you are viewing archives from 2005

the story of A.

March, 2000

I was at work when I got the email.

To: slackmistress@match.com
From: grimbot@match.com

Hi there. I saw your profile and quite enjoyed what you have to say. Although I’m not much for snowboarding, I’m quite good at falling down and perhaps my like for three-legged dogs will make up for it.

Looking forward to hearing from you—

A.


I chuckled and clicked on his username to get to his ad. His headline read:

How is a raven like a writing desk?

I smiled. The quote, of course, is from the Mad Hatter in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, a personal favorite of mine. The answer to the question is that there is no answer - at least not one that the Hatter comes up with - although a favorite response is because Poe wrote on both.

The picture was of an absurdly cute boy with red-licorice hair. The profile was amusing, well-written, with equal parts self-deprecation and confidence. I clicked through to his other pictures: a purple haired-boy holding a martini sitting under a hairdryer at the Beauty Bar, in a bright red zoot suit posing for the camera.

I scanned his ad again. He didn’t say what he did or what he earned, but then again, neither did I. My last foray into Internet Dating I soon realized that the magic words were “TV Writer” and I was swamped with requests from men and women to read their script, introduce them to my agent, get them an audition. Anonymity regarding one’s career or income usually meant that you didn’t have one, or you had one that was too attractive to the opposite sex. I read the ad again, and something caught my eye.

Marital Status: Divorced.

I re-read his profile. He was 28 and divorced. I pictured some tall blonde thing he had met at Sundance. She modeled for toothpaste ads; he was sucker for a good smile. They knew each other weeks before they got married in Vegas, but soon her career took off to Europe, and his Huge Movie Deal was right here in town. They divorced after three months, but still got together when she was in town for sushi.

Finally, I had found the thing wrong with him: he was a player, one of those Hollywood Hipsters who are initially attracted to me and then discover that the fact that I’m a Big Dork isn’t some sort of Cool Anti-Hip Veneer that I adopt but is in fact who I actually am. I copied and pasted the link into an email to my friend B. in Alaska.

To: B.
From: the slackmistress

What do you think?

She emailed me back in a manner of minutes.

To: the slackmistress
From: B.

I think you’re an idiot if you don’t write this guy back. You were made for each other.

I decided I’d write him back, as I learned early on in my Online Dating Career that it’s just email. We started a cautious correspondence in which I soon learned that the ex-wife wasn’t a three-month long relationship with a toothpaste model, but the high school sweetheart that he’d been with since 15 and married at 19 and divorced only a year or so previous.

So much for my woman’s intuition.

We continued to write each other, not every day but every other day, which I liked. Most men I met online liked to jump from email to the phone within days, as it soon became abundantly clear that their talent for the written word was weak at best. A. didn’t push for the phone at all. I like to see people when I’m talking to them, he wrote. But he didn’t immediately push for a meeting, either. We just enjoyed a random and sometimes rambling correspondence.

There was a moment, however, when the whole Dating Train almost derailed. A. finally told me what he did-

I created this show called Grim & Evil, which is really two shows. My parents are extremely happy that I’m making a living drawing since I can’t really do anything else.

I looked up Grim & Evil and sat down one night to watch it. At the end of the opening credits, a full-screen card read-

Created by Maxwell Atoms

Well he’s a goddamned liar, I thought. His first name was A., not Maxwell. I went to the computer, fully intending to write a did you really think I’d be stupid enough to just believe you? I’m not some dumb toothpaste model you can snow with your ‘oh, I draw cartoons’ but I decided to double-check something instead.

I typed his name and Maxwell Atoms into Google.

On one page, they appeared together. They were the same person.

A week or so after that, we finally met. For a drink, I told him, just one drink. That way if we hate each other, we can leave after fifteen minutes. It’s not a date, but an interview for a date. He agreed, and plans were made to meet at The Good Luck Bar in Los Feliz the following Monday night.

Of course, I was ten minutes late and he was ten minutes early but convinced that he was late, as he had lost his watch earlier that day. He was beginning to think that I had stood him up when I came rushing into the bar with apologies about my lack of sense of direction. He was drinking something fruity and blue; I had my requisite first-date martini. We laughed that awkward laugh when you know someone but you really don’t them. I don’t remember much about what we talked about that first night (and talk we did – for five hours) but I do recall that he asked me why I finally decided to respond to him.

Because the headline of your ad, I told him. I knew that you might be a lot of things I wouldn’t like, but at least you were smart and had an odd sense of humor.

Those first few months, we Just Dated. And it was incredible. We’d see each other once or twice a week with no pressure and no commitment. We didn’t have endless talks About the Relationship but just enjoyed each other’s company.

Every so often the ‘what exactly is this?’ question would rear its ugly head and we’d agree that Not Thinking About It was the right path to take. We were two blissfully happy ostriches, until I fell in love and opened my big mouth. But even then, I told him, it doesn’t mean that I want to marry you – don’t flatter yourself. We dealt with it by Not Thinking Too Much, except that a few months later, A. was feeling like me.

Now it had been a year, and then a year and a few months. A. wanted to buy a house and talked about us living together. Although we still didn’t Think Too Much, a year and half after we started dating, we moved in together.

And two years after that I’m still here, and still in love with the guy who I almost didn’t write back.

Last week, I was trying to update my iPod with the new CDs I downloaded into iTunes, but my computer wasn’t recognizing it. I knew the cable was working fine, so I scoured the apple site for suggestions on troubleshooting. I reset the iPod, I reloaded the software, nothing was working. A. came home to find me frustrated and crabby.

You should just buy yourself the pink iPod mini that you’ve been wanting for months.

I nodded. You’re right. Screw this. I deserve an iPod that matches my car.

I started the ordering process when I saw that I could have my iPod engraved. What should it say?

Hang on a second, A. responded. You know what? I’m going to buy your iPod.

You can’t.

Yes, he told me, I can. And I’m gonna. I’ll pick the engraving.

Are you sure? I asked him.

I’m sure.

A week later, the box was delivered to my door. I waited until A. was home and then opened it.