How to Meet Cute Boys (4 page)

Then I looked at his clothes and was shattered. Navy blue nylon jacket, zipped up all the way, a hint of blindingly white
T-shirt underneath. Immaculate khakis, with crease. White Converse AllStars, unscuffed. He could have been a skateboarder/Beastie
Boys fan/East Coaster, but I was picking up a very different vibe.

“What about him?” I said to Kiki, with a discreet nod in his direction.

“Gay,” she said.

Damn, I was just thinking that.

We did another lap, but it was hopeless. I saw one guy who looked good—hair, with product, vintage-rock T-shirt …

“Him?” I said.

Her eyes narrowed. “Not the guy for you.”

“Why?”

“He’s wearing tapered jeans.”

“Right.” She was right.

Everyone else was either too buff (I hate buff guys), looked like an actor (never,
ever
date an actor), or had another girl on his arm. The guy with the lips was still in the corner, lighting a cigarette.

“I’m going for the gay guy,” I told Kiki.

“Dude! You can’t go for a gay guy. That’s totally not the point.”

But I had a feeling.

I started to sidle. Like I’d said in my article, this
must
look like a chance encounter. I mean, any guy who sees a girl walking purposefully toward him at a party will probably think
she’s either desperate or a crazy person. When I got in his immediate vicinity, I tried to look lost. Little girl lost, that’s
what I was going for. I’m no actress, so I probably looked ridiculous. But it worked. He noticed me, started watching me a
little. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw him scan the crowd. I was surprised, but it looked like he was actually wondering
who I was looking for. I took a deep breath and moved in for the kill. I looked in his general direction, let him catch my
eye, and said …

“I think I lost my friends.”

He frowned like he wasn’t really sure I was talking to him. Like I was some insane maniac walking around the party looking
lost and muttering to myself, which was basically the case. I started to panic.
Abort! Abort!
my brain screamed.
This was a dumb scheme!

When suddenly I was saved.

“Well,” he said, cocking his head to the side and giving me a little smile. “What do your friends look like?”

Now, I could have started lying my ass off, giving fake descriptions and seeing if he offered to help me find them. Or I could
have said something vague like, “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe they left,” and tried to keep the conversation going.
Or
I could have tried the full-on flirt. Very risky.

But then I thought to myself,
You know what? I can
do
this
.

“Actually, they look a lot like you,” I said, and grimaced in something I hoped looked like a captivating smile. Now, I know
They look a lot like you
is a total line. But I was improvising. And I could see Kiki just over his shoulder, watching everything, which was putting
me off my game.

“Really?” he said. “Then I guess you and I were meant to be friends.”

Success! Success! Success!

The conversation grew from there. He said his name was Max. That he owned a T-shirt company, Super Very Good, thus the crispness
of the clothes he was wearing, which were from the new line. (He didn’t have a close, personal relationship with the ironing
board, as Kiki and I had feared.) He said he traveled a lot between L.A., New York, Paris, Hong Kong, and London. He designed
the graphics himself. I was impressed, although, you know, I tried not to act like I was. Still, I had to ask him if he knew
Radiohead, because they wear Super Very Good clothes. Max shrugged and said, “Oh yeah, we hang out all the time.”

“Really?” I said.

“No. Not really. But one time Heather Graham came in to try on samples for a photo shoot and I got to see her breasts.”

Okay. I’m what people call proportional when they’re trying to think of something nice to say, so this stumped me. But then
he leaned forward and whispered in my ear, “They weren’t that great.”

“Really.”
I tried to sound all sad for poor bad-breasted Heather Graham. This was
thrilling
information.

“No.” He started laughing again. “Not really.”

He’s gorgeous,
I thought.
He’s confident. He’s making fun of me. I’m in love with him
.

