by Sarah Fuller
George was disappointed when I couldn’t take Eleanor to this little girl’s birthday party.
“Sorry, we already have plans,” I said over the phone.
“What are you doing? It can’t be cooler than going to a famous rock star’s house,” he complained.
“We’re going to Big Bear,” I said. “And I sort of don’t care about hanging out with people just because they’re famous.”
He sighed, used to my self-righteous bullshit.
Honestly, I might have gotten excited about it if it was one of the obscure folk artists I listen to. But they are all hippies who live in Oregon or Colorado.
I’d like to think that my detachment from Hollywood celebrities makes it easier for the famous people around me to coexist. I always treat them like they’re normal because I honestly don’t know who they are. I’m fairly certain I’ve shopped alongside A-list celebrities at Trader Joe’s and didn’t know it; the big sunglasses and hats were my only clue. However, it is LA, so I know a few divas who are nobodies and wear that get-up just to fool people into thinking they’re someone famous. And before you say that A-list celebrities don’t do their own grocery shopping, Britney Spears has been seen buying produce many times at the local Albertsons.
LA is a surreal place because the things that shouldn’t happen in my ordinary life happen here. I once took my sister to Sky High, a place with a bazillion trampolines lined up in a huge warehouse. It’s pretty much the best place in the entire world. My stepmother freaked out when she realized that James Gandolfini was in line in front of us. For a southerner from Baton Rouge, it is not an everyday occurrence to run into a celebrity at a kid’s play place; however, this is LA, an actor’s playground… therefore, what shouldn’t be common has become the norm.
I once sat in Conan O’Brian’s desk chair. Go back and tell my younger self that, and she’d laugh in disbelief—I never thought I was getting out of that small East Texas town. And Conan O'Brien wasn’t a real person that had a real desk… That was all Hollywood, which is like Mars, full of Martians. But it turns out that Conan is real, and that dude is tall. I had to get a ladder to climb into his chair, which is surprisingly minimalist, about like the simple desk chair I have at home (because I’m cheap).
You’re probably wondering about these dinners I have with celebrities. They happen all the time. We don’t even plan it. For instance, the other day, I was at my favorite local BBQ restaurant. There’s a long set of shared booths, sort of family style. I looked at the table right next to mine and noticed a familiar face: Jerry O’Connell, an actor and husband to Rebecca Romijn. We were both dining with our daughters. We were pretty much at the same table, so by all reasoning, we had dinner together.
On another occasion, I was dining with Eleanor at the Natural Café, and there was no one else at our table. Actually, I had thought we were the only ones at the restaurant, but that was because all my attention was on my child, who was around nine months old at the time. When I used to take Eleanor out to eat, I’d order our food, the check, and a to-go container all at once. You never know if a baby is going to grant you time to eat or throw down the tantrum of the century.
I was trying to cram my veggie burger down my throat as fast as I could when Eleanor became distracted by a couple who had sat down behind us. I didn’t look back to see them, only kept chewing as quickly as I could. I’m a little ashamed to admit that I kept my head down as Eleanor twisted around in her seat and began waving incessantly at the people. I knew I should make my daughter turn back around to face the table and not harass strangers, but I also knew that I had half a burger left and limited time to get it down. Finally, when she started babbling, my Southern etiquette kicked in.
I tapped the table to get the baby’s attention. “Hey, Elle, let’s not bother other people at a restaurant.” I then turned to the couple to apologize.
It took me a moment to recognize the faces staring back at me since neither was wearing any makeup. Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi simply smiled, continuing to wave at my child.
“Don’t be silly,” Ellen said good-naturedly. “Finish eating, and we’ll entertain your baby.”
How could I say no to that? I thanked them and spun back around to slowly finish my food, Eleanor busy making faces at the two women.
It was after this experience that I concluded that everyone in LA is an asshole…except for Ellen DeGeneres.
Chapter Fourteen
Can I Have Your Friend’s Number
I think I’m dating a serial killer, but I’m way too curious to cut him off. We met on Bumble and have been chatting for several months. The guy definitely has a lot of crazy going on, but it’s mixed with a charming personality, so I keep him around.
His responses are so wrong, I have to hear what he’ll say next. The other day, I told him I was too busy to go out; he wanted to show me around Santa Barbara, where he lives. Only forty minutes from my house, Santa Barbara is a quiet beach town where my blood pressure drops upon entering city limits. The wine flows like wine, and the rich aristocrats mix seamlessly with the hippies, so much so that you can hardly tell them apart.
I informed Serial Killer that I was busy that weekend.
“Too busy for your future husband?” he responded.
I had no answer for that. But you see, that’s what I’ve found so intriguing and wrong about this guy. He doesn’t let my silence deter him. Instead, he sends me our astrology compatibility chart. Apparently, according to a bogus source, Virgos and Tauruses are perfect together.
Again, I didn’t have a response to that. What was I supposed to say? ‘This astrology business changed my mind about this weekend. I’ll dump Eleanor at her father’s house so you can cut me up into little pieces, you psycho’?
