Center of Attention (or Chicago)

I recently lost an old friend. I don’t mean he died. I mean he chose to end our friendship.

I would be visiting his town on business and wanted to catch up with him as it had been nearly eight years since we’d seen each other. During that time we’d kept a friendly but loose connection. He’d married, as had I, and the fact that we’d once dated never seemed to be a barrier to friendship.

While ours hadn’t been a very long relationship, he’d helped me through a pivotal point in my adult life and when we split it was with the understanding that we respected and cared deeply for each other and always would. It just wasn’t a love match. There had been lots of post-mortem talking and responsibility-taking and the air between us was well cleared for a healthy friendship. Or so I thought.

As my trip approached, he became vague about when and where he could meet up. I got to town and discovered my work schedule was more demanding than I thought. I also discovered I had no transport and asked if he could come to me. When the times I offered didn’t seem to gel with his schedule, he seemed to shrug it off: oh well, maybe next decade.

I was sad. It felt like seeing me didn’t matter to him enough to go out of his way. I regularly went out of my way to catch up with friends visiting from out of town, rearranging work or home schedules, so it hadn’t seemed like that outrageous of a request to me. That’s what friends do, isn’t it?

I stewed for a minute and decided I needed to tell him how hurt and disappointed I was. I realize this could come as a shock or challenge to some guys, but not this one. He is a great communicator, well-trained in feelings, personal responsibility and the like. Of all people, surely he’d hear the friendship behind my message. Instead, he snapped. He accused me of not respecting his time or family, confusingly of ‘playing the same shit games’ I allegedly played when we were together. He sneered that since I was all about being an independent woman I didn’t need to play helpless; I could figure out how to work around his schedule and come to him. And finally he spat that he was sick of me needing to be the center of his attention. He then unfriended me online and cut off all communication. It was a complete blindside from an evolved guy who’s great at communicating about feelings – from a friend. I was shocked.

It felt like I’d been punched in the stomach and my first thought as I fought my shaking hands was “it’s not safe to communicate upset feelings.” That’s a horrid, bottled-up, WASPy place to be. Did he really think of our relationship in the horrible terms he spewed at me? That by asking him to take time to catch up during my visit I was playing “the same old shit game?” What shit game? I wondered. Why had he never talked to me about this during all our post-relationship time as friends? Had he been holding on to these resentments all these years while I thought we were all clear? This probably saddened me most, knowing that there were still issues from our time together that he still carried with him and to which I was oblivious.

He could have a grain of truth with the independent thing: I am strong and in control at home, true, but when I travel I tend to revert to wanting my hand held if someone I know is around to help. Does being independent mean you can never ask for help?

It was his final comment about the need to be center of attention that resonated with me most. Since we talked maybe once a year, he clearly couldn’t have been referring to the ongoing nature of our friendship. While I hadn’t expected to be center of his attention here – maybe off to the side while I met his wife and kid, sure, part of his attention but not center - it had made me think that that was where he felt said ‘shit games’ were.

I’m aware of a preference for the spotlight. I mean I’m a Leo so there’s that and then obviously I believe my thoughts and beliefs deserve some modicum of attention or I wouldn’t bother writing this blog. It also wasn’t the first time a need to be center of attention came up in the context of relationships. I had been left by a college boyfriend after the same accusation. The same boyfriend had previously run to my dorm room daily and was annoyed when I had to shift my attention from him to go to class or to my shift at the radio station.

More recently, I had dumped a boyfriend for cheating on me – not as soon as I should have either. But what had hurt most, I reflected, was that I had lost my spot as center of his attention. He’d been ultra-devoted when we’d started dating yet after a few months it seemed I was sharing his attention with several prospects. I couldn’t live with that or forgive it.

I had in fact started dating this now-former friend in question after being particularly neglected by a self-absorbed boyfriend. In a period of unsure direction in his life, he had been devoted to me. In the end we saw that we came from worlds that were too different and had life goals too divergent to make a go of it but it had been a restorative relationship for me while we were in it. I had felt like the center of his attention. Now it seemed he regretted that.

As the shaking and pain subsided, I realized it wasn’t me. To actually end a friendship over a travel mix-up and an honest, open communication of feelings was a tad rash; especially for a fairly evolved adult with above-average communication skills. There had to be more to it.

I checked myself with friends and family – was I out of line? I got the same response from several parties: first, that one does go out of one’s way when a friend visits from out of town, and second, that there was something deeper that was triggering his anger, and it was most likely issues with his wife with whom he’d had issues over the years. Since she was one female it would have been more costly to lash out at, I got the shit-storm dumped on me. Disappointing to be sure but oddly comforting.

Upon first read of the vitriolic message I’d panicked that this need of mine was a bad thing, a character flaw. But then I thought again. I do expect to be center of attention to the man I am in a relationship with. I unapologetically think that’s how it should be. I’d hope said man also focuses on a satisfying career, old and new friends, and other interests, but as far as women go, yes, I have no problem admitting I need to be center of that realm of his attention.

When my husband and I first started dating, he went back and read my entire blog, cover to cover as it were. I was touched and honored. Here was a guy who was making me his focus, trying to learn all he could about me and understand the ways in which we might fit together, where my weaknesses were, when I would need my hand held. In turn, I made him the center of my attention.

But that’s serious partnership. I certainly did not have that same level of expectation regarding meeting up with my now-former friend in his town. I just wanted the attention it takes to catch up with someone over a beer and would have gladly given him the same in return. I’m sorry to have lost a friend over a long-ago frustration with me that could have been worked out in conversation. I know at the end of the day it wasn’t about me but whatever else he has going on with his family. Perhaps one day he’ll see that and reopen the lines of friendship.

I responded to his spew-mail saying that if this really was it, I wanted to end by thanking him for who he’d been for my life, pointing out some key contributions he’d made to who I am, and wishing him well. I felt relief that I’d walked away with positivity mixed with sadness knowing I may never see or hear from him again. I don’t agree with his choice but I can’t control it. And that, I think, is the hardest lesson of all.

Awkward

I went to the Arclight this week, the only cinema in LA as far as I’m concerned in my …is it snobbishness or curmudgeonly-ness? OK I do love the vintage movie houses like the Vista et. al. l but I digress. I went to the Arclight and while waiting for my friend in the lobby, I saw what can best be described as a former acquaintance walk in. He hadn’t changed much in the six years since I’d last seen him. Still tall and mostly bald, still somewhat sheepish, with an awkward walk. I could see by the emblazoned sweatshirt he wore that he was working on one of the new cable shows this year. I turned to see if he’d see me and wondered how to greet him.

We met when I was at film school and he was a featured speaker as a writer who had a successful film out. It was actually he and his brother – his hunky, fit, charming brother. After their lecture I plowed down the stairs of the lecture hall in my forthright, still-unjaded way and marched right up to them. I figured it would be smart to make a connection with a working writer and it would be an added bonus if I could date a cute one.

Sadly, the cute one was mobbed so I ended up connecting with the awkward one who was eager to have someone be interested in him. He was very sweet and we agreed to meet up the next week. Excellent, I thought, I have my first connection in Hollywood! It would have been fabulous if it had been romantic too but I was contented to have a new friend. Besides, maybe there was a way I could get to his brother…

So we had drinks that week. He creeped me out when he did an awkward lean-in at the end of the evening. I avoided the smooch and tried to make it as gently clear as I could that this was not like that. It seemed fine. We hung out a few times with other family friends, and in other social settings but the brother was never around. Maybe Awkward wasn’t so bad. He was smart and funny. He was kind and a little eccentric. His looks left me cold as did his lack of charisma but maybe I’d be OK with that if I looked a little deeper.

