Somebody/Fate

What I miss most about the second half of my weight loss is how exciting it was to be out alone, finally making eye contact with people. Everyday, in my mind, I wrote stories about the guy on the treadmill, or the guy at the Aveda store, or my waiter at that diner downtown, about how they were looking for that special someone, just like me.



This song came out that same year, and it seriously fucked me up. I thought that was how you met someone, by just stumbling upon them randomly, eyes and ring fingers locking eternally. I was newly 171 pounds when I visited the duck pond at McKinley park that December. I was 25, and it was 2003. I saw a really good-looking guy, handsome smile, maybe 10 pounds overweight there with his two neices. We smiled at each other nervously. He said hi. I was too nervous to say anything back, so I nodded and kinda bowed, too. It was weird. He looked back again as he was leaving and gave me a giddy smile.

And for the first time, I felt like a summer-camper--a teenager, who sees someone else that's going to be nice, go to dinners with me, maybe go all the way with me--but patiently realizing I don't have a lot of experience. I thought that this would be the case with this man. I named him Casey, and I resolved that if it were meant to be, he'd be there the following Sunday at 2:45, too. It would be fate.

I met another guy like him, but latino, an hour later at Starbucks on Alhambra and the 80 freeway. I resolved again that if he'd be scheduled to be barista-ing the same time next Sunday, at 3:45--it would be fate, also. I named him Frank and his peppermint mochas were warm, and I know I got extra sprinkles not just because I asked.

My dental hygenist the following week was cute, and he was so gentle with my gums. He told me how hard it was to meet funny people, funny people like me. I offered him my friendster ID. I checked it every day for a month, but never ran into Khalid again.

My heart hardened slowly. I came out. I accepted the realities of what it means to be single in your twenties, but I remained optimistic, even when I moved to San Francisco, that if I grinded the right guy at the right time inside of Badlands (maybe I should just go midweek when its less crowded and can really connect?) I might find my Prince Charming.

And then it happened. The moment I will never forget.

In 2005 I was dating a guy who was awful. I mean, just terrible. Think Fidel Castro meets John Cusack. I met him at Mickeys on a Sunday. We were wasted. And again, this was a Sunday night. All he talked about was his film career and his pecs from the moment I met him through Easter Dinner, months later. It had been on and off for about 6 months. He had a boyfriend who knew about me, and they were back and forth. There were days he accused my sense of humor of being too niche for normal people, the kind of people who hung out at Hollywood parties, to understand--and I finally said, "You know what? I don't think we're right for each other." Hollywood parties do not house normal people. I go to a lot of them. Most of them are freaks from Idaho who left for LA because of a plea bargain.

When he said this we were at the Chipotle at the Beverly Center. I was living in Studio City at the time, in my friends mom's herbalife wherehouse (I'll wait to finish this story until you've composed yourself). He walked fast up to his car, I followed behind him and asked if we could talk about it. He said, "No. Fuck you. Get a ride home to your vitamin store from someone else." As he drove away, he rolled down his window and screamed," You're never going to find fucking Prince Charming, Sean Hetherington! He doesn't EXIST!"

---Side note, he and I recently reconnected and had sex, and I made him come to my house this time. I'm no idiot.

But between all the Romantic Comedies and Reba songs and stories from my straight friends who met in the most wholesome, old fashioned way and moved off to Somewhere That's Green, I finally started to let it go there on P3 of the Beverly Center. And it killed me a little. That my Mom and Dad met at a Black Angus, went to planned parenthood the next day, and married a year later--but I was left on the side of La Cienega with not so much as a bus schedule kind of splintered the grains of hope I had about the Blockbuster Video life I'd always hoped for.

But somedays, I find myself walking through CVS looking for earplugs, and I see someone else looking for a bag of them, too.

"I like the orange ones." he says.

"Me, too." I say. "Cause they have the little lips on the end so..."

"They don't fall out in the middle of the night, and get eaten by my dog." he says.

And then I know there's hope.