Daniel

This is the story of a symbiotic relationship. You know, a mutually beneficial agreement between two living things, who agree to exist together and perform services for the other one that they cannot perform for themselves. (Well, in this case they can, but it’s really not the same.) It started out as mutualism, where both individuals benefit, but then took a turn towards commensalism, which is where one individual benefits and the other is neither harmed nor helped. It’s all very scientific, isn’t it? Okay it’s not really I’m just talking about friends with benefits.

We met in an acting class, like probably half the FWB/failed love stories in Los Angeles. He was the new guy. I was the stage manager. Our teacher told me I should assign him to a scene to get him involved in the class. Naturally, I assigned him to mine. Partly because I was a good stage manager but mostly because he was very cute. He was about 5’11” with an athletic build, blue eyes, dirty blonde hair, and just the right amount of stubble framing his perfectly dimpled chin. I know butt chins/dimpled chins aren’t for everyone, but I’m a fan. My first “love” (or so I was convinced when I was 14) also had a very pronounced butt chin, so apparently I have a thing for them.

My friend Fred and I were doing a scene for class from Will and Grace where Grace has taken a lover, named Daniel, and he is leaving in the morning. Naturally Will catches Grace trying to sneak Daniel out and they all exchange sarcastic pleasantries as the two men meet and Will teases Grace about her life choices. I was playing Grace, Fred was playing Will, and we just needed someone to play Daniel. It was a small part, perfect for a cute new guy. So I cast him in the role. Side note: His real name is not Daniel but I’m just going to keep calling him that for both clarity and to protect the innocent.

We met at my place for rehearsal and I liked Daniel immediately. He was funny and easygoing, eager to learn the scene for class. In the script, Daniel kisses Grace on the cheek when he leaves, so naturally we ran that part a few times. There was chemistry, even with a cheek kiss. Ooooh that’s fun.

Fred later told me he thought that Daniel and I were going to hook up after he left rehearsal. We didn’t, but that made me chuckle. Just the idea that I could have electric chemistry with someone that was so obvious to another person made me feel like a celebrity, or some version of myself that people noticed and wanted to know more about.

When we did the scene in class, it was well received. Laughs all around. But our teacher wanted Daniel to kiss me on the lips.

“What is this kiss on the cheek? I want to see passion!” he implored.

Uhh, twist my arm! I. Was. THRILLED. Also nervous though because I had to do the scene again, right there in front of the class, and actually kiss someone that I was very attracted to for the first time with an actual audience. But we did it, and it was a good kiss. I knew I wanted more kisses after that. And we got accolades for our performance, although if I’m being honest, it wasn’t ALL a performance.

My birthday came soon after and a bunch of us went out drinking and dancing. My sister was in town and was supposed to share my bed with me, but she got kicked out by a drunk me and Daniel crashing through my bedroom door. We froze; stared at each other. I gave her that look that little sisters give their big sisters when they want them to do something for them; silently pleading with my eyes, both for her to leave the room and also not be mad at me. She of course did because she’s an amazing big sister, and as soon as she headed out to the couch and closed the door behind us, we just stared each other down, hungrily.

I waited for him to kiss me, but he just looked at me. I laughed semi-impatiently.

“Are you gonna kiss me or what?!”

As the uncertainty left him, he grabbed me, pulled me into him close, and kissed me hard. It was the most passionate kiss I had ever had. My only movie kiss, where we couldn’t wait to rip each other’s clothes off and devour one another. And we did. Four times. Four great times. In the morning, in the hungover sex haze, I happily rolled over to wake up to him. So we did it again, and lay there kissing until he said it; the sentence to shatter my fantasy:

“We should probably just keep this casual, since we’re in class together and everything.”

My heart sunk. All the butterflies flew away. I wanted to protest, to tell him that I really liked him, tell him that I hadn’t had chemistry like that with someone in a really long time, maybe ever; tell him that I’d like to give things a shot between us. But of course I didn’t. My reply was that of the passive, people pleasing 26-year-old that I was; “Oh, yeah, for sure. That’s totally fine.”

And so it went. We became friends with benefits. Yay! Every girl’s dream!

