1
MEETTAYLORF.HE’Sthirty-two, from Orange County, and is a partner at a private equity firm. For his date tonight with Nikki B., he’s chosen a Michelin-star-rated yakitori restaurant.
It’s been ages since I’ve set foot on aLovedByset, but I can still hear the voice-over.
Stay tuned for the most predictable date ever.
I’ve started tracking how long into a date before the guy asks me a question.
My record is two-and-a-half hours, and the question that stopped the clock was, “Do you want to come back to my place?”
Taylor F. is ahead of the game in that regard, though only on a technicality. (As we sat down, he asked me if I was a vegetarian, but before I could answer, he said, “I hope not,” and started perusing the menu.)
If things get really bad, I sometimes turn it into a drinking game. The rules: Each time I ask a question and the guy doesn’t reciprocate, I take a drink. I always stop myself after two glasses, though,or else there’d be some dates where they’d have to scrape me off the ground and pour me into a wheelbarrow to make it home.
We’re four courses into the ten-course omakase, my second glass of wine is nearly empty, and I can feel the alcohol beginning to buzz through my blood. I’m about to reach for my glass again when Taylor asks, “So are you still looking for your Happily Ever After?”
There’s a mocking lilt in his voice, a sly grin. He’s obviously poking fun at me, making sure I know that he thinks my time on reality TV was silly.
He’s making a reference to the famous tagline. The one that gets repeated over and over in pop culture, fromSNLskits to group chats. Each contestant onLovedByhas a heavy, leather-bound book with their name on it displayed in the mansion’s library. As the lead, at the end of every episode, I’d select the book of the guy who was eliminated and say very seriously, “Our story is over.” Then I’d close the book and place it on a shelf before turning to the remaining guys and saying, “I’m still looking for my Happily Ever After.”
And back then, I actually believed those words.
I put the glass back on the table without taking a sip. Rules are rules after all—and hedidask a question. “Are you a fan?” I lean into the Georgia accent, letting my vowels turn sweet and sticky like pecan divinity.
“I don’t really watch reality TV,” Taylor F. says, adjusting the watch on his wrist. He brings his hand up to stroke his chin, and the move seems so practiced, I wonder if he’s trying to show it off.
Classic. He wants to have his cake and eat it, too—he went on this date only knowing who I evenambecause ofLovedBy, yet now that he’s got me here, he can act like he’s above it.
“Oh no? What do you usually watch?” I take a sip of wine. At this rate, I’m going to have to switch over to water for the rest of the date.
“Golf,” he answers simply, and I don’t know if he’s screwing with me. There’s a look in his eyes that makes me think he is.
My ex—the one fromLovedBy, the one who jilted me on national television—is a professional golfer. I fell hard for him and thought what we had was real. But for Aaron Brinkley (or “Aaron B.,” as he was known on the show), it was just a chance to bulk up his social media following and sign up more brand deals. The whole time I’d been falling in love, opening my heart, and letting him into my bed—he’d still been in a relationship with another woman from back home.
Even now, years later, I don’t know how much of what I felt for Aaron was real and how much of it was the product of a highly engineered, deeply stressful situation. But one thing’s for sure—the pain and embarrassment I felt in the aftermath weredefinitelyreal.
I might not be able to trust my instincts about love anymore, but my instinct that this guy is a douche seems to be proving more and more correct. On paper, the guy is everything I want: great pedigree, amazing career, phenomenal jawline.
Terriblepersonality.
I’ve been on nearly this same date a dozen times already this year. The guy changes (a start-up bro with dark curls and a Tesla, a private equity guy who played baseball at Northwestern, a real estate investor with a house in Lake Tahoe) and so does the restaurant (a steakhouse that only serves humanely raised beef, an Italian spot with hand-shaved truffles over semolina pasta, a French restaurant with full caviar service), but everything else stays the same. The same shallow questions, the same awkward goodbye, and ultimately, the same dull emptiness of going home alone.
And I give great date. I’ve always been pretty good at it, but afterLovedBy, my dating game has reached new and dizzying heights.I know when to laugh. When to lean in. When to reach across the table and rest my hand on their arm. I know what questions to ask to get them to open up to me. I know how to dangle the bait, set the hook, and reel them in. This one isn’t even a challenge. I’m bored, itching to scroll my feed or complain to my four-way group chat with my closest friends—Sybil, Emma, and Willow.
Even thedisappointmentof this date is predictable, like a fried pickle you just know will be soggy before you bite into it.
Which is why I discreetly pull my phone out of my bag and, holding it under the table, text Sybil—the only other one of the Core Four who lives in LA—our code word:manscape. It’s basically our version of an SOS: kind of a combination of “man” and “escape”… but it started when a date was so over-groomed, his spray tan was coming off onto his linen napkin.
Then I slip my phone back into my bag and remind myself that soon this date will be over. I’m even able to manage a smile, knowing I’ll never see Taylor F. and his ugly, ostentatious watch again.
Time to redirect. “Golf, huh? I’m actually more of a football girl,” I tell him.
He flashes a grin full of teeth. All perfectly white and perfectly straight. Definitely veneers. “Right, a good Southern girl.”
Iama good Southern girl. From a good Southern family. A Southern football family. My older brother was a center at Alabama, and I spent my entire high school career as a cheerleader on the sidelines before getting a cheer scholarship to USC.
I can sense it before he opens his mouth. The Test. The thing shitty guys always do when you mention you might like a sport. Challenging you to prove you’re arealfan.
