Drinking and Dating: P.S. Social Media Is Ruining Romance Page 5

  It turned out I didn’t have to worry about it. He called again after lunch. #StalkMuch?

  “Hi,” I said, answering the phone with a knowing tone.

  “Hi,” he said back, his voice matching mine.

  I’m not one for beating around the bush, so I jumped right into it.

  “There are some pretty major omissions from your story last night.”

  I’ve always been blunt and honest. He’s an adult; I’m an adult. Unless it’s a form of foreplay, why waste our time tiptoeing around the actual conversation?

  “I figured you did some recon, which is why I’m calling again,” he replied. I could hear that he was no longer smiling when he spoke to me. “Look, there are two sides to every story. I really like you, so I just ask that you listen to mine.”

  I imagine this conversation wasn’t foreign to him. It’s common practice to google someone before you date him or her (as discussed in chapter 10), so he probably had this monologue memorized. Listen, this guy wasn’t stupid. He proceeded to tell me first that he was the scapegoat for a massive company-wide error but took it on the chin because ultimately he was the point guy. If someone was going to fall, it had to be him. Plus, he knew that if he ever wanted to work again, he’d have to do penance and have a few Silicon Valley bigwigs “owe” him afterward. He openly admitted that he got caught up in the drug scene but had been free of anything illegal for more than two years. (Who could fault the guy for being on Lexapro? I was on it after one night in Beverly Hills prison.) Finally, he said, the assault charges were dropped—as was the restraining order. His ex-girlfriend was apparently bat-shit crazy (I have yet to meet a guy who hasn’t referred to an ex as “crazy”), and he now had sole custody of their daughter because of this.

  “If a judge thought I was even the smallest threat to my daughter, would he have ever placed her in my care?” he asked me.

  I sat silent for a few moments taking this all in. It sounded plausible, right? I mean, who would put this much time into an elaborate lie just so he could get laid? Plus, I was supposed to be dating again . . . wasn’t I? Given the guys in Los Angeles, this wasn’t that much baggage. Or so I thought.

  “Look, I’m not saying we get married tomorrow. I’m just saying have dinner with me,” he pleaded sweetly, before adding: “I still want to go out with you even though I’m only 50 percent sure you won’t slash the tires of my car.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. Clearly, he had done his research too. I decided to take him at his word because he sounded incredibly sincere.

  “I’m headed up to San Jose tonight, but I’m hoping to be wheels up by four P.M. tomorrow,” he said. “If you decide to take a chance, I can come scoop you up on my way into town from Van Nuys.”

  Wheels up? I thought. The expression wasn’t lost on me. Plus, the only planes that land in or take off out of Van Nuys Airport are private ones, but I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of acknowledging this.

  “Fine,” I said. “I’ll go out with you, but I’ll meet you at the restaurant at eight. Could you please send your driver for me.” Sure, I was being bossy, but that’s what he got for pulling the “Van Nuys” card. If you’re going to throw around how much money you have to impress a woman, you can’t get pissed when she requests certain luxuries.

  I have a rule about always meeting on neutral territory for a first date. He was a criminal after all! Sure, I chose to believe his side of the story, but I wasn’t trying to tempt fate either.

  “Where should we go?” he asked.

  Ugh. This is my biggest pet peeve. Listen up, guys. If you’re going to ask someone out on a fucking date, take them on a fucking date. I understand that you may want to be sensitive to your date’s preferences, but I don’t find anything more unattractive than a guy who can’t make up his mind. Be a man. Take me on a date. Go on fucking Yelp if you need to, but don’t ask me for suggestions.

  He finally decided that we would go to Madeo—a fancy Italian restaurant that’s a West Hollywood institution. I’m a huge pasta lover, and it happened to be one of my favorite restaurants. Plus, I had known the maître d’ for years, so it made me feel a little safer just in case the Criminal was totally psycho.