At this point it became clear that their writing team was as imbalanced as their looks. The cute brother had been hired on a show and assigned a feature script. Awkward continued to have his pitches turned down and lived off old family money. It also became clear that he thought this was more than just a friendly writer mentoring situation. The details are fuzzy now as it’s been so long but I seem to recall he tried to kiss me again and my firm no sent him scurrying. It seemed there was no friendship possible on his end without romantic attachments and on my end there was none possible with.

I knew I’d hurt him even though I thought I’d been clear on that first “date”. Well at least clear-ish. Maybe a part of me knew he was only continuing to talk to me because I was young and cute and looked up to him. Maybe I knew he hoped this would go somewhere romantic. Who are we kidding, I was only talking to him for mentorship and business connections. I hadn’t even written my first script yet! I suppose it was a case of mutual using and we both walked away unsatisfied.

After my last exit following that awkward kiss attempt, I never heard from him again. His humiliation over the rejection apparently precluded any possible continued friendship. I was sad to lose my one connection in a town where it’s all who you know and I knew nobody. But it was a good lesson learned: I’m not up to the challenge of toying with men’s hearts to get what I want. I just can’t fake it.

When he walked into the Arclight, I was the only other person standing in the lobby so it’s not possible that he didn’t see me. However, six years is a long time. My hair is different, my clothes are different. Maybe he didn’t recognize me. I thought for a second about going over to him, catching up, seeing how he was. But then I stopped. If he’d been so hurt, he may not have relished being faced with me. I decided to leave well enough alone. He did his awkward walk toward his theatre. I watched him go and hoped his new series gets picked up.

A Toast

For my little sister on her wedding day:

'A' has many roles in our family: The ray of sunshine, the glue, the leftover crap.

I was not too pleased when you came along. When it became clear mom was not going to return you to sender as I had requested, I agreed to tolerate you. The truth of it is that I was jealous. You were the one who was happy despite anything. You were loving, creative, funny, generous, and saw the good in everyone and I desperately wanted to be like you.

As we’ve grown, you’ve taught me about courage, diplomacy, how to step outside my own perspective, and how to organize a mean closet. I am so glad mom wasn’t able to return you.

Wanting nothing for Christmas but Bride magazines at 5 years old, you planned your wedding so many times who can say if this looks anything like what you had in your minds’ eye. The most important ingredient, however, is here: a man who adores you and loves you and promises his life to you. With his kindness, warmth and playful spirit, 'M' is the best gift I could have wished for you.

Likewise, M, you are getting an extraordinary soul. She lights up any room she’s in. She makes everyone feel valued and honored for who they are. She’s always looking within herself, checking her perspective against that of others’ and putting herself in their shoes to be sure she understands both sides. She would give a stranger the shirt off her back. Gentle and kind, and tough as the cliffs of Moher, anyone lucky enough to find themselves in her heart knows that her friendship is a treasured gift. She will weather any storm with you and be there to make sure you have a warm, dry place to sleep even if it means giving you her pillow. As you know, M, your challenge is to push her to put herself first. This way you will have a wife who is fulfilled and enriched and able to fulfill and enrich your life with her love. Welcome to the family.

A, thank you for always being there for me and listening to me. Thank you for making me laugh and comforting me when I cry. Thank you for being my cheerleader and my partner in crime. Thank you for having the courage to stand up to me and for pushing me to be my best self. If I am any good at all, it’s because for you I needed to try to be the person you think I am; the big sister worthy of your love and respect. Thank you for being my best friend. I can’t imagine being on this road without you. I’m so proud of you, so happy for you, so honored to have you as my sister.

To A and M: May you both always find in each other a shoulder to lean on in tough times, an ear to listen to both your troubles and your dreams, a hand to help through your day to day, a smile to share your joy and laughter, and arms to welcome your heart home for the rest of your lives.

The Ex Factor

My first engagement did not end well. Which is to say that it did and then it didn’t.

We’d both been afraid to admit we were growing apart but when we went to visit my family for Christmas the built up misery came crashing down on me and I knew I couldn’t get back on the plane to go home with him. What followed was a grey area of ‘are we or aren’t we’ during which we discussed ways we could keep the us alive; make that next step, maybe try Los Angeles, he came out and interviewed in my mountain town even. One week after a tearful profession of his love for me I agreed to give New York another try. The next day he admitted he cheated on me, in my bed. Her name was Erica. Needless to say I never went back to New York and after some quietly subdued negotiations he packed up our shoebox of an apartment and shipped me my stuff.

We kept in touch, always civil. Even friendly at times. I think we were a bit lost without each other. We’d been each other’s first real loves. We’d met on a cruise and been instantly smitten. As we were both vacationing with our families, the various parents and siblings met and it was like six months of dating condensed into a week. He flew out to visit me in California a month later. Two months after that I visited him in New York. We looked at apartments and I moved out that Spring.

We had originally planned to marry a year to the day that we met. We started looking at wedding cruises, I found a dress, picked out invitations, a caterer. But even though we pressed on, he never gave me a ring. I started to feel false about the whole thing as every woman I mentioned my wedding plans to inevitably looked at my finger and then I had to explain. It wasn’t really a money thing although he claimed it was. His sister in law had given us a diamond and his best friend was the scion of a diamond district jeweler. A ring would not have been difficult. I lost it when I discovered charges on his credit card to a strip club the day after the last money excuse. He’d left the statement open on my book and in a way I think he wanted me to find it. To see what was real for him.Still by the end, he’d been my best friend for three years and it hurt to just let go of that. I sat in the snow outside my mother’s house and cried my eyes out.

At the time I never thought it would be so long before I found my next Mr. Right.
As time passed we kept up a friendly contact. Loosely at least. He eventually started dating someone and moved to LA with her. When I decided to move to LA for the movie business he was supportive. Said he couldn’t wait for me to meet his girl, that I’d really like her. As several of my best friends were next girlfriends of exes I had no doubt I would. He even offered me help in finding a job when I landed. I was happy to have at least one trusted face in the sea of unkept promises that is LA.

But then I did land. He didn’t return my emails. Then he didn’t return my calls. I left an angry message with his assistant that his ex-fiance wanted to speak with him. I wasn’t just some acquaintance fluff to be brushed aside. I had been engaged to this man. Did not that confer a certain status of intimacy with him? Of entitlement to connection?

And then it dawned on me. It must have been her. She must have been uncomfortable with the idea of a friendly ex being back in his life. I got it and I felt for her. I wished I could tell her I was no threat but he’d have to do that. I wrote him a heartfelt letter saying I was sorry for not having gotten the clue earlier and understanding her point of view but hoping she’d understand. I really did need his help after all. I was running out of savings and still had no job on the horizon.

It was his response that was the truest moment of our break-up. Two years later. He was clearly upset with me and I don’t know if it was because I’d seen the uncomfortable truth of the matter or if he was frustrated with her attitude toward me and was taking it out on me, or if, like so many in Tinseltown, he was only paying me lip-service about being friends and helping me get a toehold here. Either way his tone was terse and cold. He informed me that I was wrong about his beloved and had no right to comment on the matter. He told me he had other priorities in life now and I was not one of them. I sat back from the keyboard stunned and hurt. We were broken up now for real and true.

I never responded to his email and have never spoken to him since.

Now a decade since our breakup and my snowy cry I have returned to the state of engagement. And now the shoe is on the other foot. My fiancé has an ex who is out here and lonely and looking for help getting her toehold. I should be inclined to be generous but I find I’m not. Not that I have any fear of him going back to her or her turning his head. Trust me when I say it is not possible. But I find her desperation repugnant. Like a fly circling our calm spring day. She is a nuisance I don’t want to deal with and he’s happy to use my irritation as his buttress for his No.

I’ll never know what really went on between my ex and his next regarding my presence in LA. But at least now I understand the state he was in when I came beseeching. Despite the love he once had for me and the promises once made, a new love simply doesn’t leave room. You can only create one life at a time and by rights it’s the one you’re creating together.

