Fear, Loathing and Dating in Los Angeles

Lars Goodenough

Special to the Mirror

   Christmas lights ringed the outdoor patio, twinkling and shimmering, casting rich hues and dusky shadows in the early evening light. Dripping wax from a candle forced into an empty bottle of Chianti spills onto the red and white checkered table cloth forming a Rorschach picture that resembles a man on fire, running. As the salad plates are taken away, I feign artistic consideration and appraisal of a statue of a young boy / angel urinating into a fountain.
   “Tree years I dance in nightclub in Pomona....”
   I ponder, why would anyone put a statue of anything urinating in a restaurant?
   “Then I bring mama and sister from Ilopango...”
   My reverie about the urinating boy is interrupted by a deafening, crunch. Having finished one bread stick, my blind date, Melba, smiles at me as she lowers another into her mouth. Vertically. The patio light filters through her freshly permed and hennaed hair. Her eyes move back and forth, almost in a dance, searching my face for approval and my pleasure. 
   The sequins on her Betty Grable shoulder padded blouse seemed to wink Morse code as if to say, “ I need new car ...” She giggles. Her mouth opens. The moist, matted up dough is stuck to her gums in the shape of a denture dam. 
   “Wha’ you looking aaa...?”
   I felt like I was on shore leave.
   This is a true story. I was set up by an accountant in my office who obviously does not want a Christmas bonus. 
   My brother is also to blame. His detailing the power and the passion of his steamy relationships with Asian women has lured me into some unsavory situations such as the one I’ve just recounted. Really, I do understand. Family means well. So did Hitler.
   It’s been two and a half years since the failure of my fourteen-year marriage. I have looked deeply into the reasons for our demise as “partners in life.” I have noted my failings and my virtues during those roller coaster years. I have realized that I am drawn to crazy women who claim commitment but can only give allegiance to impulse and short- term pleasure. I have put in time on the couch contemplating and, consequently, trying to correct old behavior. And despite the pain, remorse and heartache that accompanies such dissolution, I have waded fearlessly into the murky, shark infested waters of the dating pool.
   There is no shame in not wanting to be alone, is there? Initially, it was interesting to be in the arms of women other than my ex-wife. But after three short-term relationships in which the demands and behavior of my temporary mates were somewhat severe, I have become a little gun-shy. Most women seem to think that men only want sex, food and a comfortable bed. Although this is somewhat true, the more enlightened female might realize that what a man truly desires is intimacy. Of course, he wants good sex, too. Intimacy-schmitimacy. 
   That being said and with my limited experience, I am left to ask all single women between the ages of 30 and 40, why do you systematically deceive the “love interest” you pursue?
   Witness my experiences with three beautiful women:
   Relationship # 1. 
   I was picked up by a thirty-six-year-old woman four months after I had separated from my wife. 
   I was at a book club reading of “The Shipping News” by Annie Proulx. When it was my turn to read, my passage included the death of a particularly loyal dog. Seeing that a) I was an emotional mess to begin with and b) my only friend in the world was a twelve-year-old Border Collie, I burst into tears as I read that particular passage. After the reading, #1 approached me, calmly sat down next to me and offered me tissue. She then led me to her car, drove me to her house, fed me and put me to bed. 
   The sex was quite good and I was temporarily relieved. Of course, the impulsive me rather likes all this swift boundary crossing. Until the second date. 
   I go to her house. She feeds me a sandwich and, just as I’m biting into the bologna, she asks me if she can sing to me. Swiss cheese is lodged against the roof of my open mouth. I nod. She launches into a terribly sappy love song by Jewel. I forget which sappy love song by Jewel it is but makes me feel turgid and dull every time I hear it. I don’t finish my sandwich, but I manage to retain the relationship without revealing my fear of turgid and dull love songs. 
   During our third meeting, we discuss past loves. She reports that a “friend” has come to town and that she will be temporarily unavailable. I ask if she is sleeping with this friend. She says “No” emphatically. I don’t particularly care whether she had bonked the guy or was about to bonk him. I just want to make sure that who I am bonking is very careful about who she is bonking. Later on, she admits that she had been bonking the “friend.” Why she lied is beyond me. By our fifth meeting, she has begun to talk about her need to have a child. Now. 
   I hang on to this relationship for another three months because I’m terrified of being alone. But it takes work and a great deal of consistent honesty. Every time she brings up the subject of love, I am firm. “I do not love you. I do enjoy your company immensely. What’s in the refrigerator?” 
   That was less than a year ago. She just got married and is four months pregnant.
