Date 29: Tinder Oliver

TO:

M'lady,

Dinner is at Lawry's on La Cienega at 9pm. It's at Lawry's (which might seem an odd choice) bc my out-of-town college friend wanted to go there.

I'm going to head toward Beverly Hills around 8pm. I hope this does not come off as either presumptuous or an imposition as regards where I will lay my head this evening, but I thought I'd park my car at or near to your place and we could take a taxi or Uber from there to the restaurant. I'm anticipating enough martinis and wine to make driving a dumb idea.

Here is some weird music: http://bit.ly/1f1oZhZy

Let me know if the above plan sounds ok and I will see you soon.

Me: The above plan does not sound ok. Please revise and advise.

...just kidding. But I'm seriously considering upping my maintenance level for my next experiment. Not that my sanity (or my liver) could survive another one of these suckers.

Dinner with TO's college friends! Excellent impression, here I come. He warns of potentially bland, law-centric conversation and invites me to bring along a friend for reasons of comfort. One of my most entertaining cohorts signs on for the gig, but comes down with the plague the morning of. At this point, I'm pretty sure TO thinks I have no friends. I've met so many of his and he's met...zero...of mine. I'm really active on Instagram? (I am. You should totally follow me here.)

We stroll over to Lawry's and join his friends in the entry. I am immediately overwhelmed. They have all known each other for years and their group seems to be pretty insular, with no one reaching out to include me in convo. Never stopped me before! Heeded or not, I toss my two cents in wherever I see a slot, determined to win 'em over. Conversation picks up over prime rib (them) and fish (me), when I discover the chick seated to my left is hilarious. Fantastic. We have some laughs, take a few photos, and head across the street to Bazaar at SLS to get properly trollied.

A few hours later, Tinder Oliver and I are back at my apartment. I decide to play one of my favorite drinking games: Self-sabotage.

TO is looking a little confused at my lack of, um...protective devices, so to speak. I steal a trick from improv and jump right from A to C.

Me: I just, I don't know, I haven't, like, slept with that many guys.
TO: I haven't slept with that many girls.

Excellent yes and. I press on, determined to make it weird.

Me: This is the point where I usually bail out.

What are you even talking about? Please stop. Please stop now. Thankfully, TO seems to be equally over-intoxicated and counters with a few sweet nothings that fade into sleep zone.

The next morning, we awake to multiple phone calls from one of my nearest and dearest. By the fourth call, I decide it's probably an emergency and he's probably dying, so I answer. It's not. He's not. He wants to have a boozy brunch.

Me: I hate you for waking me up. I thought you were dying.
N&D: You love me. Are you coming? Come now. We're hungry.
Me: Maybe. Hold on. (to TO) Do you want to go to brunch?
N&D: Are you with someone?
Me: Maybe.
N&D: (laughing) You slut. Tinder Oliver?

I'm really happy he throws out the correct name, as my BlackBerry is decently close to TO's ear.

Tinder Oliver agrees to come for a quick bite, but says he must run home to a full day of work after that.

Seven hours later, we've migrated from Pearl's to Rock and Reilly's to Cabo Cantina. Happy Saturday, Sunset. I had been slightly afraid he might think my friends were a little too crazy, due to a couple party-happy out-of-towners, and that my friends might think he was a little too boring, due to his seemingly serious nature. Thankfully, everyone seems to love each other. Er, everyone actually says they love each other.

When Tinder Oliver steps out for a moment, I turn to my friends:

Me: (totally tipsy) Do you like him?
N&D: (smiles up at TO, who, unbeknownst to me, had just returned from the washroom and was standing directly behind my right shoulder) We love him.

Not embarrassing at all.

We have a rollicking good time/plan future double dates/etc etc. TO and I part ways with the group around 7p to get me home and changed for a costume party. As he helps me into 137 hook-and-eye closures, I start to think that it might be sort of really nice (and useful!) to have him around on a more regular basis.

...

RULE #1: YOU MUST BE COMPLETELY OPEN TO THE PROCESS - INCLUDING THE IDEA THAT IT MIGHT ACTUALLY LEAD TO A RELATIONSHIP

...

So many deep breaths.

*not his real name

Date 20: Tinder Oliver

3rd date with Tinder Oliver! Our first was a (few) lovely round(s) of drinks at Chateau and the second an Arctic Monkeys concert at the Wiltern. That was almost two weeks ago. We attempted to calendar a dinner in the middle, but our schedules refused to match up. Distance slash enchantment? Here's hoping.

This third date was to involve both dinner and a haunted house.

TO: Before the day gets away from me, am thinking we will do dinner downtown tmrw if that works. I have a hodgepodge of friends going to the spookhouse who may also join beforehand to eat.

Excellent thought.

I meet TO at his place downtown and we walk to meet his crew at the newly opened Peking Tavern. Dinner is delish, friends are welcoming, drinks are plentiful. Enchantment indeed.

