled. You don’t know whether to bawl your eyes out, or scream at the top of your lungs, or just laugh because it’s all so surreal.

  AND THERE THEY WERE.

  Those feelings. Those things that I felt I was missing out on in my twenties emerged, and damn. Suddenly, rejection and heartache and being alone didn’t sound that glamorous.

  When I got home, I broke out one of those wineglasses that fits a whole bottle, filled it to the brim, and took down the whole thing before passing out from ugly-crying exhaustion. The next morning, I woke up with the kind of hangover that happens when your body is suffering from equal parts dehydration from drinking and crying. In a rare moment of morning motivation, I decided to take my friend Sarah up on her offer to go to Pilates to distract myself. The struggle was already real from the wine I’d drank the night before, but the combination of a two-minute plank and Robyn’s “Dancing on My Own” blasting through the speakers broke me, and I started crying in my plank position. Normally I was humiliated in plank pose because I could barely hold it for thirty seconds, now I was trying to hold in my abs and my tears? I couldn’t do it.

  I walked over to Sarah, who was still in perfect form, and crouched down. “I gotta get out of here. Will you take care of my mat for me?” I whispered.

  “Of course, babe, I’ll text you after,” she said. That bitch wasn’t even winded.

  Back home, I didn’t know what to do with myself. So, naturally, I checked his social media. Ladies, gentlemen, whoever is getting fucked over by someone . . . for the love of Beyoncé, do NOT check that person’s social media. Why? Because while your new pillowcase is tie-dyed from mascara tears, that mo-fo will be posting a new haircut selfie with a smirk. A damn smirk!

  I tried to play music to distract myself, but with every skip of the Pandora station, I was smacked in the face with some sort of tie-in tune.* It got desperate, y’all. And by that I mean, I listened to Fetty Wap. I don’t even like Fetty Wap. But there I was, sadly dancing in front of Beanz to “Trap Queen.” Even Fetty’s mo
notonous singing made me think of this dude.

  “And I get high with my baby”

  I mean, technically we never smoked weed together, but we did love to drink, so that applies!

  “I just left the mall, I’m getting fly with my baby”

  He loved to shop! We went vintage T-shirt shopping on our third date and did, indeed, look fly!

  That’s when I realized I needed to turn things around. I couldn’t sit alone in my house, feeling sorry for myself. No, I was going to do what I do best: invite a bunch of people over to get drunk and have fun as a means of distraction. If I was going to have a pity party for myself, I might as well make it a pity rager.

  I grabbed my phone and texted all my fun friends—ones from my New York days, my college days, and some YouTube buddies. Party at my house tonight. I’ll have booze and tacos. 8pm.

  QUICK TIP: Don’t invite people to a party way out in advance. The best time to invite people to a party is the day you are throwing it. Everyone who shows up had nothing else to do and were stoked to get that text. There are so many times we get an invite two weeks early and it sounds fun, but when the day rolls around and you get that Evite reminder e-mail, you ain’t feeling it. When you throw a same-day party, everyone there wants to be there and is ready to whoop it up.

  I stocked my fridge with beer, covered the counter in liquor and mixers, went to the local taco place and got a full taco bar spread and one hundred taquitos, and tried to keep the dude out of my head until eight P.M. rolled around. Sure enough, when the clock struck ocho, I was decked out in a red Wrangler bodysuit, welcoming folks as they started to trickle in. An hour later, my house was packed. People were seriously throwing down. Everyone around me was knocking back shots and hula-hooping in my living room. At one point, someone was filming slow-mo videos of tortilla chips being poured over their head.

  As the night went on, I caught up with old friends, I laughed, I bitched about the breakup. My friend Molls brought me a card that read “Fuck anyone who isn’t obsessed with you.” I pitied and I partied and I cried and I laid on my bed laughing hysterically with a belly full of tacos surrounded by my buds. I felt more emotions coursing through my bodysuited bod than I’d felt in years.

  I didn’t need to block out the sadness that was so new to me. I needed to sit in it, take it in. This wasn’t a movie I was watching; this was my life. I couldn’t fast-forward. I needed these lows to feel the highs. I just hadn’t in so long.

  Everyone cleared out around three A.M., and I crawled into bed with Beanz at my side. This year is crazy, I thought to myself. But this was my test. I hadn’t been bucked off the horse with my long relationship; I had done a safe dismount like an Olympian finishing her dressage performance. This. This was being bucked off. And goddamnit, I wasn’t gonna stay down.

  I threw the comforter off my bed, much to Beanz’s dismay, cranked Ginuwine’s “Pony” up on my speakers, and got that Wrangler up for one more dance. While this image would have seemed sad a few months earlier, now it felt empowering. “Fuck anyone who isn’t obsessed with you,” I said into my reflection as I whipped an imaginary lasso above my head. This horse was back on its track.

  Get Online, Fellas!

  REMEMBER THAT AMAZING horse analogy at the end of my previous chapter? Well, I might’ve been ready to hop on a (hung like a) horse, but the stables were empty. Trust me, I was looking! I had even acquired a wing woman in my hunt for dudes, my also newly single friend Veronica.

  Veronica, or Vero, and I had known each other from my sketch comedy days, back when we were on a team together at the Upright Citizens Brigade. We hadn’t been regularly in touch since we had both moved to LA three years earlier, but we were able to sniff out each other’s singleness pretty quickly. Her, by seeing I had dropped weight, got a spray tan, and was constantly partying in my Instagram, me because she was posting just a few too many lyrics from Rihanna’s Anti album. No shame in our game.