I’ve been so angry at him for so many years. I’ve laughed at my cousin when she says she’s seen him at work things and he’s asked after me. He hates me, clearly, I counter. If he’d cared he could have lifted a finger. Since the day of his last email I’ve held a big ‘screw you too’ in the space in my heart where his love once lived. Now I see I was off base. For him it was never hate. It was just the view from a different state.

The Ring's the Thing

For most of my adult life I longed for a significant relationship with an amazing boyfriend that would eventually lead to engagement and then marriage. But most importantly, and let’s be honest, girls, I longed for engagement with that all-important accessory: the diamond ring. That ring which legitimizes your membership in the “I am loved” club. That ring which tells all those would-be suitors “sorry boys, you waited too long to realize I was fabulous.” That ring which signals to all the singletons that you have finally left their sorry ranks and are on your way to becoming a smug married.

I’ve been engaged once before and oddly the ring was sort of the undoing of it. He’d proposed on one of our early dates and we’d moved in together quickly. I should add that ‘moving in’ involved me quitting my job in San Francisco, packing up my life and moving to New York. Ah the folly of youth. The thing was, we thought of ourselves as engaged, we were even picking out caterers and venues, but he’d somehow never gotten around to giving me a ring.

I let it go for a while but after a year I started to get cranky about it. When I mentioned my fiancée, women’s eyes would inevitably dart to my left hand and I got tired of explaining. I unengaged us and insisted we refer to each other as boyfriend/girlfriend until he got off his ass and officially bejeweled my finger.

He pled money concerns but I didn’t buy it. His sister-in-law had given us a diamond from an old ring of hers and his best friend was the son of a diamond district family. He could have gotten a ring together if he’d really wanted to. It would only have been at most a few hundred for a wholesale setting. One day he inadvertently (I assume) left his credit card bill unfolded on my desk and I noticed a charge for several hundred dollars at a local strip club. Suffice it to say, that was the beginning of the end. I had to face the fact that he just wasn’t that into me or he would have made more committal use of that g-string tip money.

I left that coast and that chapter of my life with a broken heart and an unsated hunger for a diamond ring. Luckily, in the ensuing years, I got my grandmother’s depression-era engagement ring that had a round diamond and all the silver filigree an antique-fixated girl could want. I was happy. So it seems New York and I didn’t work out for myriad reasons. Maybe I didn’t really want to be married to him after all. I had just wanted the damn ring.

So now, older and wiser, I faced engagement with a more pragmatic, less ring-centric outlook. Let’s see if this guy loves me for me and wants to spend his life with said me - how’s that for a litmus test? When the ring conversation came up, I told him I didn’t want a diamond, I already had one. Maybe something low-key with our birthstones. And as I was newly into gold, maybe not silver.

Let it be said that I have never been a generic Tiffany’s platinum solitaire girl. I was once given one of those Tiffany’s ID bracelets that every trendy cheerleader wears and insisted on exchanging it for something I’d never seen on anyone. I have a beautiful necklace now that I wear proudly as its giver intended and have, to date, never seen anyone else with it.

My point is I’ve always been that girl who, if everyone else is wearing black, will show up in pink polka-dots just ‘cause. My fiancée wisely knows this. When it came time to pop the question, he did and then as he nervously held out a closed ring box begged me to remember I’d said no diamonds.

“Of course, honey,” I murmured.

“No seriously, when your friends look at it funny you have to tell them you said no diamonds.”

“Okaaaaaaaaaaaay…” Now I was nervous.

I am now very proud to report that look at it funny they do. I opened that little ring box to see a crazy whopper of a ring. Over one hundred years old and once owned by a daughter of one of Milan’s ruling families, it features an emerald flanked by two pink rubies in a massive gold setting that can only be described as two barrel vaults edged with filigree. It came from my fiancée’s mother who was obliquely related to said ruling family. It’s got everything that’s right for me: family history, antiquity, gold, color, and has unique out the ying yang. I can’t believe I get the honor of wearing it both for the fact that it was my fiancée’s mother’s and for the fact that it represents the actual real commitment a wonderful man is making to me.

My favorite sport is now watching the reaction when I mention my fiancée. As before, the eyes flick to my left hand. They usually go wide. Then there is either a gasp and squeal of recognition of the ring’s outright fabulousness, or a delayed “Ooooooh,” as the viewer scrambles to fabricate an appreciative comment. It takes people off guard and I love that. I also love that it’s definitely not for everyone’s liking. There will be no knock-off at Tiffany’s!

Turns out I was never missing a diamond ring. I was missing the guy who understood what I wanted was the life that goes with the ring - and wanted it with me.

Enamored of an Ass

As a young writer, I identified most with Shakespeare’s romantic characters. Viola, Rosalind, Helena; the girls with pluck and moxie who had great adventures and won the handsome protagonist too. They fit with my world view of how my life would go. As I get older, I find instead, I resonate most often with Titania. Not just because she’s queen of the faeries. Of course any title helps. But because, after a too-long night lavishing her royal attention on the donkey-head-transformed Bottom the Weaver, the spell is broken and she comes to her senses, puzzled as to why on earth she would sink so low. Out of sorts, she murmurs to Oberon, her king, that “I dreamt I was enamored of an ass.”

I am not the best judge of character as last summer’s subletter debacle can attest along with countless questionable choices of boyfriends. With my Pollyanna heart in full force, I take people at face value too often buying into their knight-in-shining-armor acts until I wake up one day, rather embarrassed and a tad horrified wondering why the truth wasn’t so obvious before.

The funny artist who turned out to be a broken child, the suave producer who turned out to be a selfish and cruel lay-about, the regal cook who turned out to be an uptight asshole… Oh ‘Tania, I feel you.

It’s not just in love either. It’s friendships too. Early in film school, I became fast friends with a girl who was always up for life’s adventures. We soon agreed to carpool to campus. It actually took me months before I realized she had never once offered to drive and I was the one going twenty miles out of my way for her on a weekly basis with nary an offer of gas money. But desperate for a good girlfriend in my new Tinseltown life, I clung to her.

We excitedly planned a girls’ night out and when we walked into the bar of her choice, I recoiled. It was filled with frat boys and plastic piñatas. Not the classy, low-key wine bar I had in mind. “Isn’t this great?” she gushed. Wake up call! A mutual friend later told me that this girl had once imposed on friend to drive to another state to bail her out of jail. On the way home they made a highway fast-food pit stop and she hadn’t even offered to buy the girl’s Big Mac.

My lack of people radar extends to my business life as well. I once bought so completely into a new friend’s business consultant act I set my best friend up with her for a consultation. My friend had taken precious time off her day job to have a half-hour lunch with this woman and get key guidance for the business she was launching. Instead of being the grand business match up I had imagined, the woman kept my friend tangled up for a two hour “meeting” that was garbled by email, and text interruptions and other clients needing “just a minute of her time.” The woman was actually rude enough to field several phone calls while my friend sat there, watching the minutes tick by and imagining her boss’ face getting redder by the minute as she wondered how to explain her quadruple-time lunch absence to him. To top it off, the woman later emailed expecting payment for her pearls of wisdom which had never been part of the discussion. I was mortified that I put my friend in this position and that I had been foolish enough to think highly of the woman’s business skill in the first place.

It doesn’t stop there. I once brought another new friend into my business. Dazzled by his professional talents as well as his smile, I bought his act hook line and sinker. We all did. Well, most of us did. Several of the other guys at work grumbled about all the flash and dazzle but I put off their comments. I actually thought “I can’t be wrong again, surely.” Of course I can, and don’t call me Shirley.