Me secretly pining away, wanting more, but at the same time genuinely enjoying our friendship. I never resented him, never felt like he was using me, never slept with him if I didn’t want to. We were actually very close. Neither of us really dated other people, just casual flings. We tended to come back to each other. Then he got an actual girlfriend for a while and was so uncomfortable around me he apparently forgot how to even be nice to me. We spent less time together. They broke up; we came back to each other. We were writing together, filming sketches and other projects, having fun, being productive.

Then we stopped seeing each other (naked anyway). The last time we slept together I felt like he just half assed everything. It felt like the kind of sex that old married people who are sick of each other are supposed to have, not the kind you can justify shoving your feelings aside for the sake of a passionate rendezvous for; not the kind we had started out with. There was no effort, certainly no checking to make sure that I had been taken care of. He just took care of himself and rolled over and went to sleep, and that was the first (and last) time I would sleep with him and regret it.

I didn’t sleep with him again after that for years. We stayed friends and fortunately it didn’t ruin anything, but I just didn’t want to sleep with him anymore. My romantic feelings had long faded and I was happy with our comfortable friendship. Then he met someone and dated her for a while. A serious girlfriend. I was happy for him but also a little sad. Maybe we never would get our shot, but did I even want us to have a shot? Wouldn’t we have tried it already if we were going to try it?

Then they broke up. I never knew her name or anything about her, just that she lived in Chicago and he went back and forth a lot to see her. After the breakup he returned to LA permanently and reached out to me, wanting to get together. I didn’t actually know what his relationship status was and assumed we were just meeting as friends. But he made sure to clear that up.

When I saw him, he seemed different, at least in how he approached me and our time together. He treated me like his girlfriend; paying for me, inviting me to an intimate birthday dinner with his close friends, holding my hand, and having passionate, albeit drunken, amazing sex with me. Oh, we still got it…

I thought, maybe this is it? Are we giving this a real shot? I was excited but trying not to be. I hadn’t even considered the possibility of us dating in a very long time, but all of a sudden it seemed like a reality. They always say you’ll find love when you’re least expecting it…

He called me and texted me more in the next few days, both witty banter and making plans to come see my standup show at the end of the week. Then all of a sudden, radio silence. I texted him to see if he had gotten his tickets for my show yet, not wanting to sound clingy but genuinely needing to know the headcount for my show.

His response made me cry laugh. Mostly cry, but also laugh; both at myself for letting me get my hopes up; for allowing him to make me want something that I had long since dismissed and hadn’t even wanted anymore, and at the utter finality of the situation. I just couldn’t believe my luck.

What did it say, you’re wondering?

“Hey Kel, I just found out that my ex-girlfriend is pregnant and I have to move back to Chicago.”

Ooooof.

Gut punch. Game over.

My mind was spinning. What do I even say to that? Was he serious?

Sooo, does this mean you’re not coming to my show?

LOLZ

Sorry…?

No wait, congrats?

Wait SERIOUSLY?!

Whew, I really dodged a bullet!

Enjoy the Windy City?

Womp, womp, womp, another one bites the dust.

And that was the end of our symbiosis. He was never supposed to be mine.

Ian

Ever been through a really long dry spell and made a bad judgment call as a result? Yeah me neither. Except for this one time… In consideration of the fact that my definition of a “dry spell” and your definition of a “dry spell” may be quite different in terms of actual amount of time passed without having sexual intercourse, “hooking up,” or “getting some,” I think we can all agree that dry spells are no fun, and they sometimes fuck with your head a little bit (aside from other, obvious body parts.) Well, that was me on this particular Friday. Enough time had passed that my standards had been lowered. I was going out to a bar with my girlfriend, I didn’t have anything I had to do in the morning, and I was determined to find a guy at the bar. And I did.

His name was Ian. He was not conventionally hot, but there was something about him that I liked. He was on the thin side, with long salt and pepper hair (PS: apparently I’m going through a long-haired guy phase), a weird hat that I guess could be described as somewhere between a fedora and a boater hat; it had a brim all the way around but was flat on top. What do you call that? Anyway, he was also wearing a weird hoodie that looked like a poncho with sleeves. Yeah, it was a look. But he had this cute smile and he kept catching my eye from across the bar.

