Drinking and Dating: P.S. Social Media Is Ruining Romance Read online

  By the time this book is released, I’ll have had another birthday . . . but for the sake of my own sanity, let’s keep the age talk to a minimum. (Kidding. I will obsess over it through this entire book.) But I do believe if you feel young and cute, you are young and cute. Case fucking closed.

  Being a former model means that I’m probably more critical of body changes than most people. I spent so much of my life being overscrutinized, analyzed under a microscope, picked apart, and criticized by some of the most ruthless agents, managers, and designers in the modeling business. “You’re not a face girl” was a common phrase I heard at casting auditions. #FuckYou. I used to be so hard on myself (and certain bloggers and gossip websites can be incredibly cruel), but now I try to accept where I am in my life and appreciate the silver linings when I can find them.

  Here are some reasons I try to be happy about the real “F” word:

  1. Sex is way better. As a grown woman, I know exactly what I want, and being satisfied has never “cum” so easy.

  2. Cameron Diaz, Christy Turlington, Heidi Klum, Kate Moss, Halle Berry, and Salma Hayek. All of these women are in their forties, and all of them are incredibly sexy. #GoodCompany.

  3. I no longer feel obligated to deal with other people’s garbage or feel shame about popping a Lexapro when needed. I’ve adopted the motto “Do what you gotta do to make it through.”

  4. If I’m in need of a little cosmetic enhancement, I can afford to fix it myself. And a little timely maintenance (#Fillers, #Botox, #Boobs) can go a long way in avoiding ever having to have a face-lift.

  5. If I work out hard enough and think positive, confident thoughts—my head and my ass can still be twenty-five. #YoungAtHeart.

  At long last, all the loose ends in my life were finally tying together into a perfectly imperfect pink bow. I was finally at peace with my divorce and happy with my career, my zip code, my body, and almost my age. I couldn’t possibly ask for anything more . . . could I?

  • 2 •

  Table for One

  SCORNED (ADJ.)

  A label placed on a woman who has suffered a particularly nasty breakup or divorce, and therefore, must be a bitter, broken bitch.

  Example: When her husband ran off with his twenty-something assistant, the now-single mother of three was referred to as a “scorned ex-wife” for relying on antidepressants and vocalizing her distrust in men.

  I want to scream every time I hear someone refer to me as a “scorned ex-wife.” It implies that I’m damaged goods or something—or worse, that it was somehow irrational for me to be absolutely furious that my marriage went up in a ball of fucking flames. He screwed half of Hollywood and I’m the one with this bullshit motherfucking label? I’m the crazy bitch because he couldn’t keep his dick in his pants to save his life—or, at the very least, his marriage?

  Looking back now, maybe for the first few years after our divorce I was scorned because after my world dissolved and my family was torn apart, I wanted to blame my ex-husband for every pill I ever popped. He was the reason I could single-handedly keep a BevMo! in business. I convinced myself that the heartache he caused me was the reason I sat in a Beverly Hills jail cell overnight after getting slapped with a charge of driving under the influence. At the time, I rationalized that it was because of his bad decisions that my landlord was hiking up our rent and the boys and I were forced to move yet again, but this time with only two weeks’ notice. Everything was his fault. I truly believed in my battered and beaten heart that it was because of him that I was a fucking mess. It was because of every lie he ever told me and every whore he ever fucked that I had zero credit, zero education, and zero identity. It was entirely his fault. . . .

  Or was it? I made the decision to go blindly into the fairy tale without anything to fall back on and no assurance of a life if, God forbid, our marriage didn’t work out. Could I really blame him because I made the decision to quit modeling and follow him around the world? Could I blame him that I wasn’t able to repay my parents for everything they did for me? Was he the reason that I tripped over my own stiletto and shattered the bones in my ankle and leg?