I watched waitresses melt for him when we had our business meetings out and I felt twinges of jealousy as he returned their smiles. I didn’t have a personal interest in him, not in that way, but I still wanted to be the girl he was focused on. What can I say, I’m a Leo, I need the spotlight. I listened to him tell me things that in any dating scenario would have been huge red flags: past bad break ups, low opinions of women in various parts of his life, a tendency to use people. It’s OK, I thought, I’m not a girl in his life in that way. Whew.

One day, some part of his pedestal slipped. I saw his self-admitted user tendencies as draining and selfish rather than starving artist bohemian, his righteousness as insecurity rather than maturity, his unresponsiveness as flakey rather than mysterious. At a certain moment I watched him with a date and thought “thank god that’s not me.” At least he was good at his job.

Despite this relief, I found myself as angry with him as I have been with any ex, former friend or evil subletter. For weeks I stewed in my anger until my boyfriend, ever the wise one, pointed out that I was angry because I was embarrassed. I was embarrassed that I defended him to people who had seen more clearly than I, embarrassed that I had been fished in yet again by someone unworthy of my heart and my esteem. Donkey heads!

Unfolding from there, I finally saw clearly why I hadn’t been able to let go of other angers. It wasn’t that I hadn’t forgiven the exes for their assorted transgressions and cruelties. It was that I hadn’t forgiven myself for having chosen them in the first place.

That realization made waking up next to my real life Oberon all the sweeter. The irony is that for all these months as I reminded myself of these past judgment failures, I subjected him to a vetting of presidential proportions. Sure, he seemed like a fabulous boyfriend but I’m probably wrong again. Better poke and prod as much as I can to be sure.

He bore it all with grace and patience; far more than I deserved. The one person I have been the most suspicious of is the one person who didn’t merit my doubts. Figures I would turn the Spanish Inquisition on the wrong guy. I’m just lucky that he stuck around through it, waited till I washed the last of those faerie dust dreams away and laughed with me at the sight of all those donkey-headed former lovers, flushed friends and current folk.

Could it be? Could Pollyanna at long last be tempered by some real clarity and on-target intuition? Dare to dream.

Silly Love Songs

I keep hearing that song. I’m supposed to feel something, remember someone when it plays. But I can’t. I just keep thinking, “dang, that’s a good song.”

There’s a funny thing about songs and memory and how we attach them to a person, a time, a relationship, a love. When you break up, the struggle for emotional possession of things can be as grueling as the physical division of stuff you’ve accumulated together.

And it’s not just the sense of sound. Once I was left by a guy I’d fallen hard for. We’d traveled together and I’d also fallen for a certain perfume on our trip. After he left, just smelling the stuff would break my heart all over again. But dammit, I loved that perfume and I wasn’t going to let him ruin it for me. For the next few months I’d wear it every so often always concentrating on how I’d felt when we’d found it: alive, beautiful, sophisticated, adored. Bit by bit, sniff by sniff, it worked. I still wear that perfume – it’s one of my favorites. Yes, sometimes I think of him when I put it on but only in remembering that beautiful beach and how good I am with myself.

It’s the same with music. Some songs are inexorably linked to past loves of even friends. The sad songs of Alice in Chains are my first love, my Italian. “It Had To Be You” is my best friend from high school, Tears for Fears is my good Seattle friend from my college years, Gary Jules happily reminds me of a broken artist I got away from back home, Johnny Cash is my sweet, Harley-riding ex. All these are positive associations. My heart has made the decision that bad exes or their memories don’t get to keep music I love.

So this song keeps coming up on my iPod shuffle and I have this twinge: isn’t this someone’s song? I finally remember having once danced to it with an ex, one of those didn’t-end-well ones, and I decide no, it’s my song.

A Sunday Denouement

We were sitting in the very same living room where I’d sat, pining, nearly four years ago. Pining despite the fact that the object of my affection had been in the room with me then. It was spring; my best friend’s birthday and I had to get ready for her party. I had to leave. My day with this man had to come to an end.

That day ended. Grasping years snapped by. He went his way and I struggled to – I won’t say repair – to maintain a broken heart. Eventually, he went back to the one who’d broken his heart.

I’d never fallen for anyone so hard in my life. I processed it and analyzed it to the hilt in the intervening years but I still held onto the hurt. He was everything I could have ever possibly wanted – more. Like ‘wildest dreams’ more. And I could never have him.

It didn’t matter really that when I thought of how he’d really treated me in the day to day, he hadn’t been that amazing. Nor did I factor in his casual disregard for me as a person as he’d looked through me back to her. I was stuck on what he would have meant. I’d have been someone if I’d gotten him. I’d have been better than all the girls from high school, better than skinnier girls or richer girls or anyone. After all, he was famous and important in Hollywood.

Even though in my pining I swore that I loved him for who he was, in truth I'd held on to who I’d have gotten to be if he were mine.

After he went back to her, I dated other people too. I suppose in a practical sense I’d gotten over him. I still satirized him in my scripts. Or used his name as the impossible goal of my lovelorn protagonist. But after nursing my open wound for so many years the truth was I didn’t know how to stitch it shut.

I’d see stories about him in the trades or sometimes the tabloids. “That could have been mine,” I’d twist the knife. I’d meet good guys. “Yeah, you’re alright. But you’re not famous. Or rich. Like he was. You’re a mere mortal. How can that ever do?"

And the knife would twist when I’d see movie posters with her face – because of course, she was a model. Beauty products advertised by her fine features. Everywhere. And how could I compete? The old ‘what has she got that I haven’t got?’ argument sort of falls flat. Um, endorsement deals, starring roles, fame and fortune, for starters. And, oh yeah, him.

The years drag on. My wound dries but does not close. Not all the way. I meet a lovely man of my own. I see a light. I start to forget the wound. I like the sound of the life he talks about but who am I if not she who bears this wound: the hurt of the might-have-been?

And then one day through a scheduling coincidence we’re sitting in that very same living room. It’s caught all of us off guard. The four of us: the Director, the Model, my boyfriend and myself. Like four normal people. Like two couples would sit. And chat. About the weather. About movies. The Model and I remind each other of a song and each sing a snippet. I can see how she looks like me – what he saw in me. But her eyes are more china blue than mine.

He reaches for her and there is a kindness in that touch and a thankfulness for it. He glances to me and the look says “I’m glad. To see you. And I’m glad things are like this.” And somehow, seeing that contentment did more than holding onto the times he wasn’t perfectly nice to me, or the psychoanalysis of ‘why her over me?’ or the cold comfort of how my life is far grander without his hollow trappings of fame. I see his look and how they are together and I am glad too. The wound closes and I am glad. It feels like it’s been closed a long time as I hold the hand of the man who loves me.

Suddenly, I want them to be together. And happy with each other. That world of what-if I used to imagine with the Director recedes to the dullness of a thousand other what-if roads that line the shoulders of the road I’m actually on.

We’re sitting like four people in a living room would. And I am suddenly acutely aware of my own vast good fortune. And their fame and money does not give their lives an ounce of sparkle over mine. Over ours. I am acutely aware of the beauty of the man sitting beside me; the one who does hold my hand and treat me kindly. The one who wishes my road be the same as his.

He and I leave the living room and we go off down this road and I am glad. And still glad that for a time my road lost itself in that of the Director. The holding-on is no longer of a wound but of a friend – of living. And now just like that – the spell was broken.

Party of Three

Cabo, Part 2

Cabo is no longer the bargain it once was. It’s pretty much like being in an American colony. It’s like Palm Springs with an ocean. Price-wise, you might as well be in Tokyo.

My boyfriend joined my dad and I several days after our bumpy arrival and we were horrified to discover that our lunch of two quesadillas and two margaritas cost us $70. But then Dad’s favorite trip pastime is to moan about “how much more the food costs this year.” Thanksgiving traditions are important. This year saw some shifts in ours.