  Vero and I became attached at the hip, prowling like two jaguars in the night, praying for prey. But no luck. People always say there’s plenty of fish in the sea, but I kept casting my net and pulling up spare tires and litter. Things were not looking good for single Mamrie. If you had run into me on the street, my smile and demeanor would say “carefree and grounded,” but my brain was a constant loop of 2 Live Crew’s “Me So Horny.” I ain’t even gonna lie. Part of the reason I turned this book in late is because I was so distracted by trying to get laid meet a guy that I couldn’t focus on writing.

  After a few months of doing all your traditional stuff, like going to bars and attending every party we were invited to where the host promised there might be at least one cute, single dude, I found myself on a girls’ trip to Hawaii with some of my faves.

  “You’ve got to join Bumble,” my friend Renee told me over morning mai tais.

  “I don’t think I can online date,” I said, motioning the bartender for another round. “It feels so impersonal with all the swiping. I feel like people get desensitized.”

  “It’s a numbers game, Mamrie. You gotta go out there and date randoms! See what it’s like to go out with someone just once, or just three times, or date a few people at the same time,” she continued. I put the drink’s tiny umbrella behind my ear, contemplating. Maybe it was the combination of rum drinks coursing through my body without any food in it, but for the first time ever, I was considering it. Going out to meet people the old-fashioned way sure as hell hadn’t been working for me—what did I have to lose?

  So I bit the bullet and went into the App Store and downloaded Raya. If you haven’t heard of Raya, it’s basically a dating app that you have to get approved to be on. No one knows what the exact algorithm to get on it is or who the hell decides it. I like to think it’s some cloaked council standing around a fire pit, holding each applicant’s head shots up one by one and tossing the rejects into the flames. But, in truth, it’s probably just some straight-outta-college intern who checks to see if you have a decent face/number of Instagram followers. I know this sounds corny as hell, but joining it was more of a hurdle of safety than anything else. I needed to be able to cyber-stalk these people to make sure they didn’t cyber-stalk me. Imagine this . . .

  You go out with a dude from a dating site and really hit it off, maybe even end the date with a kiss. Then when he drops you at your doorway, you run inside and immediately check his Instagram. Cool, he goes to lots of concerts, you think. Oh, and his friends seem fun and are attractive. That’s a good sign. You scroll and scroll until OMFG! Down in the archives there’s a picture of him standing beside you at a YouTube convention meet-and-greet. There he is, wearing a shirt with your catchphrase on it. I know this sounds insane, but it could happen! I had to take precautions. (And even if I wasn’t an Internet person, I think some light social media stalking before a date is a good safety precaution for any woman.)

  Within twenty-four hours, I was accepted to Raya. I let the app sit on my phone for the rest of the trip, profile totally blank, and didn’t open it once. I’d occasionally hit it when trying to get to my Instagram and then would hurry to close it as if I had accidentally FaceTimed my parents. Sure, I had downloaded it, but I hadn’t crossed the official threshold of being a person who “online dated.” For the time being, it was my little secret.

  But a few weeks later, when the glow of my attempt at a tan had faded and the five pounds I had gained from mai tais had become an official resident on my belly, I sat at my kitchen counter looking at the Raya icon on my phone as my girlfriends gabbed around me.

  I sipped mezcals on the rocks as they regaled me with their latest dating adventures. Five drinks in and I dropped the act. “You guys, I joined Raya.” The sound that came next can only be described as an a capella group of pig squeals. My phone was immediately swatted out of my hand as they started talking over one another about what should and shouldn’t be in my profile. First, they had to find the ri
ght photo. With their help, I picked one with a full smile to show my adorable gap, one with my dog, one being silly, one being sultry, and one professional photo that I had to creatively crop so it didn’t have a cheesy Getty Images watermark.

  Next up was music. You see, this specific app had your photo slideshow play along to a thirty-second clip of any song you wanted. This was a big decision. Do you go cool and put up a deep cut, like a Portuguese Bowie cover, à la The Life Aquatic soundtrack? Or do you just cut to the chase and throw up “My Neck, My Back” by poet laureate Khia?

  Within twenty minutes, I decided that the true essence of my personality could be summed up in the first thirty seconds of “Mr. Brownstone” by Guns N’ Roses. Nothing says “click the heart on this cool-ass bitch” like the instrumental intro to a song about heroin addicts. But it was SO right, for several reasons. First and foremost because I FUCKING LOVE GUNS N’ ROSES. They are the epitome of eighties Sunset Strip no-fucks-given rock, a time I have always idolized. I remember being five when Appetite for Destruction came out and wishing I could be a hot groupie from their videos. I might’ve even worked the trunk of a sapling in our backyard like a pole, but there is no photographic evidence, praise Jesus.

  The other reason I chose this song was because it was special to me at that exact moment. The best date I had with ol’ Pity Party dude was when we went to see Guns N’ Roses. Both of us were huge fans, but neither of us had seen them live, because, let’s face it, without Axl and Slash, it’s not Guns N’ Roses.

  Seeing the authentic GNR was freakin’ magical. We had floor seats, and when they hit the stage, Pity Party started bawling his eyes out. But not in a “what a pussy” way. In a “holy shit, I am so happy I am getting to witness this” way. It was sweet.