  When I arrived at the restaurant, it actually took me a moment to recognize him. I guess I didn’t realize how tipsy I was when we met. Hmm, I thought. He wasn’t as attractive as I remembered—stupid fucking wine goggles. After a thirty-minute wait at the bar, we were shoved into a corner table in the “bistro” section of the restaurant (translation: no-man’s-land). I started questioning if he was really as powerful and important as he wanted me to believe. Besides all of that—and his incessant need to call me “baby” on our first date, my least favorite pet name of all time—the date went surprisingly . . . okay. He walked me to the town car that he had waiting and asked if he could see me again. “Sure,” I said. He went in for a kiss, but I turned my head in time and leaned in for a hug.

  A few days later, I invited the Criminal to my friend’s art show in downtown L.A. He was very vocal about being Mr. MoneyBags, so I figured he might want to invest in a few of her pieces. When the Criminal finally arrived, it was like someone let the Tasmanian Devil out of his cage. He buzzed around the room at warp speed in a really bad rainbow neck scarf that I fucking hated, trading business cards with anybody who would give him the time of day. Every so often, he would pop over to where I was standing with friends, give me an aggressive squeeze, and call me “baby” at least three times. My book agent—or as I lovingly call him, my gaygent—pulled the Criminal to the side and let him have it. “You’re cracked out of your head running around this room, and you’re a felon! Stay away from Brandi!” he shouted, then huffed off. What can I say? My gaygent may lack tact, but he loves me hard. Maybe it was time I started listening to him.

  When I went to check in with the Criminal, he seemed unfazed by his scolding and said, “There’s this party we have to go to after dinner. It’s going to be epic.” Before I could even answer, he went back to making rounds.

  “Am I imagining things, or is he on drugs?” I asked my friend Asher, who was standing with me.

  “Oh, he’s definitely coked up,” he said with a laugh. “That guy is hilarious.”

  I decided not to share with Asher that the Criminal had supposedly been “drug free” for two years. After the art show, I invited Asher along to dinner with the Criminal and me. There is safety in numbers.

  “Isn’t that a little awkward?” Asher asked. “Aren’t you supposed to be on a date?”

  “You are not fucking leaving me alone with him,” I spit at him through gritted teeth.

  For dinner, we decided to return to the scene of the crime: the Beverly Hills Hotel. The Criminal was bouncing from one conversation to the next, stopping every few minutes to greet someone else he knew in the restaurant.

  “You guys are coming to this party, right?” he asked Asher and me at least four times. I had avoided answering the question. Could this really be the same guy who I met here just a week earlier? Was I that drunk the first night? Or was he just that coked up now? He was acting like a psycho. After we finished eating—and downed a few cocktails—he invited two very attractive lesbians from the bar to sit with us.

  Was he fucking kidding me? We were supposed to be on a date.

  Sure, I brought Asher along, but that was purely for security reasons. He was actually hitting on these women right in front of me. I had zero doubt that he would have gone upstairs with all three of us that very minute if I gave him the impression that it was something I’d be into.

  So I told him as much, and he said, “Baby, you’re being crazy. I’m just giving them a hard time. Take it easy, baby.”

  The last time a man told me that I was being “crazy” for believing something I witnessed before my very eyes, I ended up in the middle of a tabloid cheating scandal. Fuck that, I thought. I excused myself to use the ladies’ room but heard him come into the bathroom a minute later
.

  “Baby, are you okay?” he asked.

  Oh my God, I thought. Did he seriously just walk into the women’s bathroom?

  “Yeah, dude,” I said. “I’m just using the bathroom.”

  “Okay,” he said, “but hurry up. We have to get to this party.”

  I texted my friend Asher from the stall and said we needed a fucking exit plan. Not only did I have zero interest in going to this party, if I had to hear about it one more fucking time I was going to lose it. When I returned to the table, Asher had already picked up the check. #TrueGentleman.

  “I think I’m gonna call it for tonight,” I told the Criminal, barely covering my annoyance.

  “You have to come! It’s supposed to be epic,” he said, and here came the point of no return: “It’s at Brendan Fraser’s condo.”

  There were so many things wrong with what he said. Perhaps I would have jumped all over the opportunity to go party with Encino Man if this were fucking 1995. In 2013, it’s just not fucking happening. Really? This was the party he had been going on and on about. To be fair, I’ve got nothing against Brendan Fraser, but the Criminal was talking about it like we just got invited to Clooney’s house on Lake fucking Como. But no, he was talking about some actor who probably actually lived in Encino at this point . . . in a rental. Like myself.