This was the second time I’d brought a boyfriend with us. But this time was vastly different from the last time. Last time, dad and I had known the guy was on his way out. That time Cabo was a final try in a relationship that had been sliding downward for some time. Dad had known that, despite the presence of a boyfriend, he was still my number one guy.

This year – this boyfriend - was different. This one wasn’t sliding. This one wasn’t making me miserable. Dad knew this one loved and adored me. Like he did. We three sat on the beach where silence and book-reading replaced the engaging, get-to-know-you conversations I had envisioned. It was, in a word, uncomfortable.

Despite my best efforts to get things rolling with conversation topics of things I knew they had in common, it felt like we were all floundering, wondering how we all fit. And the truth was I didn’t know the answer.

In the past, I’ve been fortunate enough to go on many exciting jaunts around the world with my dad.

“I’m sure lucky you’re still single and can go with me!” Dad always chirps.

Yeah. Me…too. Of course, I’m grateful for the travel opportunities and to spend time with a wonderful individual like my dad. But like any single girl who dreams of marriage, it feels like a back-handed compliment; ‘good thing you’re still such a loser!’

At the same time, it’s been the prevailing dynamic for the better part of my life. My parents divorced when I was three. At five mom remarried. At nine I moved to San Francisco to live with my dad. It’s pretty much been the two of us ever since. Through the teen years I was naturally convinced he was the biggest asshole on the planet. But as I finally matured through college and after, we developed a very close friendship. I know I am his number one girl and, one engagement aside, he’s always been my number one guy. Faced with the real possibility of that dynamic changing, we’re all a bit off balance.

Dad left the beach on our last day feeling like a third wheel despite my best efforts to set aside time just for us two. I was wracked with guilt for somehow failing to be a dutiful daughter, a good girlfriend and get my two primary men to be best buds.

Safely back in LA where the quesadillas cost a few bucks like they’re supposed to, I moped around my boyfriend’s house.

“Honey, it’ll all work out,” he comforts me.

While I feel it’s partly up to me to create a new dynamic that works for everyone concerned I know it’s up to dad to come to grips with me leaving the metaphoric nest.

As for me, the best adjustment I can make is grounding myself in that there is no number one. There is just love. And plenty to go around.

From Where He Sits

In general I’m a nice guy. Thankfully busy with work again, I keep to myself mostly but now and then I try to get out with friends. No real time for romance or inclination to get involved in something that messy again having survived a long-overdue divorce. I don’t ever want to have the words “My wife” in my vocabulary again. Things are good as they are. Good enough.

My neighbor, the social butterfly, invited me to dinner. There was a girl there. Cute. Funny enough. Turns out she lives down the street. We both had a lot to drink and long night of talking and music. Really, that was all, I swear. I liked her. Nice girl. And she seemed pretty into me. As much as I don’t need it, I’ll admit it feels nice to have a girl look at you like that.

Over the next few months we hung out a lot. Always just talking. We walk the neighborhood. Sometimes hit the café up the street for breakfast. She’s fun. Makes me feel younger. I even met some friends of hers. A couple. The husband’s my age; the wife is the girl’s age. Not that I’m thinking that way at all but it was interesting to see that it could work. You know, in a non-clichéd way. Anyway, I liked the couple. The husband and I had a great conversation about music. I don’t meet very many people with a musical background and knowledge like that – like me. It was a good night.

A few weeks ago now, the girl invited me to dinner with her and that couple at a French place we’d all talked about. As it got to be the day of the dinner I realized I was too swamped with work. And maybe thinking about how much time I do or don’t want to spend out at fancy dinners with this girl. But mostly just swamped with work. I emailed her about noon to cancel and went about my day.

This is where it gets weird. Later that night I got a voice mail from the girl saying she was ready – this was five-ish when I would have been picking her up. But like I said, I was busy and figured she had my email. The next day I see her walking and her face is all funny. Hard. She says she didn’t get my email and was waiting for me, all done up. Well it’s not like I didn’t try to give her as much notice as I could. Doesn’t everyone have a Blackberry these days?

I asked if she and the couple went to the French place anyway, without me. And she says no, but practically spits the word at me. What the heck? Is a guy not allowed to change plans?

So this all just reminds me why I don’t want these complications in my life. Especially with some emotional young girl. Even if she is pretty and fun to talk to. She’s emailed and called a few times, trying for our walks and so forth. I either don’t respond or tell her I’m busy. I’m hoping she’ll get the message and let it go. I just don’t need the drama, you know?

And what he doesn’t know…

My friends and I had planned for dinner at the French place for months. Saving up as it’s not the kind of place any of us can actually afford but this is important. It’s business. I’d promised them he’d be there and we’d been working on a plan. Between us, we’d been so inspired by this man’s musical career that we had a documentary project ready to pitch him. Everything about the project was inspiring and relevant. We couldn’t wait to get to that dinner and pitch him. In addition to being fun and potentially lucrative for us all, it would be flattering for him and that was important to me as I had genuinely come to care for this new friend of mine.

But instead my friends and I had sat dressed up, made up, prepped and ready for him. As the appointed dinner hour came and went and my voice mail went unanswered I worried something was wrong. When my internet came back online later that night I got my answer from the email he’d sent at noon. Yeah, I was upset. I wouldn’t tolerate being treated that carelessly by someone I was dating. But wait, it wasn’t like we were dating. Even for just a friend not to call to confirm that I got the cancellation… I was annoyed.

What was just a simple dinner plan to him was an important, exciting opportunity for us. What he read on my face that next day wasn’t a woman scorned or a hurt date as I’m sure it must have looked. It was the guilt I had in disappointing my friends and my helplessness in not being able to communicate with him. It was the frustration of one more idea for a film project slipping away. And I couldn’t tell him in that moment: But wait, I’ve got a pitch for you! That would have gone over well - right out of left field.

Though I had resolved to keep my relationship with him as friendship and hopefully professional, now it was all mixed up and seemingly ruined on all fronts. And that’s that. He ignores my emails now and even looks away when he drives past me.

My dad recently imparted a great wisdom to me: approach every relationship as though it may be a long-term friendship and professional connection. Don’t come at it from the “would he be a good date?” perspective. If something develops later, great but the fact is usually it won’t and you’ll have lost that potential friend or business connection.

So I’ve learned – or should I say relearned - my lesson, the old saw: don’t shit where you eat. No more mixing business with pleasure. Definitely no more mixing neighbors with flirting. Sounds like a good idea in general would be: don’t mix dating with life.

Choosing Attraction

I was recently discussing the demise of a friend’s relationship. Apparently there’s something in the water of late. My friend talked about the gradual loss of intimacy that had grown between him and his girlfriend. I know her too so I was trying to be impartial. Not so easy. They had both been frustrated by the lack of connection that festered at the core of their relationship. Neither had known quite how to solve it and so things had ended.

As a recently frustrated girl myself, I wanted to get at the “cooling off” from the guy’s point of view. As girls we’re raised to think guys are on all the time. No such thing as them not being in the mood. That’s a girl thing, right? Newsflash: turns out a guy’s mindset can in fact override what I assumed was a biological, gender-specific imperative.

“Sometimes I just didn’t find her attractive,” he shrugged.

Now, the girl in question is a babe so I fought the urge to squawk. As far as he was concerned, there existed the real phenomenon of being with a beautiful girl and simultaneously not finding her attractive.

“Sometimes she didn’t make much of an effort.”

Ah hah! Now we were to the heart of the matter. This put the onus on her to cause him to be attracted to her and what could he do about it if she didn’t make this happen? We had inadvertently hit upon what I think is the secret struggle of most modern relationships: the thinking that the causation of the relationship is up to the other person.

