Tory, 36
What do you do?
I'm a Kitchen Coach.
Do you get a lot of action at your job?
No, I don't date clients.
But does cooking win a lot of points with men?
Oh yes, but it's a lucky guy who gets invited for dinner. Once they taste my food, they're smitten and I can do with them as I please.
So the way to a man's heart really is through his stomach?
I think food is the way to everyone's heart, but I prefer men.
You graduated from Vassar. Was Vassar a happening singles scene?
Yes, Vassar was a sexual playground. No judgment, no name calling. The only requirement was that it be consensual and respectful — but beyond that anything goes. Very sexually liberated.
Which major is the horniest?
Every major! Everyone at that age is horny; heck, I still am.
Where do you meet guys?
I get hit on in cafes and at parties. I also meet guys on the internet — everyone does now.
Who is your ideal guy?
A man who is self-aware, self-supporting, kind, compassionate, well-read, funny as hell, a good eater — and someone who will dance with me.
What's a good pick-up line?
"Hi, my name is ___ and I'd really like to meet you." Simple, nothing contrived.
How do you handle a break-up?
I think the most important thing is to accept you're going to be sad and miserable for a while and not fight it. There's more pain in the resistance. I try to let myself cry when I need to and not judge it. Also, I try to seek out what gives me comfort: quiet dinners with friends, birthday parties, good macaroni and cheese, and plenty of hiking and yoga. Miles Davis. The company of cheerful small children and animals. I spend a lot of time staring into fancy cups of coffee. I also avoid certain things: bridal showers, parties filled with happy couples and their cute babies, and the radio. Inevitably a song will break my heart again when I'm driving — that's no good. I also am not allowed to listen to Nick Drake post-break-up. Otherwise I'd want to jump off a bridge. Lastly, when I start feeling better, I try to ask myself what I can learn from the experience. That way nothing is wasted.
Chris, 41
What do you do?
I'm a comedy writer.
Does being a comedy writer get you a lot of dates?
It gets me so many dates that it's not even funny. No, never, but I've tried repeatedly and it still doesn't work.
What's the dating scene like here?
It's a lot of glitter, and despite what Robert Plant suggested in "Stairway to Heaven," it's not all gold. I don't mean there's a lack of substance, so much as an enormous focus on exterior vs. interior. Which I suppose would qualify as lack of substance.
What do you look for in a girl?
Honestly, I haven't found her yet so I don't really know. I've had repeated un-finding situations.
Do you want to have kids and get married?
Tonight? No.
In general?
Maybe if the situation presents itself, but not just because everyone else says I should.
Are you friends with your exes?
Yes, but I wouldn't go to their weddings.
Do you have any crazy exes, and if so, what happened?
I had a girl right after sex tell me the craziest people were the best in bed, and then she let my dog free. I found her, but it was a day and a half later, and my dog was pretty messed up.
So did you break up with her?
Yeah, we called it off. When you mess with people's pets, that's Bad News Bears.
Has anyone ever offended you in the bedroom?
No. She didn't let my dog go while we were fucking.
What's the unusual place you've had sex?
Tour bus.
Were others in it?
Yes.
Did you have to keep it quiet
You don't care in that moment. There's a difference between romantic and intimate and fucking some random person in Iowa.
What's the craziest thing you've done to get action?
Once I dressed up like a walrus. She was into it.
Isn't that called "furry sex" or something?
No, it was more cerebral: she liked the Beatles and I am the walrus.
Did you keep it on during the sex?
Yes, I kept it on.
Did you fall asleep in it?
No. It was very hot.
Megan, 27
What do you do for work?
I hustle. I do a lot.
How are the men in L.A.?
All men in L.A. are as dead inside as I am.
Oh. Are you really dead inside?
Yes.
So... how are the women in L.A.?
Even deader inside than I am. They lack awareness and self-respect, because their desire to please trumps their desire to please themselves.
Do you meditate?
No.
Then how'd you get so deep?
A lot of staring at walls, I guess.
What do you look for in a guy?
An ability to put up with your shit.
What sort of shit?
Uh, pathos and emotional weakness. An inability to communicate with another human being on a healthy level.
So how do you communicate?
I don't. I'm a stoic type. I'm like a crying Indian.
Do you have any crazy exes?
Yeah, but it was more about my lack of self-respect to let someone else's psychosis overwhelm mine and become one enormous hive-mind psychosis that ruins everyone.
What does that mean in English?
It means the ability to completely and utterly debase yourself in the interest of making someone else feel better.
Has anyone offended you in bed?
I've had sex that resulted in me being kicked out of an apartment.
Oh man, were you okay?
Well, I walked home and it only took two hours. Collectively, I mean, I'm twenty-seven, so there are many hours in the day and in life. So two hours really isn't that big of a deal.
Well, I guess that's a positive spin. What would you change about guys if you could?
I wouldn't change anything at all. People are people.
Do you want to get married?
Not again.
How long were you married?
Two years. Well, I guess I'm still technically married, but we're in the process of divorce.
What went wrong?
Green card. I should've just let him get deported, and now I have all this crushing guilt because now he can stay in this country and I facilitated that.
What would you do differently?
I would not meet a stranger from Australia on the internet and live with him in Australia and then come back to America. I'd already made a lot of bad decisions up to that point and I didn't want to admit that this was another one, so I just rode it until the train jackknifed.
