I log in to OkCupid to see how many dates I can get before work beckons again.
This guy: smoker.
That guy: long fingernails.
There’s the guy who’s a devout Satanist, the guy who’s a misogynist, the guy who’s a nudist “on nights and weekends.” The guy who has five foster dogs seems entertaining, and although I’m not really interested, we meet. I can tell he’s also not that interested in me by how he’s eating a salad so comfortably in front of me. He has the confidence I have when I don’t care if there’s kale in my teeth because I know there won’t be a good-night kiss.
These dates, they always ask the same questions I do; all of these inquiries are gentle ways to skirt asking what we do for a living. “What keeps you busy?” I ask. Sometimes they answer, “You mean what do I do for work?” And I play coy: “Sure.” Ultimately, I just want them to ask about me, so I can talk about Kathi, my superhero superpower.
Nice to meet you, Juan: so boring.
Nice to meet you, Tommy: racist.
Nice to meet you, Erik: smug.
Holding fast to the theory that dating and love is a numbers game, I click onward, to this profile and that, just working to get my numbers up.
And then, Reid1976.
Reid—I say his name with a swoon in the middle: “Reeeeeid.” His profile caught my attention not with its fireworks but its lack of them. Answering those dreaded OkCupid questions, his brevity betrayed an alluring charm and wit, practicality projecting a steadiness, confidence:
My Self-Summary:
Attorney. ACLU. Fighting for criminal justice and equal rights. On weekends I volunteer for dog-adoption groups and help feed the homeless. Nice guy but in bed I’ll slap your ass and call you bitch.
No need for me to read any further. I message him right away. A nice guy who loves animals and homeless people and spanking? A kind man who’s a monster in the sack? Here’s my phone number, here’s my Social Security card, here’s the key to my apartment.
Reid isn’t like the rest of them, with their endless back-and-forth email banter on OkCupid. I sent him one message, a compliment about one of his profile pictures—him with his strong features and scruffy beard and shaved head and pink sweater that appears to be hiding a muscular body and toned arms holding a cute three-legged terrier. I boiled all of my testosterone-fueled analysis down to: “Hey, Reid, I like your sweater. I’m Charlie.” He wrote back immediately: “Thanks. Like your profile. Wanna play mini-golf Saturday at one P.M.?”
I jump from the computer, pacing around my apartment in tight circles like an armadillo in a headlight, wondering how to respond. He’s direct and no-nonsense. He’s offering an instant opportunity to meet face-to-face, no playing games, and it’s a daylight adventure where complications of sex and drinking are virtually nil. Of course, I have concerns: No one wants to go on real dates anymore; who is this guy? He’s a few years older, so perhaps his maturity leads him down this path. Or maybe he’s a psycho and I’ll be murdered. Or maybe he’s just out of a relationship and overanxious to get into a new one. Or, or, or—I could go on for days with the potential downsides. Much easier would be to simply say yes.
* * *
Mini-golf is a nightmare, confirming that I am terrible at every conceivable sport. Reid is handsome and towering at six foot two. He’s kind and gentle and casually uses legal jargon like “tort” and “mens rea,” as if I know what they mean, though it doesn’t stop me from pretending.
“Why don’t you take two turns,” Reid offers, after I miss my shot at the windmill, the ball gently edging near the cup but, as if God’s cruel joke, not falling in.
“But that’s not fair to you,” I say, leaning on my putter like guys used to do with umbrellas or walking sticks in the fifties. I’m feeling happy and giddy, and it takes all my might not to kick up the bottom of the club and twirl it around like I’m in a film with Dick Van Dyke.
“I’m so far ahead of you,” he says, “I’m still going to win.”
“Fine.” I carefully tap the ball toward the cup, and it again doesn’t go in. “Motherfuck!” I yell, pointing down at the injustice. Reid smiles.
“Fuck it,” he says, “let’s keep going.”
As we weave our way through the faded Astroturf of a mostly forgotten and shockingly still-open-for-business mini-golf course in Sherman Oaks, we share some details of our lives, our education, our past relationships. Reid’s three-legged terrier from his profile picture recently died. He gets emotional talking about it, and I’m smitten to recognize in someone an ability to be passionate about connection with another living being.
Therapista says healthy relationships are about trust and mutual respect.
I’m patiently waiting for my opportunity to name-drop Kathi Kannon, to start whirling and whipping up my standard stories to get predictable laughs and elicit standard follow-up questions about my days, years, time with her. Reid asks about my family, my mother, Dad, growing up in New Orleans, my years working in the news business.
“So, Charlie, what’s your passion?” Reid asks, as he gently taps a ball into its vessel just beneath a giant apple with a smiling green worm on top.
“I work for Kathi Kannon,” I say, holding up my golf ball and dramatically bending over and placing it in the starting position, aiming for that apple and worm.
“Who?” Reid asks.
My tap of the ball turns to a wallop following his question—one I rarely get. Who doesn’t know Kathi Kannon?!
“From Nova Quest,” I say. “From Jaws 3. From Mork and Mindy?”
“The actress? You work for her? What do you do?”
“I’m her assistant,” I say. “We travel together. We’re friends, too.”
“Cool,” he says.
“Yeah.”
“But I asked you, ‘What’s your passion?’ You know, what lights your soul on fire? What makes time stop? What brings you peace?”
I pause a moment. I’m thinking, What is my passion? I’m thinking, Is Kathi Kannon my passion?
Reid casually taps his ball into the next cup, at station number 12, with its resident garden gnome.
What’s my passion?
I relax my shoulders, I drop my guard, and I say for the first time out loud, “I’m not sure.”
My mini-golf outing with Reid has none of the usual markers to help guide me into whether it’s a successful date or not. There’s no ordering more drinks as a signal we’re staying longer. There’s no watching the clock and rushing to bed because we have to get up early the next day. I’m confused by the lack of a hard-and-fast rule about making out in the daytime—is it even allowed?
As Reid and I putt through the final bits of the course, I start to feel the sunlight exposing me even more, no dim lighting to soften my acne scars. My cute clothes are getting sticky with sweat. The heat is forcing my long hair to curl and protest exposure to the outdoors.
“How do you like your job?” I ask him.
“Well,” he says, landing another putt in the hole, “it’s cool.” He walks over to the cup and picks up the ball, tossing it in the air and, on his attempt to catch it, fumbling. It falls back to the ground and rolls a few steps away. He doesn’t go after it. He watches it roll. He turns to me. “I used to work for a big fancy firm, and I was so stressed and I hated it. Eventually I got laid off and was devastated. Then I started working for the ACLU, and it’s less money but a meaningful use of time and I love it. I think about how upset I was with being laid off and I missed the big picture. I regret I had to be laid off and didn’t own my life enough to be proactive and quit on my own.”