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“I felt exactly the same way,” I say, wiggling my body in the cobalt-blue evening dress Nikki selected for me.
“Not that I’d know from personal experience, but I can totally understand how it can be deflating. All those coffee dates or meeting for drinks without any guarantee you’ll find the right one. Melanie kept lamenting when she came back from her dates with these losers. I’d be on the phone for hours consoling her. It was heartbreaking.”
She has no idea.“Nikki, I can assure you, it’s not fun.”
“This is why it’s a win-win situation for you to let Kevin hook you up with one of the hunky guys he knows tonight,” Jess says.
“I’m not sure, Jess.” I hesitate.
“What other choices do you have?”
“I agree. LA is as tough of a market as New York for us single women,” Nikki starts. “I’ve never done online dating, but from Melanie’s experience and what I know about men, you want to be able to weed out the good ones from the bad ones as quickly as possible. It’s truly a jungle out there and you have to be armed. When you meet them in person, that’s totally doable. Online dating makes it easy—too easy—for people to create a false persona, which makes your job a whole lot harder because it might take you four or five dates to find out if the guy is bullshitting you or not.”
I step out wearing Nikki’s first selection. “What do you mean?” I ask, fascinated by her observation.
When I look around the boutique four pairs of eyes are focused on me. They’re all hugging their coffee cups and one by one they shake their heads in disapproval. I roll my eyes, turn on my heel and step right back inside the changing room.
“Try the short lacy bronze one,” Nikki instructs from the other side of the door. “It might look cuter. The first one looks way too matronly. You’re young and we need to showcase that,” she adds. “And, to answer your question, when it comes to finding the potential Mr. Right in a city overshadowed by Hollywood’s smoke-and-mirrors effect, men typically fall into four basic categories: the slut, also known as the manwhore; the porn-girl seeker; the daddy’s boy; and the Powerball.”
“Is that factual or did you just come up with that on your own?” I laugh before sliding on the dress. I struggle with the zipper and the second I have it all the way up, I stop breathing. This is at least two sizes too small.
“It’s a little bit of both.”
“After ten years in LA and most of those as a single woman, I have to agree with Nikki’s theory. Once you understand it, you’ll never look at men the same way ever again. The best part is you’ll save yourself a lot of time and a lot of unnecessary heartache.” Even as a stunning model and actress, Michelle has had a hard time dating in Los Angeles. Her comment has me even more intrigued now.
“Okay, I want to hear all about it, but first I’m coming out,” I announce, pushing the door open.
“Too tight,” Jess exclaims, shaking her head.
“God, no. I can see your underwear underneath that,” Ray says horrified.
“No way.” Nikki frowns. “At least we know now what doesn’t work. Try this one,” she says, handing me another design.
“Sequins?” I ask.
“It’s black.”
“Okay,” I say, a little worried, but I’m willing to give it a go. “Nikki, please don’t stop. I want to hear all about your theory on men.”
“Ah, yes. Let’s start from the top. The slut is easy to spot. He’s usually extremely handsome, very successful, very fit, very cocky and he knows every woman on the planet wants to fuck him. Granted, there are many advantages to sleeping with a slut because they’re usually freaky in bed. It’s not guaranteed he has what it takes to make you climax, because many are clueless when it comes to women’s bodies. It’s really all about them. Never about you. That said, since most are more flash than substance, they make for great arm candy.”
“That’s hilarious,” I cheer, zipping up the third dress.
“Miranda, I think that describes your Julian to a T,” Jess shouts.
“You’re right.”
“Then you have the porn-girl seeker,” Nikki continues. “There’s really no point in wasting too much time with him because this guy has spent way too many hours watching porn and thinks that women make all those ridiculous sounds in bed the second he touches them.”
“That reminds me of Thomas Decker,” Jess says.
“You mean the guy you were seeing just before meeting Kevin?”
“Remember how I told you he could never do it unless he had porn playing in the background?”
“Oh, yeah.” I laugh.
“Stay away from that type of guy at all costs because he’s a lost cause. When a guy thinks it takes that little work for us to climax, you know you’ll be sexually frustrated.”