My girlfriend Steph was not a fan. I told her I thought he was cute and she chuckled, “We do have different types, don’t we?” We ended up moving around the bar and were standing closer to Ian, when an old guy approached trying to squeeze into the bar to order a drink. We helped him order and started making conversation and he said he had a single son we should meet. He just couldn’t believe we were both single (!), and looked around the bar to ask us who we wanted to talk to. Quite the wingman, if I’m being honest. Coincidentally, Ian and a friend were standing right behind our new old friend, and he tapped them and introduced us all. And bam, we were off to the races.

Ian and I talked for a bit and I discovered that he’s a skier. So THAT’S what it is! Maybe I could tell he was a kindred spirit? Or maybe his outfit just suddenly made sense to me; he was dressed like a ski bum in LA. Idunno. But naturally, we talked about skiing for a while. He got a little competitive and arrogant though, which was annoying. He automatically assumed he was a better skier than me, even though I was practically raised on the slopes of Squaw Valley and my sister was literally a pro-skier and he was a weekend skier from SoCal. But I digress… This isn’t about skiing egos. This is about me not walking away from a guy who is clearly annoying me.

A little while later Steph decided to call it a night. This was after she’d had two vodka martinis plus a vodka soda and I’d had two Manhattans plus a whiskey soda. She asked me if I was good to stay and I said yes. I wasn’t that into this guy, but I wasn’t necessarily out either.

I stayed and talked with Ian for a while and then I asked him if he was staying or going. I was ready to leave. I was drunk, I had found a target, the target was seemingly interested, and I was ready to move to the next step. Why stay at the bar until 2am when you already found your contender at 10pm? He was a little weird, a bit awkward, and I had to be real straight forward with him. So I asked him point blank, “Do you want me to come home with you?” And he said “Yes.” Then he added, “I’m just going to go home and listen to old music. Do you like old music?” And I said, “Yes I do.” I didn’t realize that he meant that that was literally ALL he wanted to do.

When we got to his place, I was a little surprised. Ian had mentioned to me at least three times each that his parents were wealthy when he was growing up and that they both had died very close together. So, I was expecting a pretty nice place. No, that’s not why I went home with him. I wasn’t planning on knowing this guy long enough to reap the benefits of his so-called wealthy deceased parents, but the expectation had been set. So when we arrived at his apartment and it was small and dark and had a bit of a weird smell, I was surprised.

I can’t even express to you guys just how much this guy talked about his dead parents. Look, I have a dead parent, so I get it. It sucks. But he just kept bringing it up. He would mention again that they had only died a few months apart, that they both had cancer, that they were the best parents a boy could ask for, that they paid for his college and when he dropped out they weren’t even mad about him wasting their money, then they paid for him to go to music production school or something like that, and now he works as a ski boot fitter so I don’t know how he ended up there but that would have been a more interesting addition to the story than him telling me for the umpteenth time that his parents are both dead. He literally had tattoos on both of his forearms with the day, hour, minute, and second that each of his parents had died. I’m all for honoring their memory and whatnot, but that’s a bold move, Cotton.

When we arrived at his place Ian walked over to his wall of records and asked me what I wanted to hear. I was in no mood for trying to impress some hipster with a record collection, of which I would never have sufficient knowledge to impress him, so I just threw out some of my old favorites that my Dad used to listen to; Paul Simon, Neil Diamond, Fleetwood Mac, Mamas and the Papas, etc. I really didn’t care. I wasn’t there for the music anyway. But boy, was Ian laboring over this music selection and slighting me in the process. He said my preferences were just like every other woman’s; based on what my dad liked, blah blah blah. I jokingly told him to stop judging me and then he got all defensive about me judging him for being judgmental. I dropped it for the time being. He put on Paul Simon and finally joined me on the couch for more backhanded comments and awkward conversation about his dead parents.

I went to the bathroom and had a moment of reckoning; IS THIS WORTH IT?! I stared at myself in the mirror, a little disheveled and drunk but not bad. I wanted to go home. But I also really wanted to end this dry spell. I had come this far right? I looked at myself in the mirror and said (yes, outloud) “You’re staying.” Then I walked back out into the living room to join him on the couch and immediately regretted it.