We Uber over to Echo Park for the "spookhouse," but find we have about 20 minutes to kill. We also find that they don't serve liquor at their "bar." None of us are trying to remember our death by fright, so we hit up a Mexican restaurant down the street for tequila shots. And then we hit up the liquor store next door for portable flasks of vodka, because apparently none of us are trying to remember anything. I, personally, am attempting to self-medicate my severe case of nerves slash social anxiety. Third date. Meeting friends. Trying too hard to be cool. You know, the usual.

The haunted house is tons of fun. It's wonderful to have a hand to hold through the dark, winding hallways and someone to laugh at me when I get dragged up onstage to the guillotine. Look how good I am at couple-y things!!

Post scare-fest, TO and I separate from the group to get some late night grub. Lord knows my over-intoxicated liver could stand to see a few nutrients float by. We have another one of our slightly too deep and one hundred percent too personal chats over food I probably couldn't taste at Pacific Dining Car before stealing the rose from our table and heading back to TO's for a decently PG sleepover. (You're welcome, Mom.) Notably, the first sleepover of this experiment -- though, possibly only notable to my super classy guy friends who can't believe that I've, "like, gotten, like, twenty different dudes to take [me] out and, like, pay for sh*t without putting out. What a bunch of suckers." Like I said, supes classy. And it's only been 13 different guys thus far. Ahem.

One home-cooked breakfast, a mini Ryan Adams tutorial, and an awkwardly lengthy parking lot makeout sesh (sorry, parking attendants) later, I'm heading home -- secretly super happy I haven't heard back from Tinder Lucas about our possible second date tonight.

TO: You left a sweater here lovely. Just so you aren't worried you lost it. Will bring it next time I see you.

Love next times.

*not his real name

Date 9: Tinder Oliver

My second date with Tinder Oliver.  Our first had been a lovely evening of drinks at Chateau Marmont just four days prior. Four days in which I managed to go on five more dates with five other men. I have never been so tired of talking about myself. 

Despite my exhaustion, I am quite excited for the evening at hand -- an Arctic Monkeys concert at the Wiltern. TO knows I spent the afternoon at the fair, though he doesn't know it was a date. Somehow I felt like that might have been a bit of an overshare. 

TO: I hope you are eating weird fried things. Set time is 945. Want to meet for a drink beforehand? 830ish?

Perfect. I proceed to pass out on my newly acquired, enormous stuffed Nemo for an hour before pulling myself together. 

I'm strangely nervous as I tip-toe into the Beer Belly, meekly joining Tinder Oliver at the bar. He's got a great rapport going with the bartender, which I take as a good sign, personality-wise. We chat the fair, Breaking Bad, and music, with me stumbling over every third word and confusing half my facts. Pretty sure this experiment is destroying brain cells by the thousands. 

Seemingly unfazed by my flounder, Tinder Oliver gathers my splintered proclamations in one kindly swoop after another, adding his own intriguing insights to the heap.  How gentlemanly.  

We trek over to the Wiltern, grab a couple cocktails, and settle into our seats for a delightful show -- bras thrown onstage, half-naked streakers and the like. I take this time to showcase a few of my Taylor Swift-approved, shoulder-heavy dance moves. TO pretends to be amused, which I decide to take as another good sign.

Post-concert, we slip into a dive bar, where I insist upon a mini darts competition. TO warns against this move, as the game of darts just so happens to be his special secret talent.

TO:  Choosing a different form of competition will be much more fruitful, I assure you.

...

I throw some cash on the counter.

I lose. We keep playing until I lose less badly.

Our fellow patrons are a touch rough and tumble, but remarkably welcoming. One man requests a photo with me. Another attempts to hop in our game while Tinder Oliver is in the restroom. A third won't quit asking how tall I am. Seriously, won't quit. 

Irritated and tipsy-verging-on-tipped, I turn to him: 

Me: Do you know how tall you are?

He nods. 

Me: Then don't you think you could make an estimated guess?

...
...
...

In my head, I started with 'estimate it' but then switched to 'educated guess', and I ended up lost somewhere in the middle. Grool. Tinder Oliver gently cups my face in his hands, laughing while correcting me. Great. Now he thinks I'm an idiot.  

Five minutes later, he's making out with my face. Guess that dumb girl act really does work? Also, why do I get the distinct feeling that he feels like we're slumming it.

We continue this act out  by my car with a lovely little eighties style, hand-in-the-back-pocket makeout sesh next to the meter. Because everything I know about dating, I learned from a Calvin Klein ad. 

TO had taken the Metro there, so I give him a ride home. Downtown. When I live in Beverly Hills. I really have lost my mind. This is where things start to unravel, courtesy of my Spotify starred list. Any façade of cool I had manufactured vanished the second Jennifer Paige's voice came blasting out of my speakers. Followed by a who's who list of late nineties one (barely) hit wonders. 

TO: Seriously. WHO are these people?

...

As I pull up to his place, I secretly wonder if he's going to invite me in - not that I would accept if he did (Hi, Mom). Just, you know, curiosity. 

He doesn't. 

Note to self: Hold off on the Spotify shares until at least the third date.

*Not his real name