Having agonized over The Director for many moons, wondering what I was doing wrong that he wasn’t choosing me, a wise friend finally counseled me: if it’s the right guy, there is no way you can mess it up. And poof, I was free. If he was choosing someone else, he was clearly not the right guy for me and the fact we didn’t work out wasn’t due to anything I did or didn’t do right.

This all came back to me as I listened to my friend talk. And then the next piece: if that attraction – even love – is not based on what the other person does, what is it based on?

Ah hah number two. Try this on: besides being “right for each other,” when we fall in love, we don’t really fall in love with that other person and their actions or appearance BUT with the story we tell ourselves about that person’s actions and/or appearance.

Think about it. Who was the last celeb you had a crush on? Because you knew them? Maybe, but unlikely unless of course you live here in Tinseltown. More than likely your imagination created a possibility of what they could be like. Likewise, we meet a new person and get carried away with new hope. Based on what? The story we tell ourselves about what love with that person could be like.

As I look back over my history I can come up with juxtaposing examples of this. Once I fell for a guy because he was a rebel. Another boyfriend later repulsed me for the same reason. Was the degree of rebel-ness to blame? Or the story I told myself about how a rebel did or didn’t fit into my life based on who I was and what I wanted at the time?

The bottom line? On a super subconscious level, we choose to start being attracted to someone just as we choose to stop. It seems like it’s based on them. But that’s just us not being responsible for our own feelings.

I immediately called my friend’s ex. She needed to know she was beautiful and fabulous and had in fact done nothing wrong. He just wasn’t the guy. If he was there was no way he would have chosen to stop being crazy in love with her, makeup or no.

Later, I talked with another friend who is engaged. He put it even more clearly:

“Every day we wake up and look at each other and choose to be in love.”

Amen.

All The Pretty Horses

I know I’ve said a lot about being up for leaving this crazy place when I lose my faith but I think this case is an exception.

For as long as I can remember I’ve had the Cinderella fantasy of meeting my Prince Charming and creating a wonderful life with him. I’ve often alarmed friends and family with my ability to jump into new relationships with both feet giving new attachments the weight of love when perhaps they only merited fondness. I always held out hope that maybe that next guy coming around the corner will turn out to be The One.

Sitting at a café last week, a cute guy came around the corner and to me he was just that; a cute guy coming around a corner. It was then I realized I’ve lost my faith in The One.

My blind faith in love dragged me hook line and sinker into my last relationship. My panel of experts (i.e. my girlfriends who don’t want to see me with another jerk) weren’t thrilled with his Match.com profile.

“He sounds immature,” one cautioned.

“Doesn’t sound like he knows what he wants,” noted another.

Despite the fact I had “responsible yet playful adult who knows who he is, what he wants from life and is passionate about it” at the top of my list, I let these red flags slide. I held onto what I did get: playful. He dazzled me with extravagance. Tickets to my favorite band. Lots of attention. After a brief two weeks, he informed me he was taking his profile off Match.com and wanted to only be with me. Even though I was thoroughly enjoying my single-gal-about-town life, I bought into the US-ness he was selling.

As things progressed he wasn’t clear about what he wanted but he was clear about not being ready for thinking about marriage or kids. We met his newborn niece and he was great with her. I asked him if this changed how he felt about the whole kids thing.

“No. I still don’t know if I ever want that,” he informed me.

He continued to hand me red flags like this, laying them right in my lap. Apparently, I just put them in a linen closet for later use as lovely red napkins.

After a while I took him home to meet my family. I can’t be sure, but I imagine that seeing that possible future of family with me right there freaked him out big time. About a week after our return, my best friend took me to lunch. She waited until I had nearly finished my gnocchi before she put down her fork and said:

“I have something to tell you.”

It was kind of her to let me eat first since I wouldn’t be able to for the next week.

It seemed the man I had believed was madly in love with me was back on Match.com looking for other girls. It hit me like a punch to the chest. I confronted him and he hemmed and hawed about not being sure and not knowing what to do. I should have walked right then and there but I was too shocked to just let go. At the end of a long night’s talk, we decided to continue together.

I forgave him. I had to for my own sanity. Trusting him again was another story. The rose colored glasses were definitely off. I began to look at his behavior for what it said about his feelings. For instance, I confronted him the following week about a nude model friend he took to dinner.

“You don’t trust me!” He whined when I dragged the truth out of him. Hmmm and why would that be, I wonder?

Long story short, after a few more months the behavior had shown me all I needed to know. He avoided the deep relationship talks I craved. He avoided touching me as much as he could, providing me with my first (and hopefully last) celibate relationship. He avoided managing his life like an adult blaming his woes on the circumstances rather than looking for where he was responsible for how things were. With the hurt subsiding from my heart, I was finally able to see what my friends had seen from the start: we operated from incompatible life philosophies. Though he was a good guy at the core, he wasn't right for me. It was time to call it.

In an exchange of emails that followed he wondered what had happened so suddenly when everything was fine. He said we’d been so happy. I wonder what relationship he was in. It certainly wasn’t the same one where I cried myself to sleep wondering why he wouldn’t touch me. He claimed we had great kisses. What? When exactly? I attempted to refute the revised history he was coming up with but it kept coming. I found myself being dragged into an emotional quicksand attempting to manage his baggage and keep my head above water.

He informed me his niece had in fact changed the way he felt about starting a family. Huh? Then why had he said no when I’d asked him? Maybe he’d thought about it and changed his mind. Perhaps. But I’d never known since he always avoided feelings talks. The circular, losing battle becomes apparent.

With each relationship I always strive to end things on a positive note – stay friends – and I’m proud to say I usually manage. It’s always been important to me to make a positive difference in people’s lives and he was no exception to that. But he wasn’t getting himself the therapy he’d admitted would be a good idea. He wasn’t hearing me.

He said he knew I’d never forgiven him. For a while I was sad because it wasn’t true. I wrestled with clarifying for him yet again that forgiveness and trust are two separate things. I finally decided that wasn’t worth my time either. Maybe if he does think I didn’t forgive him he’ll think twice before betraying the next girl who falls for him.

Mostly I was sad to realize all the communication we’d missed over the course of our relationship. We were truly not on the same page. My own fault for not pushing the communication I knew we needed because I knew it made him uncomfortable. And I'm not pointing fingers. I know the relationship went the way it went because of the flags I ignored, the assumptions I believed and the choices I made. I wanted him to know that. But as I read his last revisionist email I realized he’d never see things from the place I stood. The only thing I could do was detach and move on. So I stopped replying.

Can’t we at least be friends? He wants to know. No, I don’t think we can. At least not now. For now I need the crazy-making energy out of my world. Not the most mature way I’ve ever concluded things. I’m not proud of it. But it’s true about relationships being like kindergarten. When they’re good it’s fun, play and finger-painting and when they’re bad it’s name-calling, crayon throwing and silent treatment-ing.

So I’m back at the LA singleton café. Now that I’m free of the relationship quicksand, I want no part of it any time soon. Now the hot guy with his latte looks to me like a bag of issues and delusions in a cute package. I don’t need it. Where before I would have seen a “maybe,” now I see an “unlikely.” This is a complete paradigm shift in my world.

It’s not a bad thing. I see it as a freeing. Now I can truly put my mind to all the other things I’m committed to accomplishing. Like making this movie. Selling this script. I still have my faith in the movies and the true craziness of this town. So though a certain faith has been lost, I’m not leaving anytime soon.

“You’re sounding bitter and cynical about men,” a friend counsels.

Not at all. In general, I think men are great. I think they’re a lot like horses. Beautiful to look at and fun to play with sometimes, but at the moment I’m definitely glad I don’t have to take care of one.

Breaking Molds

I was counseling a friend this week on letting go of a guy who wronged her. Pissed about how he had treated her I came on strong. “You want a guy who will adore YOU. Jesus, if he’s sleeping with her he doesn’t care about honoring your feelings.” It came out more righteous than I had intended.