He said something else judgmental, reminding me that he was superior to me in all ways, and I told him I was just going to leave. Then he got all sad and tried to get me to stay, and I told him I’d almost left four times. “FOUR?!” he just kept repeating, shocked that his cynicism and arrogance weren’t sweeping me off my feet. He walked over to me and kissed me, and then I was really confused because he just stopped after a second and walked back around the coffee table to sit on the couch and never touch me again. I was growing impatient. Not that I had to have it right then and there because I couldn’t resist his charms, but because if we were going to do this, I wanted to get to it and either get it over with or be pleasantly surprised and actually have an orgasm that I didn’t give myself.

It was not to be. He just stayed on the couch next to me and didn’t kiss me again. I ready to go home. Done hearing him talk about his dead parents. I had even mentioned that my dad also passed away from cancer while he was talking about it at some point, trying to connect with him, and moments later he asked me if I still had my father. “Um, no. He died of cancer. I just said that… Well, I think I’m going to go.” I pulled out my phone to call a Lyft and he smacked it out of my hands like a flirtatious 11 year old. But still, no moves were made. I was done. I picked my phone back up and called my Lyft, and Ian wanted to make a game out of trying to guess the license plate. (In case you doubted my complaints regarding the caliber of conversation we were having.) I played along, gave him hints as to each letter and number, and when I arrived at the letter ‘K’ I thought, this should be easy.

“Okay, this is the first letter of my name.” He didn’t say anything. He sat paralyzed on the couch next to me, facing forward, not looking at me. I turned towards him and raised my eyebrows. “The first letter of my name.” Still nothing. And then, a very uncertain “L?” I didn’t say anything at first. I legitimately couldn’t tell if he was just slighting me again a la “The Game,” or if he really didn’t know my fucking name. Turns out he really didn’t know my fucking name. Not even the letter it started with. Not even like a “I know it starts with a Ka-sound, like Katie?” Nothing.

“Do you really not know my name?” I looked at him. He was so uncomfortable I almost laughed but I was too annoyed to laugh. “Seriously?” He was racking his brain. “I did know it at one point in the night but I forgot it.” Wow. “Okay well I’m going now.” Good thing I called that Lyft already.

“I’m so sorry, I don’t want you to be upset. I like you too much for you to be upset.” Clearly, I can tell how much you like me by the fact that you’ve been insulting me all night and you don’t know MY FUCKING NAME. He stood up and insisted on walking me out. I told him there was no need. He followed me anyway. The Lyft driver went to the wrong street, of course, dragging out this awful farewell. Ian was feigning concern over the driver’s ineptitude and saying he liked me too much to let me get in the car with someone so incapable. Once the driver arrived, I just walked away from Ian. No hug, definitely no kiss, no nothing. I saw him open his mouth and thought for a split second that he was going to ask for my number, but then again, what would he even save it under?

Valentine

Valentine’s Day can be hard on a lot of single people, and even though it’s not hard on me anymore, it has been. You can’t help but wish that you had a special someone who was making secret arrangements to sweep you off your feet for the most (commercially) romantic day of the year. But just because you’re in a couple doesn’t mean you’re going to have a great Valentine’s Day. (And just because you’re not in a couple doesn’t mean you’re going to have a bad one.) I’ve been much more disappointed on Valentine’s Day when I was in a relationship than when I was not. Not all of them, but the bad ones when you’re in a relationship? Those sting the most.

I dated my college boyfriend for almost six years. The difference between our first and last Valentine’s Day is stark. Bleak. Disheartening. Similar to the beginning and end of our relationship, our V-Days went from romantic to obligatory.

My first Valentine’s Day with Chad was my first Valentine’s Day as someone’s girlfriend, and he made it very special. It was my sophomore year of college at UC Santa Barbara and I was 19 years old. Chad went all out; he told me what time to be ready and to dress up, but wouldn’t tell me anything else. I was giddy as I got ready at my sorority house, my friends swirling around me, handing me makeup and fixing my hair. It was like a scene from Legally Blonde, but less bougie. They knew I had never been romanced on this particular day and they also knew that whatever Chad had in store for me was going to be good.

Chad and I were “That Couple” when we were in college. We had met in the dorms and spent all of freshman year as close friends, so when we started dating at the beginning of sophomore year, there was a closeness and intimacy to our relationship that some couples don’t achieve for a long time, if ever. I didn’t have to hide my flaws from him or play down my inexperience because he had gotten to know everything about me as a friend, organically, over the course of a school year.