  The next morning, I woke up to a barrage of texts from the Criminal rattling on about the “epic” Brendan Fraser party. We didn’t see each other again after that night, and I stopped returning his texts.

  It’s funny that in the end it wasn’t his shady history that came between us, his poor parenting skills, or even the fact that he wasn’t as fabulous as he let on. It was Brendan Fraser.

  THE DIVORCÉ

  I immediately knew I liked him. He felt somehow safe.

  We hadn’t actually met yet, but we both knew of one another.

  He had two kids approximately the same age as my boys and, like me, recently went through a pretty turbulent divorce. We had about a dozen mutual friends, so his name was constantly popping up on my Facebook feed—and we were constantly responding to one another’s witty comments on photos and posts.

  This felt so much easier than meeting a strange guy at the Polo Lounge or in a grocery store parking lot. I had great friends, so if he was close with them too, it must mean he was a decent guy. He was really cute according to his profile photo, and I remember seeing his name once linked to a very high-profile actress a few years back.

  After a few weeks of the Facebook flirting, he finally sent me a message with his phone number. I remember thinking it was a pretty ballsy move coming from a guy I didn’t really know, but I liked it. So I shot him a simple text saying: “Now you have my number too.” I wasn’t going to actually call a complete stranger, but I was proud of myself for taking this first step. The old Brandi would have shut down all communication once it got “real,” but I was taking steps to open myself up again. He called me later that day and asked me out to dinner. I almost surprised myself when I immediately agreed.

  He was a handsome Jewish born-and-bred Los Angeles native with a biting sense of humor that I just adored. But I quickly learned that as a recently divorced man, he had plenty of oats left to sow. I considered cutting it off before it really even got going because a guy who has spent years sleeping with the same woman would undoubtedly have a wandering eye.

  No, Brandi, I thought. You’re going to see this one through.

  While my gut told me to run, I knew I had to give him a chance. It was all a part of this new journey, I told myself. We probably wouldn’t end up riding off into the sunset, but I needed to get my feet wet dating again (and, perhaps, not just my feet).

  After a few casual dates, the Divorcé invited me to Napa for the weekend. It seemed really soon for such a romantic wine country getaway, so I told him that it might be a little much for me. He suggested that he bring one of his single guy friends and I bring one of my single girlfriends, so it would take the pressure off. It would be more like a group trip, he explained. Clearly this guy was eager to get up my skirt, but I do love wine so how could I refuse? When my girlfriend and I arrived at Van Nuys Airport (like I said, I’m a total sucker for private planes), it immediately turned awkward. His single guy friend had brought a date for the weekend. My girlfriend shot me a look that could have pierced the skin. She was about to become the fifth wheel on this very uncomfortable weekend retreat. I promised her that we’d spend the weekend getting spa treatments and drinking great wine, because the Divorcé had an amazing hookup at this five-star resort. She finally agreed.

  Despite the initial awkwardness, the Divorcé and I had a great time in Napa. It was like an episode of The Bachelor: put us together on a magical island with no one else around (just a dozen cameras and 7 million pairs of eyes), no responsibilities, and no real consequences, and we were perfect. But in the real world, we just weren’t going to work. It felt wrong—and I could tell we were looking for different things out of our relationship (maybe it was because of the looks he kept shooting my girlfriend).

  He had a constant need to prove to me—and I’m sure himself—that despite his brutal divorce (which left him sharing custody of his young children), he was still hot shit. Sure, I’m perpetually young at heart, but I don’t think he wanted to accept that he was in his midforties, had a glaring bald spot, and a tendency to check out every other hot ass that entered the room. Down the road I would learn he also had an incredibly small penis. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t his lack of maturity; maybe it was just the penis. But in his defense, he did make up for it a little by being an amazing kisser and ultimately became a really great friend. It was just never going to be love.