That wasn’t going to work. Eleanor always comes first. I won’t even allow her to go to a friend’s house for a slumber party on the weekends I have her. I want all of her time.
“But, Mommy, when am I going to be able to do a sleepover?” she asked in the whining voice she knows I love.
“When you’re thirty,” I answered
She sighed. “For real, though. When?”
“Look, it’s fine if you want to sleep over at Keeyan’s house, but I’m coming too.”
My friend Samar, Keeyan’s mother, had said it was okay if I tagged along, knowing I didn’t want to miss my Elle time.
My little princess then rolled her eyes and stomped her feet. “I want to have a sleepover by myself.”
My phone buzzed. I looked at it. Apparently Serial Killer wanted me to have a sleepover all by myself, too. The better to kill me with no witnesses. He had sent me the Carpenters’ song, “Close to You,” and messaged, “I’m just sitting here plucking these flower petals and thinking of you…”
I was certain he was tearing the petals from an innocent flower and trying to calculate if he had enough chloroform. Again I politely ignored him, which only made him hungrier, it seemed.
The next day, he informed me he was passing through my area.
How convenient.
“Can we do lunch at noon?” he asked. “That’s the only time I’m free.”
“Oh, too bad, I’m at Pilates.”
Five fucking seconds later, he messaged, “Schedule changed. How about one-thirty?”
When I didn’t respond immediately, he sent me a GIF from the movie Titanic of Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet embracing. Again, this guy had made me speechless. Not from love, though, but rather from pure amazement.
I knew I needed to cut him loose. Tell him that it wasn’t going to work because he was insane and scared me. Too many times, he’d asked to take me out to a secluded beach, where I was certain he planned to drown me like the rest of the women he’d dated. But I just couldn’t dump him. I was too curious about what scary things he’d say next.
I think I can look at the men I’ve dated and see my own mental disorders.
I wasn’t ready to cut Serial Killer off, despi
te all the crazy shit he’d said. It was too entertaining, which plainly meant I’d rather be amused by my dating life than find my soulmate. Somewhere out there, Mr. Right was being slightly normal and not creeping other women out. How very boring. Meanwhile, Serial Killer sent me pictures of myself from my profile and said things like, “I can’t look away from these eyes.” I interpreted that to mean, ‘I want to put them in a box under my bed.’
When I would mention to Serial Killer that we should do a group date, he’d always shy away from the idea. Then he’d send me a picture of himself at a secluded beach and say, “This is a much better idea for the two of us.”
When I went silent, he didn’t take the hint, because serial killers don’t quit.
“Is it that we live too far apart? I can come to you,” he said.
He couldn’t come to my house; I know for a fact that my neighbors can’t hear me scream, so that wasn’t going to work. And before you start thinking something kinky about that statement, just you wait. I’ll get to that later.
The distance didn’t bother me, to be honest. It was the fact that when I’d casually ask what he was doing, he would always say, “Planning our honeymoon.”
I was pretty sure he actually meant my funeral.
Being forty minutes apart was nothing for me. That was a big improvement over my past. One of my last serious relationships, the guy lived on the East Coast. Long-distance relationships are tough unless you’re me and independent to a fault. I thrive on long-distance relationships. I get all the electronic attention I need to sustain my fondness for the person, without all the clinginess. Like a pilot, they visit every so often, and best of all, there’s no dirty man clogging up my drain with their hair shavings.
Serial Killer not only didn’t quit, he never lost confidence—I think that was sort of crucial for his overall mission. As a murderer, the moment doubt enters your mind, you slip up, leave a severed arm behind, and then the police discover the string of murders you’ve committed.
I, like most girls, prefer confidence. It’s probably the most attractive quality that a future mate can portray. I wanted to tell one guy on Bumble that after he messaged me, but I try not to turn into every guy’s therapist. I’d be busy forever.
This guy and I matched on Bumble, and I followed the protocol, sending him the first message. Girls making the first move is absolutely against my very nature. My debutant mother actually used to forbid me to call a boy.
“You make them call you,” she’d command.
“But what if they don’t?” I argued.
“Then it wasn’t meant to be.”
My mother lived by the philosophy that fate runs our lives. I prefer to take a more hands-on approach these days, but still, it’s ingrained in me that guys make the first move. Otherwise I “look like a hussy,” “throwing” myself at men.
In my late thirties, I’m working hard to break out of all the programming from my childhood. That’s why I put on my best hussy outfit, Daisy Dukes and a halter top, and messaged the guy I’d matched with on Bumble.
A day later, the guy responds with, “you're cute, but I gotta be honest, you're probably out of my league. I'm not even close to having my shit together, and about the only thing I have to bring to the table right now is a good heart. I don’t know exactly what you're looking for, just that you can probably do better than me.”
Probably? You can’t even use proper punctuation, I thought as I read the reply. There was no ‘probably’ about it.
But why was Mr. Loser even on this dating app if he was going to demoralize himself when a woman reached out to him? I’d never heard such a pathetic reply.