Kiki finally joined us, saying, “Oh,
there
you are! I’ve been looking for you everywhere!” (Love Kiki.) She did what she could to help me along, laughing at my jokes,
acting like we were the most carefree, fun girls in the world even though inside she was aching for that loser Edward. We
asked him where he lived. (Silver Lake.) He asked me where I lived. (Silver Lake. Aha!) He asked me what I did. (“I’m a writer.
Uh, journalist.”) I asked him what he did for fun. (“Nothing. Collect vinyl, I guess.”) He asked me what I did for fun. (“Hang
out with Kiki.”) I asked him why he was at this party. (“
No
idea.”) He asked me what I’d written recently and Kiki flipped open an issue of
Filly
and pointed to one of my stories. Unfortunately, it was “How to Meet Cute Boys.” (Hate Kiki.)

The article clearly laid out my whole game plan, complete with subject headings in bold, large font—The Lap, The Sidle, The
Full-On Flirt, The Pickup. I was busted. But I made a vain attempt at sounding casual. Like I wasn’t some hussy who trolled
parties and picked up guys for a living. So I said, “Look, I’m not some hussy who trolls parties and picks up guys for a living.”
I stammered about how, well, Kiki was my editor and she’d assigned it to me so, heh heh, I couldn’t really say no and …

“Everybody, time to go home! Make your way to the nearest exit! Now, people!”

Of course. This awkward moment had to be when the fire department would arrive to bust up the party. It wasn’t an entirely
bad thing—for
Filly,
that is. If the fire department’s called, the party is over capacity, which means the event is a success. But it was woefully
ill timed. A helicopter appeared overhead, shining its spotlight down on people. My new crush and I were suddenly smack in
the middle of an Oliver Stone movie, and in the blinding glare I became convinced I had a seriously bad lighting situation
going. We stood there, frozen, gawking at one another, while I glanced around looking for a friendly shadow, wondering if
my mascara was raccooning around my eyes. Men in uniforms with bullhorns were screaming, “Party’s over! Go home!” while hipsters
scrambled for their cell phones to call people who were only five feet away so they could plan where they were going next.

I didn’t know what to do. According to my own article, I was supposed to close. Get his number. Seal the deal. But it was
harder in real life than it was when I was telling other people to do it from the safety of my laptop. “Well, can I …” I started
to say.

“I’d really like to …” he started to say.

“Oh, I interrupted you,” I said. “Go ahead.”

“No, you go.”

“Um. You first.”

“Well, you’re the one who tried to pull off the I’m-looking-for-my-friends strategy,” he said. “Very inventive by the way,
so I guess it’s my turn.”

He leaned toward me, and for a split second I thought he was going to kiss me. The really crazy part is I was going to let
him. I raised my chin slightly, my lips quivered forward, and then he said, “Ben, can I have your phone number?”

But I didn’t lose my cool.

“Of course!” I said, scrambling in my purse for a pen. I couldn’t find one. “Kiki—
do you have a pen?
”

He had one.

“Oh. Thanks.” I took it, and I scribbled “Did it work?” with my number on his courtesy copy of the “How to Meet Cute Boys”
article. Before we could say anything else, a cop grabbed me by the arm and escorted Kiki and me out the door, past a riot
of people fighting for their free Puma gift bags. Steph was standing behind the gift table throwing bags out to the crowd
and screaming at the top of her lungs, “IF YOU DON’T FORM A FUCKING LINE YOU DON’T GET A FUCKING GIFT BAG YOU FUCKING CHEAP
BASTARDS!”

I kind of wanted a bag, too, but I knew from experience that it would just be filled with a few shampoo samples, a cheesy
CD compilation from one of the record companies, and a free Filly T-shirt, so I decided to let it go. I craned my head around
to see if I could at least wave good-bye to Max, but he was gone. Not that it mattered. I got what I came for.

“See,” I said to Kiki while the cop shoved us out onto the street, where I almost got sideswiped by a departing limousine.
I did a little Cabbage Patch victory dance, thumbs up, shoulders swinging back and forth, and yelled, “Meeting cute boys is
easy!”

I woke up expecting my haze of happiness to clear like perfume left over from a wish-fulfilling dream. But then I realized,
instead of another failed attempt at meeting someone, I actually had something to be excited about. I said his name aloud
to my empty bedroom: “Max.” It sounded good.

