40 Days of Dating: An Experiment

by Jessica Walsh

  The connection between two people in a good marriage is strong enough to bear your whole weight, to bear both people’s whole weight. You can say, “I’m feeling disconnected,” and the relationship is well-maintained enough so that the other person can drop everything and say, “Oh, no! Let’s talk about it. Tell me more. Tell me more.” And you tell them and they listen.

  You gain a tremendous amount of freedom knowing that your partner is a champion for your inner growth and well-being. My mom always told me that marriage doesn’t imprison you, it gives you freedom, and this is absolutely true. In a good marriage, you can share all the difficult thoughts and feelings that come with being human. When inner struggles are shared in the space between two people who love and trust and respect each other, the burden lifts and the darkness fades.

  It’s essential to be able to repair the inevitable nicks and tears in the connection within a marriage, and it helps to delight in each other’s company. But over the years, these things are sustainable only when you know the other person is actively safeguarding your growth and well-being. As Augusten Burroughs wrote about his own marriage: “Even when we fight, it is in a Container of Good.” In a good marriage, both people trust that they are held by a Container of Good. That way, they can safely talk things all the way through.

  MAYBE? YES! NOT REALLY...

  by ZIPENG ZHU

  I am twenty-three years old and have never ever been in a relationship. I grew up watching Disney cartoons, which are full of princesses and princes having happy-ever-afters. Along the way, I also watched all the chick flicks and read a lot of romance novels. These were my only guides to love, and they made me want exactly what I saw on the screen and page, which, I guess, pretty much gives me the love maturity level of a nine-year-old.

  I grew up in China, in a conservative environment, where I never had a chance to explore my sexuality. When I came to New York, one of the gayest cities in the world, I finally got to embrace myself. Now, as I walk along Twenty-Third Street, I feel like Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and the City (the HBO show and the first movie, not the second one), and I feel like I am ready to take over the world. But at the same time, because of my lack of experience, I feel like Alice, right after she fell down the rabbit hole on her way to Wonderland.

  One day on my way to my usual waiting spot on the subway platform, I saw him: pale face, round glasses, dark and super-curly hair. I could tell he had a lean figure underneath a thick charcoal-gray jacket and a beige backpack. He was standing in front of a poster, looking a bit serious, but definitely smart and handsome.

  Just as I was thinking “how cute,” he saw me. But, like every single time I make eye contact with a handsome man, I became super shy and immediately turned away. But of course, in my head were flashing images of our whole future lives together, and all the cute things we would do, happily ever after.

  I glanced at him again and thought, “OH MY GOD, he’s still looking at me, with a slight smile on his face!” I looked away again. My heart was racing. My face felt like it was getting hotter. I really hoped he was looking at me, and not at a hot, tall, skinny model behind me, and this thought left me no choice but to look at him again, just to check. I pretended to look around the subway station, while trying to see if his focus was still on me, and—YES! He was still staring at me with that little witty smile. I could not have felt more excited and shy and happy and scared, but then I realized he was walking toward me.

  At that moment I froze. I felt like twenty million fireworks had exploded inside me, from head to toe. Every neuron was numb. Inside I was screaming, “THANK GOD! Finally someone sees how much I need a man in my life. This is the most romantic thing ever to happen on the planet! I have been waiting twenty-three years for this moment!” Then I thought, “What is he gonna say to me? How am I gonna respond? How do I look?” And a million other anxious thoughts flew into my head, all while he was moving closer and closer to me.

  Then he was in front of me. He leaned in toward me.

  Just at the moment I thought he was going to kiss me. Just at the moment I was about to close my eyes and let him. Just at the moment I thought, this is the best winter ever. Just at the moment I thought happily ever after really does exist . . .

  He said, “Sir, I think your zipper is open.”

  FIRST SIGHT LOVE

  by STEFAN SAGMEISTER

  I have never believed in love at first sight. I got to be fifty years old and it had never happened to me. I considered stories about it fodder for fourteen-year-olds and romantic comedies.

  Then a woman stopped by at my place to set up an interview for a German art magazine, and swoosh, swoosh, half an hour into the meeting I had to hold back the urge to ask her if she wanted to be my girlfriend.

  I did ask her the next day. She said yes.

  Two weeks later I asked her to marry me. She said yes!

  This was almost two years ago. How much would I love to tell you that we got married in Bali, that she is pregnant now, and that we both can’t wait for the little girl to emerge, but this is not how it turned out: We broke up.

  Love at first sight sadly has little to do with being able to make a relationship work. We were fantastic at falling for each other, but not so talented at being together.

  DATE UP, MARRY DOWN

  by LORENE SCAFARIA

  I recently had dinner with a group of friends, some couples, some singles, and like most dinners I go to, it ended with me driving home thinking of everything I wish I hadn’t said. Highest on the list was when I defended my theory, or should I say tweet, that advised women to “DATE UP, MARRY DOWN” which caused one guy, the guy I thought maybe had a crush on me, to call me a “failed romantic.” Okay, let me explain: It is a much more terrifying thought for a guy to look at a girl and think, “This is going to be the last person I have sex with.” Of course women are also afraid of this, but it is inherently, sadly, biologically, more of a wrestling match for men when deciding whether or not to commit to one person. It is also (99.9 percent of the time) on the man to propose marriage, so it takes a lot for them to look at a woman and think that it is scarier to live without her than for her to be his last sexual partner. Therefore, most of the time, the man has to feel like he couldn’t do any better.