  Of course it wasn’t really his fault. I knew better, but in those dark, depressing moments it was easier to blame him than to let him go completely. Being angry with my ex-husband was just another excuse I used to keep fucking up. I could forgive all of my cringe-worthy missteps, because in some way I deserved to be a basket case. It was my rite of passage. It was like I was living tribute to Alanis Morissette’s angry chick rock: “I’m here to remind you / of the mess you left when you went away!”

  Having a person to hate and blame filled some void inside me when I felt so empty. My husband was gone, but I didn’t yet have anyone to replace him with, so I sank into the ground and wallowed. Clinging to stale anger created a place for him in my postmarried (some call it divorced) life. In some twisted way, having him be the object of my rage kept me connected to him. Meanwhile, my ex-husband transitioned, relatively smoothly, to a new, seemingly happy life. He jumped immediately into a serious, seemingly committed relationship with his mistress and went on his married fucking way. And I was alone.

  It took me 1,825 days to figure out that I was the reason I hadn’t moved on. I was the reason I hadn’t opened my life to someone new. I had done more damage to myself by simply reacting to his actions rather than moving on from them. But at the end of the day, I was still damaged. I had suffered the ultimate betrayal, and I navigated myself through it. The cold hard truth: I had become my own worst enemy.

  Let’s get serious. The only person I could hold really accountable for drinking so much that I stumbled out of a restaurant with the top of my pretty Alice + Olivia dress pulled down showing my boob and the bottom tucked up to reveal a black thong with my tampon string hanging out, was most definitely all me. Truthfully, I don’t regret that much of it—especially those mile-high, super-hot Lanvin heels that put me on crutches for over three months. I truly feel my broken leg was God’s way of telling me to slow the fuck down and get my shit together. My ex-husband should have stopped being my problem the moment I accepted that our marriage was over. After that, it was all on Brandi. Today, I only blame him for the things that are actually his fault, like losing our kids’ passports, giving the boys really terrible haircuts, lashing out at me when Mason comes home with a bad grade, forgetting to put money in Jakey’s hot lunch account at school; causing the boys’ growing cavity count, and generally blaming me for his own “insert pathetic country song title here” misery.

  On the outside—and to those friends and family around me—it looked like I had finally gotten my shit together. Despite the occasional nip slip, I had dusted myself off quite nicely. But I’ll let you in on a little secret: I fucking hate being alone. I think putting on a front was a way to help me get through the days and nights when I was so depressed and pathetically sad. I am, in fact, a hopeless romantic. I want someone to wake up with each morning, to take out the trash on garbage day, and to care deeply about me. I wanted my date on New Year’s Eve to be the same man who took me out on Valentine’s Day.

  The fact of the matter is that I actually wholeheartedly really love men. I just no longer trust any of them—not in any way, shape, or form. After all that happened in my marriage, how could I stop my mind from going down a dark, suspicious path whenever my boyfriend wanted a guys’ night out? I mean, the saying “Trust your gut” came from somewhere, right? Moving forward, will I actually consider going through a guy’s phone and reading his text messages? Nope, that’s just not me. I’m sure I’m better than that—at least I hope I am. But why is this idea even crossing my mind? After the first suspicion, should I just cut the cord and break it off before I have the chance to get hurt again? If I’m not officially with a man, he can’t actually cheat on me—because we haven’t placed a label on our relationship or discussed exclusivity. Welcome to my fucked-up mind, people.

  Let me give you an example of my crazy: I was dating th
is guy for a few months, and we were really hitting it off. He said and did all the right things (well, most of the time), but given my new “reality” living in the public eye, I couldn’t help but question his motives. One day, I casually asked him if he ever had any dreams of pursuing acting or being in the entertainment business. I noticed he had a professional head shot as his Facebook profile—anyone living in Los Angeles who has a professional picture of himself, whether it’s on social media or at home in a photo album, has at one time at least thought about pursuing some kind of career in the spotlight.

