“Ow!” I say. “Jesus. That’s going to leave a mark.”
“So, what . . . you’re into tonguing?” he asks. “You’re, like, into regular Midwestern mainstream stuff?”
Another man is serial-killer-level honest after six or seven drinks.
“I’ll tell you exactly what I want,” he confesses. “My fantasy is to find a woman who’s indescribably hot, she’s a total babe, but then she has this one single flaw. Like a withered hand.”
I spit out my drink. Jesus.
“Yeah, you know,” he says. “Something that makes her just insecure enough so that even though she’s a total ten, I never have to deal with all that hot-girl confidence.”
Oh my God. Dating is so dark. Determined to put myself out there no matter what, I join the dating site Nerve with the username “ucanttouchthis.” Because “fucksalotofdoctors,” “cuttingmyselftofeelalive” and “witheredhand4u” are taken. The pickings are slim—in the sense that guys have names like “rebounding_withbaggage.”
But every few profiles, there appear to be some signs of life.
“GREAT SMILE,” READS the message from a man named Blaine, a spiffed-up blond who asks to meet for drinks.
“Thanks!” I message back, excited to have a new specimen to dissect.
I wish I could say I believed any of these online dating possibilities made me think true love was possible—but I’m a dating columnist now. My personal happiness comes last.
Blaine and I meet at the Library Bar, a swanky affair looking down on Manhattan. I stand up when he approaches the table. As usual, I am several inches taller. In this case, though, he is far blonder.
Blaine is a kind of New York dandy, with pink socks and a self-satisfied twinkle, which honestly, I would have, too, if I had his obscene amount of wealth.
He is a few years older than me, and he speaks with polite lock-jawed disdain. I’m solidly middle class, and when I’m struck by condescension all I want to do is ruin that person’s day. It’s as if the lyrics to Pulp’s “Common People” are swimming through my brain.
Blaine is definitely not impressed by the fact that I write for the Post.
He asks me where I “summer.” I have never been asked this question before, so I imagine that he wonders if I return home to California?
“New York,” I say, straight.
He looks at me pityingly. We exchange numbers, but I do not ever expect to see him again.
When, a few weeks later, I get stood up by a motorcycle-riding Spaniard one night, I text about ten million guys so I can have an instant revenge date. One of the people I write? Blaine.
He tells me to meet him at the Sherry-Netherland, where he’s at a dance.
After many, many drinks, later that night Blaine spins me out on the dance floor, where I go careening to the ground and the night fades into laughter until he unlocks the door to his apartment, which is the size of the floor of the Post.
I realized he was rich. I did not realize he was this rich. I immediately fall off some steps that go up to his bedroom and laugh because it has to be hilarious, otherwise it will just be sad. The next morning, I wake up. I look around and tell him that his place is insane.
“Tom Cruise actually has a place in the building,” he says.
“Wow,” I say. “That’s nuts.”
After I write my “50 Most Powerful Women” article, for the July 4 holiday, the grand dame of hedge fund selection Lee Hennessee invites me to her insanely swanky Upper East Side penthouse party, so I ask Blaine if he wants to be a plus-one. He says it sounds like fun but to watch out because the cougars might be all over him. At the party, I end up spending most of the night talking to a charismatic female plastic surgeon.
“Maybe I’ll get a boob job,” I tell her. I’m saying it to pass the time. I could just as likely have said, “Maybe I’ll have a heart attack,” if I was talking to a cardiologist.
“No,” Blaine interjects. “You’re perfect.”
We are soon talking to a red-haired children’s-book author who has clearly undergone a lot of plastic surgery. She’s telling us about her book When I Grow Up. When she goes to get a drink, Blaine whispers, “You know who that is? Tina Louise. Ginger from Gilligan’s Island.”
“Oh man,” I say.
“I would have gone with Marianne,” he says.
By the time we leave the party we are fairly wasted and go back to his apartment once again. When we wake up, with the morning sun streaming in, the mood is romantic. The mood is sexy. The mood is ripe for sweet nothings. He moves in a little closer.
“I’m going to get you,” he says, touching me gently, “some upper-arm exercises.” He smiles. “They’re a little flabby.”
My face betrays a look that I’m about to murder him.
“I mean,” he backtracks, “you’re perfect.”
“What?” I say.
“You’re an über-babe,” he says. “You’re an undeniable über-babe.”
It’s so funny to me, being out on these dates with men who fetishize skinny women. As we lie in bed, strategically placed above Blaine and me in his ridiculous loft is a giant art print of two naked porn stars giggling. They are airbrushed and gorgeous, with upper arms that are beyond reproach.
They will make much better companions, I think. As we lie in bed together, he continues to look over my body. He points to the scar on my ankle.
“It’s healing,” I say.
“I just want you to be perfect,” he says. I lie there, pissed beyond belief.
I can’t leave immediately, though, because I can’t find my dress.
“Did we throw it out the window?” I ask.
“Maybe,” he says.
I take some old sweatpants and a T-shirt and head out, infuriated. Soon after, I receive an email from Blaine telling me how much fun he had creating “some fireworks of our own” after the July 4 party. I write back, “I had a good time,