Relationship # 2
   #2 is a relief of sorts compared to #1. Though she initially pursued me, her profound indifference is refreshing. Through friends, she inquired if I was available for a “date”. I am never quite sure whether “date” is code for sex or the woman in question truly wants to reserve a time and place to spend quality hours with a special someone who has caught her eye. 
   #2 is fifteen years younger than I am and the first date goes very slowly. I think maybe it has hit her that she is out with someone who could conceivably be her father. But I persevere and prove to her that I am just as immature as she and that, who knows, maybe the wings of love would buzz through our lives? Of course, I completely ignore the fact that practically everything I say flies over her head, leaving her with a fuzzy look on her face, as if a pigeon just shit on her. She’s really just like me. Christ, I’m as lost as the next guy and she’s just biding her time until Mr. Right comes along, she just doesn’t know it. 
   Anyway, it passes the time. We begin a slow boil that lasts for two weeks, at which time she agrees to consummate the relationship. Mind you, my policy of strict honesty as demonstrated to #1 is at work with #2, too. There is no subterfuge. For me, this is the whole point. Why bullshit? The truth is infinitely more interesting and, at times, scintillating. And, after all, when was I ever again going to have an opportunity to sleep with a woman this young?
   Well, the sex is absolutely awful. There is nothing spontaneous about it whatsoever. Unlike #1, #2 has to close her eyes and concentrate really hard to achieve good sex or what she thinks is good sex. Then it dawns on me that she belongs to the generation that was taught SEX = DEATH. What a bummer. But at this juncture in my life, bad sex is better than no sex. It’s quite a workout, actually. I begin to lose a few pounds just as she begins to gain weight. 
   Suddenly, she says that she is afraid to go back East for a wedding because she doesn’t want to see her old boyfriend. I ask if she still loves him and with doe-eyed innocence she says, “I still think about him a lot...” OK. I tell her to do what she has to do. And I mean it. When she returns, I am there at the airport to pick her up. I ask her if she indeed did see the guy, strike some flint and light a fire. 
   She says No and then says we should stop seeing each other. She is right, of course, but that is not why she brings it up. Weeks later, she called up sobbing, to tell me that she had slept with the ex- boyfriend. I am nothing if not consoling. 
   Who teaches deceit to the young women of Los Angeles?
Relationship #3
   #3 is the queen of them all. This one had me hook, line and sinker. She reeled me in kicking and screaming. She pulled out her buck knife, gutted me on the shoreline and left me there, guts exposed to the noonday sun. The details are far too gory to relate here. Suffice it to say that if Jack Valenti were rating it, he’d give it an NC -17. 
   Though I fell madly in love with her, #3 had many secrets, which revolved around addictions, both sexual and pharmaceutical. From the second date on, she says she wants to have my child. Now. Disguised (even to herself) and in the name of love, she is extremely liberal with the truth. On the outside, she was a gorgeous, seemingly loving woman with this “hippie yoga chic” thing going on. On the inside, she was a seething cauldron of fear-based behavior. 
   I still think about her every morning as I drag my lonely ass out of the sack. 
   So you see, I have lived in the dank, dark jungle and have barely crawled out alive. Mauled by tigresses, I have crawled back to the loneliness of civilization to heal and contemplate. But at night, I hear the drums in the distance that beckon my return.
   Granted, I’m no piece of pie. Or cake for that matter. I’m a little sullen perhaps. Maybe a bit quick to judge or criticize. I’m snobby about movies and music. And I’m attracted to these nut jobs. 
   (Don’t tell me about the 12 Steps or some self-help B. S. I know much, too much about this stuff.) But hey, I’ve got a lot of great qualities. I surf, I write funny things, I know how to hold a job, pay my mortgage and bills. I’m in pretty good shape. I believe in telling the truth. I no longer fart in front of a loved one. I’m trying not to eat as fast as my dog. And I love women. Some guys don’t like women. Misogyny and those pesky early homosexual experiments greet these guys at every life turn. Not me. I love women. I would say that my life’s work is to love women. Now I just have to retard my attraction to that breed of women who are completely unavailable.
   I think either I’m ready for a truly intimate experience with a good woman now or I have a good shot at being your next United States Senator.
   So. This paper owes me big time. Below is a short love test. I’d like all single women between the ages of 30 and 40, to complete the test and send it with a snapshot to Santa Monica Mirror, P.O. Box 5677, Santa Monica, CA 90409-5877, or e-mail mirror200@aol, com. The winner will receive a dinner out on the town with yours truly, Lars Goodenough, compliments of the Santa Monica Mirror. 
   Please help me break this pattern of constant sex with completely unavailable women.