  Does this sound incredibly cynical at a dinner party? Yes. Did the recently engaged couple at the party want to hang out again? No. Does it make me feel good thinking that my ex-boyfriends’ wives are settling for them? A little bit, yeah. Am I a thirty-five-year-old unmarried, childless, failed romantic doomed to bitter-dom? Gosh, I hope not.

  In truth, I know a lot of lovely couples in healthy, balanced relationships. I don’t like thinking about the differences between men and women. I don’t like that men seem comfortable with women thinking they’re stupid. I don’t like that women seem comfortable with men thinking they’re crazy. I worry that women are too competitive with each other, too critical of each other. I worry that men are all letting each other off the hook. I worry that women lost the battle of the sexes a long time ago, and that we’ll never win the war on “caring less.”

  When I first looked at Tim and Jessica’s blog, I was nervous. But what unfolded was actually a beautiful tale of how different men and women are, of how we should embrace the differences, and try to appreciate both sides of the story. It showed how sometimes we can be quite similar, but express ourselves so differently, and sometimes we don’t express ourselves enough, or honestly. I may be wrong about my “marrying down” theory. I want to be. I want to believe that we’re more similar than we think. What I do know to be true of men and women is this: Men can’t think until they have sex. Women can’t think after they’ve had sex. And maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to be, or we’d never get anything done.

  MY FAIR LADY

  by BRIAN COLLINS

  First, it was her eyes. I stared at her. She smiled back. Her two gloved hands held a pink parasol aloft. Behind her, parades of people were dancing and sing
ing. Beside her, a middle-aged man appeared, wearing a tweed hat, cocked at an angle. He smiled at me, too. I smiled back. Both of them were painted on a big movie poster in the window at the Lexington Cinema, my town’s tiny movie house. Surrounding the poster were small color photographs of scenes from a film: A British racecourse. An elegant ball. Waltzes. Evening gowns. London at night. The movie house played vintage and second-run films. I saw Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago, and my first James Bond movie there.

  I was about to turn twelve. My father, eager to plan my birthday, had just asked me what I wanted to do that year. He had already taken my friends to the circus, the Larz Andersen Auto Museum, the Boston Museum of Science, and, most recently, horseback riding.

  “Everyone seemed to like that a lot,” my father said over breakfast. “Want to do it again?”

  “I had a different idea, Dad.”

  “What? Better than horses?”

  “Uh, maybe. What if we went to a movie, instead?”

  He paused. “A . . . movie?”

  “Yeah. There’s one playing in the center I really want to see. My Fair Lady.”

  “My Fair Lady? Really? You want to take your friends to . . . My Fair Lady? For your birthday?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  So we went.

  For two and a half hours, seven other boys and I were transfixed as we watched the story of Eliza Doolittle unfold in Panavision. First, as a poor flower girl. And later, as a princess. When she spoke, she suddenly was a princess. The heartbreaking part was that Eliza Doolittle had no idea how beautiful she was. But I knew. And I knew what she deserved. It was easy: A lovely dinner. A night of dancing. A goodnight kiss. Flowers sent to her the following afternoon. Poor, suave middle-aged Professor Higgins clearly did not understand this. And he never would. But at twelve, I knew.

  WORST DATES

  Some of the most entertaining stories we’ve heard have been about people’s trials and tribulations in their dating lives. Here are a few experiences from friends who knew pretty quickly they had not found that special someone.

  JOHN FULBROOK

  One day I met this girl at the school commons. She was smart and hot, and I somehow convinced her to go on a date with me. But on the day of the date she called to say she was sick and couldn’t go out. So, thinking fast, I offered to bring her soup, attention, and humor while she lay in bed sick. In my mind, I was skipping the “date” and going straight to the bedroom. She took the bait. Sweet! I showed up with the soup, and sat on her bed. She was in her PJ’s, and I was drooling. We flirted. Then she asked me, “Do you smoke pot?” I most certainly did, but I said, “Not that much, only sometimes.” I tried to play it like I was an upstanding citizen. Then she leaned in close and whispered, “You know what would be fun? Smoking up and really getting to know one another.” I thought, “Wow! Is this really happening?” I jumped up and said, “Let’s do it! I have some pot in my room!” She then sat straight up, pulled away from me, and said, “I was just seeing how into pot you are, and now I know.” OUCH! It was a test! I failed hard-core. In minutes it was ice cold in her room, and I left sheepishly, knowing I would never see her again.

  TIM

  I once went out with a girl who turned out to be an absolute bore. We were at a place I love in the West Village called Little Branch. Perhaps my breath smelled that night, or maybe hers did, I don’t know—all I know is, she wouldn’t talk. Totally exasperated, I searched for any topic to discuss: work, family, friends, movies, books, music, politics, food, clothes, technology, religion, horoscopes, zoo animals, aliens, melted plastic—you name it. I got through it, but I wanted to die. Later, a friend of mine had an idea: I should have pulled out a gun and shot myself at the dinner table—that would’ve given her something to talk about at her next date!