“Max,” I sighed to myself as I brushed my teeth. “Max,” as I washed my face. “Max Max Max Max Max,” as I fought off Freak,
who was clawing himself up my pajama leg.

The week I moved in, Freak was conducting World War III in the alley behind my place—trash cans banging, screeching fights,
feline yowling that sounded like howler monkeys. A neighbor threatened to call Animal Control, so I tempted the feral beast
inside with a plate of chopped-up turkey hot dog. I figured Freak, with his bitten ears, scratchy whiskers, and bowlegged
stance, lent a certain flair of authenticity—if you’re going to be a single girl living alone in a one-bedroom apartment,
you gotta have a cat.

Freak was like every guy I’d ever known. Aggressive when he couldn’t get your attention, disdainful if you appeared even the
slightest bit needy.
But surely Max will not be this way,
I mused as I went to pet Freak and he slinked off into the living room with his mangled tail in the air. Surely Max would
be a non-commitment-phobic male with no skeletons in his proverbial closet, no girlfriend he was cheating on, no past relationship
that had scarred him for life.

Max
…
Max
…
Max
… I sipped my morning diet Coke and spaced out with the Sunday paper spread out on the coffee table in front of me. In my
reverie I was off in an imaginary gold Mercedes convertible, cruising the PCH in Malibu wearing oversize sunglasses in a sort
of seventies Julie Christie homage. Max was sitting next to me in his zip-up nylon jacket, and I was grinning at something
he’d just said. Cut to, me running down a hallway in a T-shirt and his blue boxer shorts, laughing uproariously, with Max
chasing me with a bottle of Mrs. Butterworth’s syrup because I was being a grump at breakfast. Cut to, me crying. Just breaking
down on a rainy street corner in some totally justified paroxysm of pain and frustration and anger with the world, and, for
once in my life, the guy I wanted to be with putting his arms around me and saying the perfect thing while he stroked my hair.

Of course, I used to visualize montages like this about Jack, of all people. Before I got too caught up, I decided I needed
more information.
It’s the age of the Internet,
I thought.
The only responsible thing to do is look up my crush in cyberspace
. So I did a search and found a link to the Super Very Good Web site, where Max (Max!) hawked his clothing. It was very cool—hyperstylized
and heavy on the Japanese pop-culture references. By ten-thirty, I’d ordered two pairs of pajamas that they offered to monogram
with my initials, a navy hoodie, five pairs of sweat socks with the Super Very Good logo on them (no idea where I was going
to wear them since I hate the gym), a pair of hot pink fishnet stockings (endlessly more practical) and three tiny T-shirts.
Then I decided the insanity must stop and logged off.

Oh no, what if Max was trying to call? I checked my voicemail, but no. Well, no, of course not. No self-respecting guy would
call the next morning. No self-respecting girl would, either. Not that I had his phone number. All I had was his name, $250
worth of merchandise being FedEx’d my way, and a serious jones. I wondered if that afternoon I should drive around Silver
Lake, see if we ran into one another. Maybe, I thought, I’ll do some shopping on Vermont, or get coffee on Hillhurst … Wait,
I was starting to act a little creepy. And while I’m being honest, I thought, it might do me good to ponder another cold,
hard truth: I was pretty smooth picking up Max at that party the other night. But I’m woefully unlucky in love.

1. The Actor: Ready for his close-up

Men who are two-timing, cheap, and utterly revolting—what’s not to love? A special report from L.A.’s dating battlefield.

BY BENJAMINA FRANKLIN

Here’s the deal: Since my boyfriend and I broke up, I can’t seem to find a decent guy. Maybe I’m a loser magnet with low standards.
Maybe I’m
too
picky. Or maybe it’s that I live in Los Angeles, where single women outnumber single guys by 127,000. We at Filly decided
to get to the root of the problem. My assignment is to go on five dates with five eligible guys, and strip these men—and myself—bare.