  He swore to me that he had zero interest in anything Hollywood related—but was all too eager when I asked him if he’d be interested in filming with me for the show, even though he wouldn’t be compensated and nothing was really in it for him besides being on television. (Side note: This has become a common occurrence in my life. More gay men than I care to count have asked me out because they’re hoping dating me would allow them access to all things Housewives . . . and Bravo. Maybe they were really after Andy?) Needless to say, I was mistrusting of his motives in our relationship so I did what any rational, suspicious gal would do: I found myself some insurance in case he did turn out to be a fame whore. #ParanoiaSelfDestroya.

  If you’re newly dating someone, the best way to find out more about this person is to raid his motherfucking medicine cabinet (trust me on this). It’s where people keep all their secrets, so you’ll learn more about him in thirty seconds than you probably could in thirty dates. May I suggest staying in bed one morning after he has left for work. The line “You wore me out so good, I need more sleep” works every time. Once you’re alone, do a little bit of snooping. I’m not talking about hacking into a person’s e-mail, researching his Internet history, or anything crazy; I’m talking about the shit that actually might have an effect on you since you’re sleeping with that person (case in point: the medicine cabinet). If he is taking medication for a particular disease, virus, or disorder, you damn sure have the right to know about it!

  That’s exactly what I did. I grabbed my phone, snapped pictures of every prescription bottle, making sure to get the part of the label with his name and address on it, and sent them to my e-mail. I’m familiar with the name of most medications, but some of these generic names were throwing me for a loop. I sent the photos to myself so that I could google them later when I got home. Listen, if this guy was putting his business all up in my business, then I had every right to know what kind of meds he was on. Plus, it was some ass-backward form of protection in case he ever tried to fuck me over. Blackmail is totally normal, right? #RealityTVTaughtMeWell.

  Just because I don’t want to get married again doesn’t mean I don’t want a life partner. What I’ve realized is really quite simple: I have to learn to trust again—no matter how impossible that may seem—because if I don’t, I may never find true happiness in love again. Having my heart crushed was beyond devastating. My divorce didn’t just rock my life; it shook everybody who was a part of it—my parents, siblings, in-laws, friends, and, most tragically, my children. I wasn’t sure if I could ever survive that again—I barely got out of that one alive—so I was terrified to take that risk again. But I was going to have to try.

  So, after one particular breakup, I remember asking myself what went wrong. This guy and I only dated a few short weeks, and he had so much going for him. He was intelligent, attractive, financially and emotionally stable, and so on, but I pushed him away before things could get too serious. It was my self-protection kicking in. We had good chemistry and it probably could have developed into something deeper, but when I learned that his job required him to spend a few weeks a quarter on the East Coast, I called it off. I immediately began imagining how I would feel during those weeks he was gone. What if he decided to start dating a girl in New York too? (Or worse, what if he already had a girl there and I was just his West Coast girlfriend?) How would I react if I found that out? The what-ifs started building that cage around me, and I started to panic.

  My paranoia was getting the best of me and I began spiraling into crazy girlfriend mode, and that’s never hot to a man. So I did what any fucking coward would do. I called him a few days before he left and let him down softly, sweetly, and, most importantly, first. He couldn’t crush my heart if I was the one to break things off. I told him that it would be for the best if we didn’t see each other anymore. We were supposed to meet for dinner that night and he was wondering if we could talk about it in person.

  “I don’t think so,” I said, almost doubting the words the moment they crossed my lips, but I knew I had to be resolute in my decision.

  He was confused but accepted it. What else could he do? Part of me was satisfied that I hurt him before he could hurt me. But part of me was hurting anyway, because I didn’t want to break up with him. I just didn’t think I had any other choice.

  I spent that evening at home alone with a glass of Whispering Angel and turned to Google for support. That’s what people do nowadays, right? There were countless websites and blog posts dedicated to “How Can I Trust Again?” Most of it was psychobabble nonsense—the kind of shit your mom told you after a high school heartbreak that sounded right but never actually worked. The search mostly produced numbered lists that included things like “Spend time nurturing yourself,” “You’re only the victim if you allow yourself to be,” and “Your past is not your future.” Blah blah blah. It was all garbage. #Trash. My past was affecting every little aspect of my future. It turns out the Internet can be your worst enemy—especially when you spend most of your time googling medical conditions, surviving cheating, or reviewing the Twitter feed of some cunt-ry music singer who likes to post countless pictures of your children. #Stillbugs.