  JESSIE

  The worst date I’ve ever had was at Freemans on the Lower East Side. The food is amazing, but they don’t take reservations so there is always a one-to two-hour wait. By the time we sat down to eat, I had received detailed accounts of every past relationship he’d ever had. He spent dinner talking about how amazing and successful he was, how lucky I’d be to date him, and what an amazing boyfriend he’d be to me. He barely let me get one word in during the whole dinner. He ordered an enormous amount of food, but I had only one appetizer because my stomach was in knots. When it came time to pay, he fumbled around in his pockets—he had forgotten his wallet! I had to pay the $250 tab.

  ANNA OSERAN

  At one of my first college parties, I met a guy named Alex and became immediately smitten. We started hanging out, and after about three months, I felt it was time to have the DTR (Define the Relationship) talk. One night, after countless beers at a frat party, we stumbled back to his house where he lived with a bunch of roommates. I told him we needed to talk about “us.” He replied, “Okay, sure. Just give me a second. I’ll meet you in my room.” I lay down on his bed and went through the bullet points of our upcoming talk in my head. When he came in, he flopped down on the bed, held me close, and whispered, “I just took an Ambien. You have five minutes.” Suffice it to say, I never spent another night in that shitty house again.

  MAAYAN PEARL

  I went on a date with this guy I met online who seemed interesting and well traveled but who turned out to be a compulsive liar and a sleaze. We went for drinks at Brooklyn Social, one of my favorite bars in Carroll Gardens. He arrived twenty-five minutes late and glued to his BlackBerry. Terrible first impression. The conversation was strained but it might have gone better if he hadn’t kept answering his phone for “work.” He claimed to work for the Department of Homeland Security and was supposedly orchestrating some kind of drug bust. This was an impressive first-date story line. I found out later that the entire time he was getting “work” calls it was some girl calling him. Fail!

  NAME WITHHELD

  I had been dating this guy for a short while. He had his pilot’s license, so one day he picked me up in Tampa, Florida, in a four-seater plane and flew us down to Key West for the day. During the flight back to Tampa, he told me he had to go to the bathroom really bad and that we were going to make a pit stop in Naples. Um, okay. A little while later, before we got to Naples, he told me he wasn’t going to make it. I thought, “Okaaaay . . . how the heck is this gonna work?” Then he asked me to hand him the vomit bag, which I did. Then he told me he had to go No. 2. Ohmigod. I dug around for the flight map, unfolded it, and held it up between us in this tiny plane no larger than a compact car to give him (and me!) some privacy. He put the plane on auto-pilot and did his business. He kept the bag full of . . . on his side. We finally arrived in Tampa and said our good-byes. I never saw him again.

  RACHEL SHECHTMAN

  I went out with a guy who liked to hear himself talk so much that I started counting how many words I could get in edgewise. He was handsome and nice, so in the beginning I had hopes it would be a good night, but after I asked him a few questions, he just kept talking. He just kept going and going and going—he made the energizer bunny seem slow! To entertain myself, I turned it into a game to see how many words he would allow me to say. If memory serves, it was around fifty words. I should have turned it into a drinking game!

  JESSICA’S

  TOP 5

  CLOTHING DESIGNERS

  Helmut Lang

  Alexander Wang

  Rag & Bone

  Alexander McQueen

  Acne Studios

  BOOKS

  Just Kids by Patti Smith, The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, On Love by Alain de Botton, Lolita by Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov, Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll

  MOVIES

  Princess Bride

  Fight Club

  Requiem for a Dream

  Amélie

  The Matrix

  ARTISTS

  Maurizio Cattelan

  Jenny Holzer

  Salvador Dali

  Urs Fischer

  James Turrell


  CITIES

  New York City

  Berlin

  Paris

  Los Angeles

  Istanbul

  MUSIC ARTISTS

  Bon Iver

  Vampire Weekend

  The National

  James Blake

  Beirut

  TV SHOWS

  House of Cards

  Breaking Bad

  Game of Thrones

  Homeland

  Dexter

  FOOD

  Motorino Brussels Sprout Pizza

  Milk Bar Birthday Cake Balls

  Bozu’s Sushi Bomb

  Brooklyn Star Mac & Cheese

  Cookshop Bloody Mary

  TIMOTHY’S

  TOP 5

  ARTISTS

  Red Grooms

  William Kentridge

  Paul Klee

  Greg Ligon

  Jim Dine

  FOOD

  Peanut Butter

  Cheese

  Broccoli

  Bacon

  Blueberries

  BASKETBALL PLAYERS

  Carmelo Anthony

  Mark Price

  Dominique Wilkens

  Tim Hardaway

  Reggie Miller

  MOVIES

  Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Manhattan, Roman Holiday, The Royal Tenenbaums, Hoop Dreams

  MUSIC ARTISTS

  Bob Dylan

  2Pac

  Led Zeppelin

  Miles Davis

  TV on the Radio

  STAND-UP COMEDIANS

  Chris Rock