  I have to say, I was proud of myself for giving him a chance. It didn’t work out, but guess what? I was totally fine with it. Maybe this was the kind of stepping-stone I needed. We stopped seeing each other shortly after Napa. A few months later, I ran into him and his new girlfriend at a mutual friend’s birthday party—and they were both totally into me. The Divorcé invited me to join them for an after-party at someone’s home in the Hollywood Hills. Did I look like I wanted to go to some party with a bunch of twenty-somethings? That hadn’t been my scene since before I got married, but he obviously was making up for lost time. For weeks after, they kept pursuing me for a threesome. Look, I’m all for some fun, sexy spontaneity, but only when I’m in the number one position. Playing the third wheel in their playtime was just not my idea of fun. I realized that while I wanted a man who had shown himself capable of commitment in the past, I needed to make sure he wasn’t now making up for lost time.

  • 4 •

  So I Fucked a Movie Star

  STAR-FUCKER (NOUN)

  Someone who sleeps with another person solely for the fact that he or she is in the public eye and is hoping to get some sort of notoriety (or pregnant) from it.

  Example: The nerdy, suddenly famous actor, who never got laid in high school, now had his choice of star-fuckers, otherwise known as “cocktail mattresses.”

  I hate the word celebrity. What does it really mean? Nothing. It’s just a label some blogger or tabloid plugs into a headline when photographers snap pictures of a boob falling out of your dress. Everything about it feels so self-indulgent—and I was a model. Since Housewives, I’ve occasionally been referred to as one, but I’m really just a reality personality (translation: a more sensationalized version of myself) with a severe case of foot-in-mouth syndrome. Meryl Streep, Madonna, Sean Penn—those are real celebrities.

  Just like most people, I find myself completely starstruck whenever I meet a legitimate movie star or rock legend. Living in Los Angeles, I’m never impressed by the “I’m an actor” line. Guess what? Every waiter and bartender in L.A. is an “actor.” It’s like, show me your IMDb and then get back to folding napkins, because your shift starts in five minutes. After twenty years in the city, I consider myself a tried-and-true Angeleno (it’s rare to meet an actual native). During my y
ears in LaLa Land, I have known my fair share of “famous” people and even had the pleasure of brunching on occasion with Hollywood legend Bruce Willis (#DieHard), but even so, I still have a hard time playing it cool when someone like Johnny Depp walks into a restaurant.

  When it comes to my dating life, I try to stay as far away from the “celebrity” pool as possible. It’s nothing but trouble. Trust me, I’ve been there and done that. But I was trying to keep an open mind—and it’s hard to avoid actors in L.A., especially the good-looking ones.

  I didn’t always have a “just say no to actors” policy. Only after I divorced one.

  Shortly after moving to West Hollywood, my stunning roommate Michelle and I were at the Whiskey Bar inside the Sunset Marquis Hotel. On any given night, it was a who’s who of Hollywood’s hottest actors, musicians, and socialites mixed with some movie execs, high-profile investors, and model-types. On one particular evening, I was introduced to an up-and-coming comedian (let’s call him Danny). I immediately recognized him from some bit movie parts here and there, but he wasn’t a household name . . . yet. He had the kind of face you remember—sharp features, thick dark hair, and a goofy grin. He bought me a drink, and we spent the next few hours talking and laughing. His particular brand of sarcasm and wit was sexy. I am a sucker for a guy with a great sense of humor, so even though I had about six inches of height on Danny, I found myself surprisingly and wildly attracted to him. Before leaving, he asked for my number and said he would love to have dinner some time.

  He called about a week later and asked if I wanted to come over to his place for dinner and a movie (clearly this was code for dinner and sex). His house was one of those bachelor pads set high in the Hollywood Hills overlooking the city lights. It was beautiful, but clearly decorated by someone other than himself (#ExGirlfriendAlert). We laughed so hard that night that my stomach was hurting and my jaw was sore (it sometimes ends up sore after a date, but not from giggling). There was a natural rhythm to our conversation that made us both feel comfortable with each other. It only turned awkward when I asked him why he still had photos of his ex-girlfriend (now a well-known actress) everywhere. He mumbled something and immediately changed the subject.