She sniffled and fixed me in a stare. “Like you’ve never gotten fished in.”

“Oh, I’ve been fished in. I’ve sold out way worse.” And I proceeded to share with her how much I’ve managed to overlook, forgive or just plain ignore.

“We sacrifice for love, right?” She blew her nose.

I passed her another cookie from the box. “There is a line between sacrifice as in ‘I’ll give him my last chocolate chip cookie’ and sacrifice as in ‘throw the virgin in the volcano.’”

Every time, the hurt comes down to me not standing up for me. Kind of like the old game where my brother would grab my arm and swat me with my own hand taunting “Why are you hitting yourself? Heidi, why are you hitting yourself?” While I struggled to free my hand. Why indeed. Self-loathing is human nature.

When I first moved here, I dated a wannabe TV producer. With no discernable talents, Billy had floated around the TV world for several years but never made any money that I saw. Basically, this guy had convinced his parents to give him his inheritance early and lived in a swank three-bedroom apartment by himself. He had even connived his way into a parent-paid-for Chevy Tahoe.

“Yeah, this is really the right car for me.” He murmured, settling back into the leather.

Even in my star-struckness I remember thinking “but what did you do to earn it?”

I’d get home after a long day excited to tell him about a new work development. I’d ask him how his day was and he’d launch into, and I kid you not, a three-hour monologue about his day I came to call “The Billy Show.” Every single day. Never once in the three month course of our relationship did he ask about my day. And I kept dating him.

I ended up writing his treatments for him and prepping his meetings all the while wondering why he continually described his perfect woman in Jenny McCarthy terms. In case you’re wondering, I look nothing like Jenny McCarthy. He blithely informed me that he usually dated models but he liked me OK. And I kept dating him.

He went to a big TV conference and later told me he’d shared a hotel room there with an ex-girlfriend but nothing happened. But he might have been open to it if she’d been interested. And I kept dating him.

And my personal favorite: he ever-so-affectionately nick-named me “Chubby.” And I KEPT DATING HIM.

I kept dating him after he’d basically told me I wasn’t good enough for him, pretty enough, skinny enough, or interesting enough. The thing was I had been good enough when we met but I allowed myself to become a lesser woman. I had become so afraid of losing this prize of a man that I crept around his house like a skittish mouse.

“I can’t stand how passive you’ve become.” He moaned one afternoon.

And he was right. He wanted a strong woman. And where the heck had the strong woman I was when I met him gone? I was more concerned with fitting into the tiny space he left for me in his life than with being myself. The concept of keeping an eye on what I wanted while in a relationship was foreign to me.

One evening, I met a new guy at a friend’s birthday. He called me the next day and asked how my day was. Something clicked. I dug my strength out of the box in the attic and I dumped Billy on his arrogant ass. He was actually shocked.

“But I was just getting used to your body,” he whined.

“I’m not something to get used to,” I flared, “I’m something to cherish.”

Billy is a hilariously ridiculous chapter in my romantic past. But he’s also a painfully embarrassing lesson for me. I can’t believe I sold myself out like that. In the years I’ve lived here, I’ve come into my own and my tolerance for bullshit has plummeted. I recently kicked a new candidate to the curb when he couldn’t be bothered to open the door for me. You will treat me with respect and that’s all there is to it. Because I treat myself with respect. Finally. I would never date a Billy now. I don’t want my sad girlfriend to date anymore Billies either.

Last week I had dinner with good friends who are a married couple. His eyes lit up as he talked about seeing his wife for the first time and knowing he wanted her. I hand my friend another tissue and tell her he’s out there for both of us, that guy who will light up for us. But it’s up to us to stand up and be the kind of woman that would accept nothing less than a man like that.

“OK. But can we just sit today?” My friend blows her nose and settles back into the couch.

I pass her another chocolate chip cookie and we cookie-toast: no more dating broken boys, no more being weak women. If you toast along at home be sure to wipe the cookie crumbs off your screen.

Just Like You But Not You

You know your really good friends of the opposite sex? The ones you’ve had forever and from time to time someone in your single life asks “Why don’t you just date so-and-so? You guys are such good friends.” Sometimes you even ask that question yourself.

Hmmm, he is a great guy. One of the smartest I know. I always feel at ease with him. We laugh. I can ask or tell him anything. He’s always there for me. Why are we not dating?

There is a multitude of excuses, of course. Too much water under the bridge. Wouldn’t want to ruin the friendship. I know too much about him. He knows too much about me. At a certain point, you’re such good friends you can’t imagine kissing him.

Yet these are usually the friends that populate the realm of the Back-Up. These are the guys we think “If I’m 40 and still single…” With 40 a scant few years away for me, these back-ups have been cropping up in my mind more often.

My most important back-up I met during college. I was dating someone, he wasn’t. We were drawn to each other. We became Just Friends. Not too long after, I was single again and of course he was dating someone. The ensuing years progressed much like this. We were never single at the same time but there was always that “but maybe if we were…” hanging in the air. Just hanging there. God forbid we ever actually said it out loud.

For a while I was engaged. And then he finally did say it. It was like it was finally safe to speak it aloud since I was officially taken. I was furious with him. Of all the cowardly, selfish ways to tell someone you possibly loved them. And what if we had been meant to be and now couldn’t be? I refused to speak with him for a long time.

I’m single again and now he’s engaged. And now I get it. I actually found myself sitting down to write him the same thoughts he’d sent me when I got engaged; prattling on about how I’d always adored him as a friend and had thought someday....and didn’t he ever wonder if we'd have worked?

I didn’t send it. I couldn’t. First, we were in our twenties when he sent me his letter and I have to believe we’ve both matured. Second, I expect on some level the Universe has everything worked out.

For a moment I worried my friend would get taken away from me. Then I took a deep breath. Intellectually I know he’d never let that happen. I realized it wasn’t about “wait, what if?” It was about a fear of never finding someone to be a true front man rather than a back-up.

My friend and I weren’t meant to be together in a romantic sense. We were, I believe, meant to dear friends and yardsticks by which we both measure the integrity and wonderfulness of the romance candidates that come into our lives. That is a truly valuable thing to have as a human. A gift I have overlooked from time to time while pining or feeling sorry for myself that there’s this great guy I can’t have.

I have to believe that there is a great guy out there somewhere working his way to me. And he’ll be a lot like my friend. Only not him. And thank goodness.

Two Tracks Diverged in a Hollywood

My best friend is getting married. He’s a great guy. They too met on Match.com, two months to the day before the Former Mr. Wonderful and me. I was giddy that we were both on the same track. For several years we had coached each other through relationship failures and helped each other keep the faith that HE was out there. Now we got to share the parallel routes of our nascent relationships and help each other through the inevitable obstacles. But now my train has jumped the track and, stranded amid smoking debris, I watch her speed on toward that ultimate station: wedded bliss.

I am thrilled for her. I truly am. But we will never again be two single girls who get to commiserate about the Sisyphean task of finding a decent man in LA. As we fell into a silence over lunch last week I panicked I would become useless to her. She’ll be going through things I can’t relate to. But of course she’ll still have life to deal with. You need friends for that no matter what it looks like.

A few weeks back I’d posted about how thrilled I was to be on a new track pursuing my dreams of filmmaking. I talked about how even though I was living on crumbs, I was content with the knowledge I am on my intended path and loving the work I get to do every day. She told me she’d cried in frustration when she read that. Talented and smart, she is struggling to get a small business off the ground while she toils at a draining day job that pays well but leaves her empty and tired of being yelled at by one of those High-Maintenance Hollywood Executives.