He was (still is) smart and generous and well loved by all of our friends. He was in a fraternity; I was in a sorority. He was a business economics major; I was a communications major. He rode a motorcycle and would take me on cruises up in the hills of Montecito and up over route 154 into wine country. I was silly and funny and could make him laugh and loosen up. We were a fun couple that you could hang out with and not feel like a third wheel.

When it was time to go outside and meet Chad, I had a posse of sorority sisters follow me out to the parking lot, eager to see the surprise. And Chad did not disappoint. He had rented a LIMO and was waiting in the parking lot of my sorority house, dressed in a suit, holding flowers, and smiling at me like a real-life Prince Charming. It was quite the scene. I could not believe my luck, that he was there for me! I grinned, I gasped, I giggled with my girls, and then I ran to Chad and jumped into his arms, toddler style; wrapping my legs around his waist like I was on an episode of The Bachelor and he had selected me for the one-on-one. We didn’t even have to go anywhere, honestly. He had me at the limo.

But we did go somewhere. We went to a cute little Italian restaurant downtown on State Street. If you know me you know how much I love pasta, so this was a great choice. At dinner, he presented me with my gifts. One was a beautiful necklace. Just a perfect, modest diamond set in a platinum pendant, that suited a 19-year-old girl perfectly. He also had purchased tickets for a show for that night, and we were to go straight from dinner.

But it wasn’t your typical show, it was perfectly tailored to me. Chad had gotten us tickets to see Colin Mochrie and Ryan Stiles from Whose Line Is It Anyway? on their live tour at the Arlington Theater! As a lover of comedy, I was thrilled to see the show, and I felt like Chad really saw me and knew what I would like. The show was fantastic and hilarious and that Valentine’s Day was everything I had hoped it would be and more.

(Yes, I got him a present too! He had his own business and made good money so I never quite knew what to get him, so I would tell him to pick a concert or show he wanted to see and it would be my treat. This became our tradition for years to come. That’s how you buy a gift for someone who already has everything they need!)

Fast forward five years. We had graduated college and were no longer living in the same city. Chad had moved home to Ventura County and I had moved to LA. He had a successful online business he ran from home, and I was waiting tables and “pursuing acting,” but really just driving to Ventura to spend all of my spare time with him. But things had fizzled. We still cared deeply for each other, we didn’t fight, but I also felt like I was giving a lot more of my time and effort to the relationship than he was, and I didn’t really know how to address that.

The few times that Chad did come visit me in LA were usually because the LA car show was happening, or there was a concert he wanted to see and he would stay with me afterwards. I felt like more of a crash pad when he had an activity in LA, not the actual destination. My roommate, who was also a friend of ours from college and so had seen us in the glory days of our relationship compared to now, was the one who brought to my attention the stark contrast between my efforts and his. Granted, his family was experiencing some serious issues at the time (all worked out now but no reason for me to share business that’s not mine), and so I had found ways to justify his lack of prioritizing me.

But as it continued, I felt neglected, and any time I would ask him to do something small for me to make me feel good, he would get exasperated and treat me like I was asking for the world. One squabble we had frequently was over his stubble, which would stab me in the face and itch whenever we kissed. He wasn’t growing a beard, he just wouldn’t shave for a few days, and after sitting in an hour and a half of traffic driving to come see him, it felt like a pretty small ask for him to have shaved his face. Sometimes when I would arrive at his house he would be in the bonus room playing video games with his friends, and he would just toss out a cursory “Hey” without turning his head to even look at me, let alone pause the game, stand up, and greet me with a kiss or a hug.

Whenever I would comment on these things he would groan and tell me I was being unreasonable, so I stopped. He would do that with just about anything that I brought up that he didn’t like, which honestly was not much. I never wanted to be “that girl” who whines and nags at her boyfriend all the time, and I think he knew that and took advantage of it to a certain degree; like on our last Valentine’s Day.