Which internet site did you meet on?
We met on a message board for an obscure band. I cheated on a guy I met on Myspace with him. First and last time I would see myself doing that.
So would you tell people don't marry for a green card then?
It requires a lot of time and effort, and I would not recommend it. No, no, no. It's a regrettable situation.
You're still young; you have time to marry someone else.
Yeah, I have T-minus five months until my divorce is final. Then I can find an American husband.
Interviews and photography by Melinda Hill. Want to talk to strangers in your town? Email
Comments ( 36 )
"I'm so grossed out by guys hitting on girls only because they're pretty"? Really, well how many guys did you blow/fuck cause you found them to be "pretty" ?
isn't that how it's supposed to work??? I'm thinking she's just mad that she doesn't get hit on as much as she'd like to, so she goes on these righteous vents to make herself feel better.
I don't know, I read that more like, "I'm the one of my friends who gets hit on the most and I'd like my less-pretty friends to get to share the wealth / have reason to stop complaining about their sad love lives." I didn't see anything righteous about the way she said it.
Yes, I think she meant that guys don't go beyond a girl's looks, they don't give a chance to women that aren't as beautiful by general standards.
You might find this hard to believe, but I generally try to be as non-shallow as I can,and I judge more on personality than anything. I'm just pointing out obvious b.s and that's the type of chick who busts balls over nothing.
Megan is soooo so very pretty :).
Megan is also so very crazy.
But seriously, most of these people remind me of the kind of people I met all the time when I first moved out here. A little broken, a little crazy, mostly sad.
That's the feeling I walk away with 90% of the time I read these.
Assuming they're not fake, even doing the interview would require a sub-pathological but still significant level of narcissism so... notice how many people they interview are some kind of performer...
Megan's not crazy, though. The insanity spectrum has big bands of sanity and crazy interspersed with each other and she pretty much floundered through one of the crazy bands and came out the other side into a different continuum of sane.
Megan is going through a divorce, I bet that can get you over the edge, but it sounds like she now knows what she doesn't want in a relationship.
Megan is posturing this gimmick of zaniness. I can tell.
But wow, I love her now. She'd probably hate me though, which would only incite me.
Gnarly.
where are all the queers in L.A.?!
A guy who doesn't want to go downtown? What's up with that? It's my single most favorite sexual activity! And even if it weren't, I'd still happily do it because of how great the woman is making ME feel. How can a guy NOT want to go downtown? It's the least we can do for women.
right you are!
"He fucked all my neighbors too," Kerri reports. Selfish or not, he seems to have something going for him.
Joe, without a condom, could have offered to return the favor in the car (re: oral sex).
I doubt joe wanted to continue on...didn't you notice he was like...wtf is going on???
Almost no point in it if you can't catch the downtown express.....
I want Megan to be my snarky sidekick.
You guys could be the "Self-Satisfied Duo"
I have bit of girl-crush on Megan.
Well, a lot of these pics appear to have been taken in a comedy club or some other kind of performance venue, which would explain the high proportion of performers. Contrary to popular belief, not everyone out here is trying to make it in the entertainment business, but if you go to certain places, that's pretty much all you're going to find.
I agree with you. There is a world outside of Hollywood that most people don't know.
It's so unfortunate that Kerri and I have the exact same taste in men. Otherwise, she'd be my ideal best friend.
The comedy club scene is the weirdest and most neurotic in this city. Wait, I take it back, it is tied with the Magic Castle.
I love the poster behind Drew. It's like she's got a Chinese acrobat as her shoulder-angel.
I really liked this edition. All of the people seem genuinely interesting and introspective (and most of them are quite easy on the eyes to boot).
Going though some love drama myself at the moment, I think Tory's advice about staying away from the radio (and iPod) should be put into practice. I took a walk with my iPod last night to try to mellow out and clear my head, but ended up fighting back tears in public instead. Add Ingrid Michaelson and James Taylor to the Nick Drake list.
"A guy who doesn't like to go downtown." Honestly, the euphemism totally evaded me at first. I read it and thought, "What? He's, like, an agoraphobic?" I was married once to a woman who was an agoraphobic, and I guess it could be a "turn-off" at times. On top of the agoraphobia, she didn't like to go downtown either, by which I mean she was averse to practicing oral sex. (See, I'm getting a handle on this euphemism thing.) She was also OCD (also a "turn-off," but that's another story). By the way, the use of the euphemism here gave me fuzzy, nostalgic thoughts of junior high school. Thanks for that, because most of my memories of junior high school are anything but nostalgic. Anyways, my question here is this: I'm surrounded on a daily basis by literal-minded idiots--is it rubbing off? Have I totally lost my ability to think figuratively? Thanks for your time.
did he really say "gnarly?" Twice??!? Oh, gag me with a spoon...
Wow, Tory is my new hero! :) Creative and entrepreneurial to boot, not to mention level-headed and charming. You go, girl! Cheers
Kind of funny that Chris is supposed to be a writer but fails to comprehend a Led Zeppelin lyric that the average stoned 13-year-old can understand perfectly well.
I think it's funny that Joe's a comedian, and one of the first things the woman right after him said, was to never date comedians.
So, the denizens of L.A. are bats#!t crazy.
L.A. I wanted to move their for college and work. After being there for work and vacation I'd never want to settle down there. Almost everyone is out of touch with reality and shallow.
Joe is sexy.
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