I was stunned. Of course my intention in writing of my own work joy had never been anything but to inspire. My heart went out to her. And I didn’t have the courage to tell her I feel the same way when I read about her relationship bliss. “Where’s mine?” my heart laments. “What if I’m alone forever?” the familiar fear flutters at the back of my stomach. “What about the kids I want?” I try to quell the thirty-something single girl panic. “What if I put myself back out there and get hurt again?”

It’s fitting that she was the one who discovered Mr. Wonderful’s profile back on Match.com when I was sure we were in true love bliss. She was the one who had to sit me down and deal what she knew would be a devastating blow. She was the one that saved me from getting hurt worse by blithely continuing with a man who was not in love with me. I know in that way she’s been instrumental in moving me closer to that guy who will wholly love me. And I know eventually she’ll shake loose from her Exec and create a business that she loves.

Between the two of us, we have everything a girl could want. We are on a different sort of parallel tracks. She has the guy, I have the work. We are yin and yang to each other. I have to believe we’ll both have the whole package before too much longer. Meanwhile we can keep listening to each other’s divergent lives. I guess that’s what friends are for: balance.

The Guy Across the Street

“What’d you do today?” I was on the phone Sunday with my friend from Seattle. One of my oldest friends who knows I live to check things off my ever-bloated to-do list.

“Nothing,” I told him. “I took a day off.”

The truth of the matter was I was nursing a wicked hangover, a rare experience for me.

“How’s life in LaLa Land?”

I snuggled down into the couch blanket and told him about my night.

I’ve lived here in my hilly, starry neighborhood for three years now. I’m in the cheap seats; the rental apartments at the bottom of the hills. But my uphill neighbors, the home owners, tend to be, well, famous people. Or people in the working realm of famous people. Just this morning on our hike, my dog and I greeted an A list actress whose dog likes mine and a cult TV legend whose dogs don't. A rising-star late-night TV host glares at me regularly for being friends with his ex-wife. With a 'hood like this, I shouldn’t be surprised at who my neighbors are, what they do and who they know.

I’ve been building a friendship with an ebullient artist up the hill who happens to be our street’s resident party hostess. I was thrilled to accept her invite to a dinner party on Saturday night. I’d been at her gallery opening earlier in the week and she told me the guy across the street, her dear friend, was going to be there. I was in.

The Guy Across the Street was someone I’d been fascinated by since I moved in. He seemed reclusive and often home like me so I reasoned he was a writer or some such creative. I was charmed by his boyish Mediterranean good looks and the shy wave and smile I would get if he drove by me.

“Oh he’s an absolute doll,” my hostess gushed. I would have accepted her invite no matter what but the chance to finally meet The Guy Across the Street was the icing on the cake.

I recounted to my Seattle friend how I’d arrived at the party and been presented to the Guy Across the Street by an art dealer friend of mine as the most fascinating and inspiring woman she knows. Have to remember to pay her later! It turns out The Guy Across the Street is not a writer but a major record producer only stopping home for a week. He’s in the middle of recording one of my generation’s biggest rock star’s new album. Of course he is.

We were standing next to each other when dinner was announced so we sat next to each other at the table and ended up talking. And talking. Guests left the party. He fetched a choice bottle of bourbon the rock star had given him and we worked on that for a while. Still talking until the wee hours. Finally, the exhausted hostess and her husband kicked us out.

So we did what you do. We went Across the Street. It was momentarily surreal to be entering this house that I’d walked by a million times and wondered what the guy who lived inside was like. And now here I was. We sat in his studio listening to music rarities and talking until the bourbon was finished.

Even thusly inebriated, I knew it wouldn’t be the best idea to let things go too far. We were neighbors after all. People would talk. But he was really cute. And we clicked so well talking. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea. I mean I’ve certainly had worse ideas. My head was definitely up for staying, talking all night and letting him continue to rub my cold hands. However, as often happens in these situations, my body took over.

The bellyful of bourbon suddenly felt like an unwelcome guest. I tried deep breathing to settle it but no good. I considered going to his bathroom but the thought of him hearing me throw up what was probably hundreds of dollars worth of bourbon was unthinkable. I thought it would look pretty ungrateful at least.

“I gotta go.” I blurted.

He chivalrously drove me down the hill to my cheap-seat apartment and for a moment I flashed on Andie not wanting Blaine to drive her home in "Pretty In Pink." But that thought was quickly shoved out by my inner den mother pleading “For God’s sake, don’t yak in the expensive car.”

He stopped said car, I pecked him on the cheek, bolted for my own toilet and flushed the evening’s festivities away.

Thus I spent my Sunday recovering on the couch while he was preparing for the Grammys.

“Do you think that left a bad impression?” I asked my friend. “I mean, it was a cool night, right?”

“Such an LA night,” my Seattle friend said. “Here you might go to dinner and say ‘I sat next to a guy in flannel.’ You’re sitting next to record producers.”

“Cute record producers!” I felt compelled to amend. A specific, cute record producer who hopefully didn’t take it personally that his evening’s conversation companion suddenly bolted when things were going so pleasantly. I’ll know next time he drives by me if I get a shy wave or not.

Meanwhile, add it to my list of Hollywood Cinderella experiences. I love this town.

Casey and the Unicorn

We were snuggled together in a quiet corner. It was a stolen moment. One of those times that you’ll know you look back on and remember as one of those relationship turning points in your life.

“Do you love me?” I asked.

He looked at me for a long moment. His brown eyes boring into my green ones that I think were blue at the time.

“If you love me.”

He was the love of my life. And it was my first taste of conditional love. We were in second grade in the choo-choo train on the play ground.

Casey was an asthmatic and had lots of brown freckles. I recall that he tasted vaguely salty as I had once licked his arm and decided that’s what freckles tasted like. Salt.

Turns out, twenty five years later not much has changed in finding a viable relationship in Hollywood. I don’t go around licking boys’ arms. Or any parts of them for that matter. But they seem pretty salty here as a rule. And no one is willing to risk his heart until he knows it’s safe. Some not even then.

Meanwhile, my innate Pollyanna leads me to risk my heart continually. I’m a leap-before-I-look kind of girl and I always have been. The problem is that the ability to see the special, overlooked qualities in a sickly seven year old doesn’t really have the same cache when applied to a famous director or an upwardly mobile digital artist. The key, it seems, is in holding out for the guy who realizes that same specialness in me is something worth his while. Worth the risk.

Guys are spoiled and lazy here. They seem to think that because a majority of the population is botoxed and siliconed that they are somehow entitled to that Barbie perfection in every girl. On top of that, guys who wouldn’t get a second thought in Minnesota are head turners here even with their beer guts because they have industry power.

I could get pissed but really it’s just a stronger filter. The guys who will see through all that fluff and choose a strong woman who will cause them to become better men: those are the guys that are worth my time. Those are the guys that will make me a better woman. The whole point is growing together, isn’t it?

“I’m going to have to be a better man to be with you, aren’t I?” sighed the artist formerly known as Mr. Wonderful.

Yes, I told him, You will. Lucky you. Turns out he wasn’t up for the personal growth and the loss of that guy is both of ours. Instead, he’s back out there, looking for the easy fix. Looking for a tolerant woman who won't mind with his “quirks” (read: emotional baggage and unresolved issues.) While I’m stinging over the fact that he’s back out there so quickly as though we meant nothing, bless him, I hope he finds Her. Meanwhile, I’ll be over here cocooning for a while. Break my heart once, shame on you. Break it twice…clearly I have some growing of my own to do.

I think of Casey from time to time. How funny we must have looked to the yard duty; two seven-year olds holding hands and grinning. I wonder where he is now. Probably married. Hopefully happy. I like to imagine he’s found someone who he can grow with, someone with whom the love is not conditional. That, it seems, is the holy grail of relationships. The mythic creature. The unicorn that I have to believe I’ll find. Someday. Perhaps hiding in a choo choo train. Where does one find unicorns these days?