Los Angeles Men

It’s hard to meet new people anywhere, but Los Angeles is a city where your car is a second home. Going out takes planning, taxis are hard to find, public transportation is a joke and drunk driving is common. Dating someone who lives 10 miles away means driving at least forty minutes, add in traffic, it could take more than an hour.

Finding a guy in LA who likes you just the way you are is like going to Cabo to ski. It’s fucking impossible!!! There are exceptions, but they seem to always have more baggage than any metrosexual hipster struggling actor who doesn’t realize he is not famous.

The exceptions:

1.) Divorced with kids – They will commit, but they have major baggage. Kids, an ex-wife, they usually live in the suburbs to be closer to their kid(s). Most of their free time if not all revolves around the kid(s). How well does he get along with the ex? Why did they break up?

2.) Never married, no kids, 35 or older (for some reason they usually live in Santa Monica and in the same apartment since college) – They are very nice and polite, usually a bit boring, but they have major commitment issues. Their longest relationship is usually less than 2 years or more than 4 years. Run away immediately! Don’t believe the line “I just haven’t met the one.” He probably did meet her, they are still friends, he still loves her and he regrets not proposing to her because he hasn’t met someone like her since (including you).

3.)Paper Perfect – He’s not bad looking, great chemistry, is financially stable, has a house, no kids, but you aren’t attracted to him and just want to be friends. He’s totally into you and therefore you can’t be friends. 

Other basics:

If he seems to good to be true, he will break your heart.

Trust your first impression.

If you go dutch before monogamy, he’s either poor, cheap or an asshole. Sometimes all three.

I have a better chance of winning the lotto than finding a good man.

Wish me luck.

An Aussie Named Tommy Lee

Two weeks before Christmas, Summer and I were once again at Bar Marmont. Summer had struck up a conversation with Tommy Lee, a 29 year old, musician visiting from Australia who we thought was gay. He was the perfect distraction from her recent breakup. They spent much of the night dissecting text messages from Summer’s latest ex.

At 2am, after many drinks, Summer and Tommy Lee started making out at the bar which lead to a happy ending in the ladies bathroom.  Turned out he wasn’t gay.

Being the designated driver for the night, I offered to drop Tommy Lee off at his hotel on Rodeo Drive. It should have been a fifteen drive, but thanks to Summer’s advice to just go straight we ended up in San Pedro at 4am. By sunrise we were in Beverly Hills.

Halloween in December

Another night at Bar Marmont. Another story.

At midnight, a tall, handsome gentleman walked into the bar in a marine uniform. Women were buying him drinks, clamoring for his attention. He ended up standing next to me. I thought it was my lucky night. Half an hour later, I had learned he was 40 and worked for a secret department of the government. He had just been transferred to California for a new case. I sensed something wasn’t right about his story, but when he asked me to the Marine Corp Ball with him the following night, I jumped at the chance. The next morning, he called to say he was sorry, but he had to fly back to Washington D.C. immediately due to a government emergency.

After a google search, it turned out that he wasn’t a marine or working for the government at all. He was a lawyer living in Virginia with a wife and kids.

Days later he contacted me again. “I didn’t realize Halloween was in December,” I said. "I never said I was single," he said. 

Date #2, Fail

Bar Marmont

LA is a city where anything is possible if you look and act the part. This is a city of models, actors and agents, after all. You never know who you might be talking to.

My first night in LA, my bff Summer (you might remember her from the Love Bites blog. She’s back in LA now) took me out to Bar Marmont which is a short walk from the infamous Chateau Marmont on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood. The mantra of Bar Marmont is “I am young, I am cool and damn it, people want to be me!” which is a pretty spot on description of the place. On the weekends you never know who you might see or meet.  

Every time I go here I always end up with hilarious stories, but never a second date. That night was no exception. At 1am, I started a conversation with a divorced, 42 year old, good-looking guy who had a teenager daughter. 

Why is it that men will tell you almost all of their baggage in five minutes if you are seating next to them at a bar, but on a proper date or during daytime hours they reveal nothing? Perhaps because they think they have a chance at getting lucky.

And why do women think that their honesty deserves a reward? Lonely and drunk at 1am perhaps.

Turned out the guy was a helicopter stunt man who worked on a bunch of Tom Cruise movies.  We exchanged numbers and a few nights late I went to a poker party he was hosting at a friend’s house in the valley. I should have known better when he told me it was 420 friendly. Turned out it was all drug friendly. I’m not any drug friendly.

In between bartending, setting up lines of cocaine on the kitchen counter and keeping an eye on the surveillance cameras recording activity around the house, because the poker party was totally illegal, he told me he was a drug dealer at night. Just in case I hadn’t figured that out already. Needless to say I left after an hour and never heard from him again.

Date #1, Fail

Dating Blows

For those of you who stumbled upon this site after a google search for something related or unrelated to this page, welcome. If you are a follower of Love Bites (http://summerpeterson.blogspot.com) welcome as well. This blog was created because dating in Los Angeles is like an urban myth. The men here are all characters; some good, some bad and some so terrible that I'm seriously considering never dating again.

I hadn’t completely given up on love yet, so six months ago after breaking up with my fiancé (it would take a lifetime to explain why, so I won’t), I followed my heart and moved across the country to Los Angeles, the place where dreams come true and love is in the air, or so I thought. A few stories about our relationship were documented over the years on the Love Bites blog. We were on and off for eight years which like most relationships ended quite horribly. Like Taylor Swift and any one of her exes we too are never ever getting back together.

Turns out happily ever after stories were created by writers who tend to find love in the form of alcohol, drugs, caffeine or sugar.  So here I am living in the Hollywood Hills thinking that if Lauren Conrad can find love here so can I. Turns out reality television is less truthful and less hopeful than Days of our Lives.