Confidence is key. He could have lived with his parents and played video games all day, but if he’d responded with, “Hey. You’re cute. I’ve got a lot going on right now, but how about I take you out for a drink when I’m free?” I probably would have said yes. The “a lot going on” might have just been that he was in an online tournament that was super demanding on his schedule. The “when I’m free” part might have been on Tuesday when he’d finally showered.
Yes, I would have eventually figured out that he was a loser and politely ended things, but I might also have fallen for his confidence and given him a real chance. It’s hard to tell.
As I said, confidence is key, and definitely something I have to work on, too.
My Pilates instructor-turned-friend Pelé and I have been discussing this dating business. Specifically, how confidence and being bold relate to it. We decided to give each other monthly challenges and hold each other accountable. It’s kind of like the buddy system friends use for dieting, except with dating.
“Okay, what’s our first challenge?” she asked.
I know that I’ve become complacent with dating. I won’t look a potential man in the eyes in public, and then I string along serial killers online. If I’m being honest, I’m not even trying.
I remembered what my friend Alissa said about getting out of my element, about pushing myself. Then I remembered what my mother told me about never making the first move. ‘If they want you, they’ll come to you. Play hard to get.’
That approach, or lack thereof, totally worked for my mother, since she’d been married four times. However, I wasn’t concerned with finding a man who wanted to take care of me; I wanted someone who I respected. An equal.
“I think we should have to go up to a man and ask for his number,” I said to Pelé.
I couldn’t believe the words that had rushed out of my mouth. However, it did make perfect sense. If we were adopting challenges, then this was the perfect one to start with. It forced me to talk to an actual man, in real life. It made it so I had to make the first move. And it definitely meant I had to up my confidence.
“Yes,” Pelé agreed. “I’m totally down for that challenge.”
Of course, she is, I thought.
Pelé, as my Pilates instructor and a minor pop star, had a lot of things going for her that I didn’t. I only mention this because it directly relates to confidence. She’s in incredible shape, tall, and has hair and eyelashes that go on for days. I’m like the hobbit form of her.
I was unsurprised that Pelé completed the challenge in the first week.
“You realize we have four weeks to ask for a guy’s number,” I complained when I found out. “There was no reason to do it right away.”
“Why put it off?” she reasoned.
“Because I’m still trying to drop ten pounds,” I answered.
She laughed, thinking I was kidding. “It really is a mind trip, though. I never realized what a man has to go through, asking us out.”
I thought about it. That was another thing that was stopping me from completing the challenge. The fear of rejection was real. It was painful. I didn’t think I could move on with my life if I asked a complete stranger for his phone number and he said no. All of a sudden, I understood the intimidation that men faced when asking me out. Maybe this was why I’d always been overly nice to them, saying yes when I had no interest in dating them. I hoped that the guy I eventually asked for a phone number from would take this pity on me.
“Where did you find this guy you picked up?” I asked.
I was thinking that Pelé would say a bar or a club. Those made the most sense.
I wasn’t expecting her to say, “Costco.”
“Are you serious?” I asked in disbelief. “What, were you two in line to get samples, and you asked him for his phone number?”
She shrugged. “Sort of. We kept running into each other. After like the tenth time, I decided to talk to him.”
“What did you talk about? Moral philosophy? Quantum physics? British literature?”
She grimaced at my question. “I kept it simple. I asked him if he was single.”
“Oh,” I said, fixing the script I’d been constructing in my head.
I changed it from: “Hi I’m Sarah, a sci-fi writer. I have a daughter and a cat and really like Emily Dickinson’
s poetry. I’d like to have your phone number if you’re amenable.” The new script read: “Heya. Are you single?”
“So he gave you his phone number?” I asked, still in disbelief that my friend had picked up a man at Costco. “Are you going to message him?”
“We already have lunch set up for tomorrow,” she reported.
Damn. I had a lot to learn from Pelé. Getting the number was just the first part of the challenge. Then I’d have to follow up.
“Sarah, it’s really hard to do, but once you do it, you’ll have a whole new confidence,” Pelé said.
The next day, I couldn’t wait to hear how the date with Costco Guy went.
“Well?” I asked Pelé during class.
“It was fun,” she responded. “He’s nice.”
“And cute?” I inquired.
She nodded. “Yeah, I got a picture of him.” She pulled up her phone and scrolled through until she found Costco Guy. “See?”
My mouth popped open at the sight of the man on her phone. “That guy has kids at my daughter’s school. I see him at drop-off every day,” I told her.
“Oh my God!” Pelé exclaimed.
“And now you see why I can’t pick up a guy at Costco,” I stated.
She agreed with a nod. “Your situation is a bit more complex. You and I are going to the club this weekend.”
When Saturday night came, I tried to make excuses for why I couldn’t go.
“I have to work,” I said to Pelé.
“This is work,” she countered. “Aren’t you writing a book about dating in LA?”
Damn her and her excellent reasoning.
“I haven’t lost those ten pounds yet,” I continued.
I think I was actually up three pounds, but who was counting.
“You’re fine,” she stated. “And it’s only a phone number you have to get, not the rest of your life. Besides, you have salon hair.”