Chad and I loved wine. We took a wine tasting class in college together and would do wine tasting tours up in the Santa Ynez Valley (where they filmed Sideways, which happened to be our favorite movie to watch together) to celebrate our anniversaries and birthdays. Suffice it to say we drank a fair amount of wine, so I had started collecting all of our wine corks over the years. I had a full gallon sized Ziploc bag of them and made him a custom bulletin board from all of the corks. I put his business logo on the bottom corner of the board, very pleased with my handiwork. It was not an expensive gift, but it was very thoughtful and took up a fair amount of time and I was excited to give it to him.

Valentine’s Day arrived, and Chad actually came to LA to see me. I don’t remember what our plans were, but I remember that the exchanging of gifts happened at my apartment. I gave him the bulletin board, eager to see how he would react and hoping to have him tell me he couldn’t wait to hang it in his office. He liked it fine. Then it was my turn to open my gift. It was a giant gift bag and I was trying to figure out what could possibly be in there, when he started qualifying his gift. Looking back, I think it was more like pre-gaslighting me so that I wouldn’t call him out on his shitty gift, but that’s just my slightly-biased opinion.

“This is kind of a mature gift, not a super exciting one. But it’s important, and we’re grownups, so that’s where I’m coming from” he warned. “So don’t get upset, this is a functional gift. You need this.” I half expected to pull out a tool set. It’s never a good sign when someone is telling you not to get upset BEFORE you even open your gift.

I reached into the bag and pulled out a pillow. Like, a regular pillow, you know, for your head. I looked at him, confused.

“That’s for you, since we’re always fighting over your good pillow when I stay here. Now I have a good pillow here too.”

“Oh, so it’s a pillow for you…?” I confirmed. He nodded, then motioned for me to continue. Next thing I pulled out of the bag was a towel. A bath towel, to be more specific. I looked at him again, perplexed.

“And that’s for you since your bath towels are too small for me. You know how I’m always telling you that your towels don’t fit all the way around me? But you never get new ones? So I got you a new one that will fit around me.” He looked pleased with himself.

“Sooo, it’s a bath towel, for you…” I confirmed again. He nodded again as I looked into the bag, hoping for something more, something that was actually for me. There was nothing else in the bag. No card. That was my gift: A pillow for his head and a bath towel for his bigger-than-mine body. He knew I would be unhappy with it; he knew it wasn’t really a gift for me. That’s why he prefaced me opening it with his logical, mature relationship bullshit.

Looking back now, I wish I had flipped out and actually called him out. But that wasn’t (still isn’t) my style. I was so determined not to be “that girl” and get upset over a gift that wasn’t good enough, to not nag him or be ungrateful, so I just said thank you and moved on. He looked at me for a moment, the way you might look at a bomb that you just attempted to diffuse, waiting to see if it will actually explode after all. But I didn’t explode. I imploded. I saved all of that disappointment for myself because I didn’t want to be unreasonable.

I know now that it was not unreasonable of me to be disappointed with such a “functional” gift; one that wasn’t even for me. He bought himself a spare pillow and bath towel and then wrapped it up and gave it to me for Valentine’s Day. That’s not my subjective opinion, that’s literally what he did.

I didn’t say anything that day but it really hurt my feelings and made our relationship feel completely unbalanced. I finally saw it. He had made me feel small and unimportant and confirmed to me that my apartment was only a crash pad to him, one that was now properly outfitted to suit his needs.

That was a very disappointing Valentine’s Day for me. Another one comes to mind, when I was in another relationship, and the similarity is that I knew on that day that they didn’t care for me the way that I cared for them. And that, my friends, is the absolute worst way to feel on Valentine’s Day.

Being single on Valentine’s Day is not sad, it’s liberating! There are no expectations and so no disappointment. Round up your other single friends (this is LA so I know you have some) and just go do something fun. Go to dinner, or dancing, or a comedy show, or watch the sunset at the beach, or just have them over and drink wine and watch movies, or play boardgames, or poker, or catch up and tell each other terrible jokes. It doesn’t matter what you do, just do something with people who make you feel loved; people you love.

Let’s reframe Valentine’s Day as a general day of love, not just romantic love. Those of you in relationships absolutely should celebrate your romantic love! And those of us who are still single should celebrate all of the other kinds of love that we have in our lives, including love for ourselves. Because we all do have love in our lives, and that should be celebrated. ❤

*Steps down from soapbox*

Happy Valentine’s Day!