  At the end, the answer was simple: there was no answer. Ultimately, if I truly wanted to trust someone again, I would just have to try and hope the person I wanted to take that giant leap for was worth the risk and worthy of my heart.

  Once I had that epiphany, so to speak, I realized that I needed to hop back on the dating horse or bicycle, whichever is safer. Before I could ever consider trusting someone else with my heart, I had to get a better idea of what I wanted in a partner at this stage in my life. When I was twenty-three years old, my ex-husband was my dream man, and having someone give me butterflies was my only criteria other than tall, dark, and handsome. Okay, to be honest, he was basically everyone’s dream man. I lived in blissful ignorance for thirteen wonderful years (not realizing he was having more affairs than Tiger Woods with only a fraction of the net worth), and then it went up in a ball of flames. I learned that for every middle-aged wife with nothing on her face but a scowl (a little mascara can go a long way, ladies), there’s some random twenty-two-year-old cocktail waitress grinning ear to ear through her cheap red lipstick who is all too happy to stroke your husband’s ego all day long. She’s also most likely willing to stroke something else all night long. Listen, I know that not every devastatingly handsome man turns out to be a total douche bag—and even the ugly ones can be chronic cheaters.

  I started by making a list of what my ideal partner should be:

  1. Roughly five to eight years older than me, so I could avoid an Ashton/Demi-esque saga if it didn’t end up working out.

  2. Either divorced or formerly in at least one long-term, committed relationship (five years or more). Forty- and fifty-year-old men who have never been in a serious relationship scare the hell out of me. They should scare the hell out of you too. Those guys are completely desensitized and are perpetually searching for a “unicorn” but never want to settle (see chapter 11).

  3. Successful in his career. I had already experienced enough men trying to use my position in the public eye to bolster their own image, so I want someone who is already established.

  4. A parent, an animal lover, or, at the very least, a responsible plant owner. This one is important because it shows a man’s ability and willingness to give to someone other than himself. Plus my boys and
my puppies are the center of my world—even my demon dog, Buddy.

  5. Someone who gives me butterflies. We should never settle for good enough, just because it’s easier and more comfortable than being alone. I deserve to be swept off my feet. I want someone who inspires me to be a better version of myself. Who knows if that guy is really out there, but I’m going to keep on looking for my perfect man.

  So now that I knew what kind of man I wanted, I needed to figure out how to fucking find him—or, more importantly, if he even existed. When it comes to dating, I realized that I am, shockingly, a traditionalist. Online dating has never been something that’s interested me—and let’s not ignore the giant elephant in the room: once you become a public personality, it’s sort of hard to weed out the good guys from the fame-hungry manwhores. You can also forget about Tinder (which is a smart phone “hookup” app; the hetero equivalent of Grinder). So what the fuck am I supposed to do? Date some perfect stranger who I met at the gym and who spent an hour flexing his biceps in a floor-to-ceiling mirror? I think not.

  The last time I was a single girl out on this town, it was 1995. I was twenty-three years old, and the idea of settling down was light-years away (or so I thought). Back then, finding a date for Saturday night was never difficult: my girlfriend and I would throw on the tiniest outfits we could find and strut over to our nightly haunt, the Sunset Marquis. We’d plant ourselves inside the tiny bar, cozy up to the bartender, and wait to see who would arrive that evening. We were a part of West Hollywood’s “model posse,” so naturally the boys gravitated our way. Most of the patrons were studio bigwigs or rock stars who always had a running bar tab, so we never bought our own drinks. #ThoseWereTheDays. These days, I am no longer just searching for some hot Hollywood hookup, so that’s no longer my scene. (Trust me, I’ve had my fair share. Read about them in chapter 4.)