Two weeks after selling all my furniture and another two weeks before I quit my job, I made eyes with a girl at a queer event in West Hollywood. She had long, wavy brown hair, with an intense look to match. We didn't speak until hours later. It was after midnight.
She had just moved from New York, she said. I didn't tell him, but I was moving there at the end of the summer. His gaze was no longer intense as we spoke. It was soft, cozy, curious. But I knew we would miss each other.
I told her it was a pleasure meeting her and quickly left the bar.
When we met on Tinder days later, it seemed almost inevitable.
“Hello!” she wrote. “Did we meet briefly on Hot Flash on Saturday or was it a dream? Do you have a twin?”
I watched closely as she appeared in the light. In her first photo, she was standing in one piece on a rock, smiling, as a waterfall crashed behind her. In another, he was on the beach wearing black sweatpants and his hair curled across his chest. Much of attraction exists in the realm of the ineffable, but if I were to articulate what attracted me to her, the answer might be the image of her smile. She embodied a beauty, a presence that I longed for; something he hadn't found in Los Angeles or had lost.
“I'm not sure if this is a line lol, but I'm going to say yes,” I responded. “Unfortunately, there are no twins.” We made a plan to meet up shortly after during Pride. We stayed off to the side at Roosterfish, the same bar where we met. He was wearing a ruffled white shirt and worn-out black pants and loafers. This time I didn't rush.
We continued our conversation over juice the next day, around the corner from the Pride parade at Butcher's Daughter. She told me almost offhand what brought her to Los Angeles: she identified more with the lifestyle here: it was more relaxed, more spacious and outdoors. And he had ended a long-term relationship in New York.
This didn't faze me. I met many people who traveled through the Los Angeles-New York pipeline in both directions. A romantic breakup or dissatisfaction was not an uncommon revelation. If I looked closely at my own reasons for wanting to leave Los Angeles, I was sure I would discover one, too.
By then I was already living at my parents' house, with all my books in storage and anticipating my summer of isolation in the Valley. I told him that days later I would be leaving my job and immediately heading to Vermont for a writing residency. And then my summer was, except for writing and looking for work, free and open. I didn't mention my anticipated move to New York. I wasn't trying to be misleading; I think he was trying to be protective. Once you say something, you've always said it. She wasn't sure what she wanted anymore.
“You're lovely,” he texted me that night.
The next few weeks passed quickly. I wrote on the East Coast, although I didn't feel the usual desire to stay and I wasn't sure why. When I got back to Los Angeles, I texted him.
We had a picnic at Barnsdall Art Park days after the 4th of July. Originally from Los Angeles, he had never been to the famous East Hollywood park with its clear-day view of the Griffith Observatory. She brought paints, and although I hadn't painted for at least a decade, I managed to paint on a card the fruit she had placed: two raspberries and three blueberries. We kissed at the end of the date, but my sunglasses hit his face and my hair got between our mouths. I pushed them both out of the way.
“This feels like a romantic comedy,” he said. I laughed. It was true.
He left the next day for Hawaii, where he had to stay for work until August. She sent me pictures of banyan trees, shared her plans to read my favorite book on the beach early in the morning, told me she was a hopeless romantic: that she believed in both the ray of connection and building, in not letting herself be torn apart by it.
I would read his text messages and reply from Barnsdall, with a book recommendation of his in tow, the painted berry notecard as a bookmark, or from the beach. I've never been much of a beach person, but I spent a lot of time on the sand that summer, from Santa Barbara and Malibu to Oceanside. I felt a closeness to her there, as if I could feel her too looking beyond the horizon.
Meanwhile, I received a job offer that, contrary to my intentions, would be in the Los Angeles office. If the offer had come two months earlier I wouldn't have even considered it. Now, he wasn't sure what to do. I was still interviewing for positions in New York, but I knew I wanted to be there when she returned. I accepted the offer. It would start after Labor Day. I would stay in Los Angeles
I could only admit the true reason to a select few.
In early August, back in town for just 48 hours, he sent me a list of date ideas: a comedy show, a concert at the Hollywood Bowl, cooking dinner at his house. In the end we opted for a cold bath and a sauna. I am very sensitive to (and avoid) extreme temperatures. The fact that I joined her for this activity surprised even me.
“You make me brave,” I told him. She blushed. I meant it.
My whole body shivered from the cold water and she helped me out after just 30 seconds. Meanwhile, she remained submerged for three minutes straight. Our kiss was longer that day, natural and intuitive. I had held his face in my hands.
The next time I saw her was the day before Labor Day. Now he had permanently returned from Hawaii. We went to a screening of “Before Sunrise” on the rooftop of the Montalbán Theater in Hollywood. She got us a refill of popcorn. She put on lip gloss halfway, took a mint, and offered me one too. He rested his hand on the space between us. At one point, leaning forward, he turned to look at me. I thought I knew what that look meant, but I was wrong.
“I think maybe I'm not ready to let someone in romantically yet,” she texted the next day.
The friendship felt fake. She said she understood.
And the next day, as planned, I started working. She, my reason for doing it, I now lost, until she wasn't anymore. I met her later that fall in Venice. He stopped at a red light with the top down. I was walking back from the beach.
I called her name from the sidewalk. She didn't listen to me. I called two more times. She looked up.
“I can't help but feel like you're somehow meant to be in my life,” he texted me the next morning.
And then we played Rummikub at a restaurant in Laurel Canyon. We sent voice notes while sitting in traffic. We exchange music, we share a playlist. He drove through a storm to meet me for a Shabbat dinner.
But he still couldn't open his heart, he said, and he couldn't ask me to wait.
I can't imagine a world where this is the end. This imagination arises less from a premonition of the future than from a feeling of how deeply it has shaped my present. Meeting her reconnected me with something essential within myself and this city I call home. How, even without her, I have remained.
The author is a writer from Los Angeles.
Los Angeles Affairs chronicles the search for romantic love in all its glorious expressions in the Los Angeles area, and we want to hear your true story. We paid $400 for a published essay. Email [email protected]. You can find shipping guidelines. here. You can find previous columns. here.
Editor's Note: Do you have any dating stories to tell about starting over? Share it on LA Affairs Live, our new competition show featuring real dating stories from people living in the greater Los Angeles area. Find audition details here.
