Introduction

“I’m going bold and selling out.” I immediately call Cyrene, my best friend and loyal confidante, to inform her of my brilliant plan. It wasn’t the first time I had come up with a brilliant plan in the middle of the night. Back when I still participated in drugs and alcohol, I was the kind of party girl who regularly called people at 1:00am to tell them how my latest epiphany would change the world. Or at least my life. I rarely left a party without a new best friend, a business plan and often a hastily scrawled contract I had drawn up over the last of the eight ball. I was a quick-talking, over-amped character in an eighties Tom Cruise movie. Hell, I was Tom Cruise. Wheeling and dealing and jumping on couches till the sun came up, always thinking that my fast plan might actually save me. And then I would fall asleep on some friend’s couch or in some stranger’s bed, and I would wake up the next evening and whatever great idea I had been so sure would fix my life, my finances, my world would be quickly replaced by my immediate need for pizza, a bong hit and more sleep.

But things had changed since that time, and I would like to think when I woke Cyrene up on that Sunday evening with my brilliant plan, she took me a little more seriously than I had once taken myself. It was simple really. I would go on 51 dates in 50 weeks and by the end of it I would have a book and a boyfriend. I had recently come to the earth shattering realization that my life sucked. And as I had done so many years before, I became convinced that my brilliant idea would offer me a way out. I thought that if I was willing to go bold and sell out, life would take care of the rest.

I knew it wasn’t an original idea. I’ve read enough books, seen enough movies, heard enough real life stories to know I wasn’t inventing the wheel here. Still, I expected some enthusiasm from the friend who I thought would be bowed over by my pesky determination. Cyrene (pronounced Serene) changed her name when she was fourteen from Rene to that of Grecian nymph known for hunting deer, wrestling lions, and bagging Apollo. We’re not generally the type of women to make it all about the guys, but then again, we’re still girls. I wait for the “That’s fucking awesome, Kristen!” or even the “Wow, you sure do have some pesky determination,” but all I get is silence. “Well?” I ask.

Cyrene clears her throat, “I don’t know. Do you really want a boyfriend that bad?” And it’s a good question. Do I really want a boyfriend that bad?

I’m Kristen and I’m an alcoholic. I say that once a day on average. But I am also much more than that. I am a young woman who has just turned thirty. I am a secretary with a fancy college degree and a fair amount of good sense. I am the daughter of an incarcerated drug smuggler and a loving and honest mother. I am the granddaughter of a woman who regularly insists that I will hate my husband in ten years so I should marry rich. I am the niece to two adoring uncles who never had children themselves (gay; Peter Pan). I am a Texan, a New Yorker, a transplanted Los Angeleno with a questioning belief in the great powers above and an awful sense that I still have more solo Saturday night trips to Trader Joe’s and Blockbuster in store for me. Because the one thing I am not, nor have I been in some years, is someone’s girlfriend. I did not come into the admission of alcoholism by any forced state. There was in fact no 5150, but the idea to go on 51 dates in 50 weeks might qualify me for such.

Before I got sober, I understood why the men didn’t want to stay. I was a mess. A fun mess, a hot mess as they say today, but the type of girl with whom you got together to have a great time, not the type you could count on to make it to brunch, let alone mother a child. And though it took me years to admit that to myself, when I got sober, I thought that all would change. I thought that men would see me as an excellent candidate to be their wife. I thought love would come easy. But it didn’t. And after years of being single, independent and relatively sane, I had begun to wonder how long I would have to wait for the right one to show. For any one to show. It had been five years since a man had told me he loved me. Three years since there was anyone close to what I would call a boyfriend. And a year and a half since I had even had sex. I had been on three dates in the last two years, and I knew that something had to change. Because it’s strange to be the girl with the charming personality, and the good looks, and the loving heart, who remains more single than any other friend on the block. After a while, it’s no longer strange, it just begins to hurt.

So I figured fuck it. I am 30 years old, single and a secretary, you might as well give me a cat and call me Cathy. And I can’t be Cathy. I just can’t. In fact, I absolutely refuse. At one point, I had big dreams for myself. I coulda been a contender-type dreams. Dreams which included a job where I wasn’t answering someone’s phone, where I dated a man who had found his way in life, where we moved into a house in the hills and fought over paint colors for the dining room. I didn’t get sober to watch myself shut down, stop waxing, and retire to overeating by myself in a studio apartment. That was not the plan. And so I decided I would come up with a new plan. I would give the middle finger to fate and the office of the interior which sends us our soul mates. I would go out and I would find him myself, thank you very much.

I would meet the successful partner, I would write myself the real career and maybe, one day, I would get myself that house in the hills, and the life for which I had always dreamed. But more than anything, more than a good job or a dashing boyfriend, I would get to be in love again. I would get to hold someone’s hand in the movie theater, I would get to put their name down as my emergency contact at the doctor’s office, I would get to slow dance and cook dinner and have someone pull me deep into their chest after sex and tell me that I am beautiful. I would get to feel that full-body tingle that is romance, and I really missed it.

Because as I lay there in bed at 1:00 in the morning, single, independent and relatively sane, I had very little faith that the universe was going to figure this one out for me. I had given it plenty of chances, I prayed and I meditated, and I did all the things we’re supposed to do in order to let go of loneliness and fear, and all I found was more loneliness and fear. They say that if you want to hear God laugh, tell him your plan. But I was fine with that, at least someone would be laughing. I wasn’t. Quite frankly, I was tired of holding up the façade that being thirty and single was so fucking great. Because though I had learned to go to the movies by myself, and take road trips alone, and sing loudly when no one was listening, I wanted something more. I need something more.

It’s just I am not quite sure what that more is, who that more is. It’s been so long since I had dated my type, I am not even sure what my type has become. Maybe I can’t find what I am looking for because I don’t even know what he looks like. So much is different in my life today, how could I possibly want the same things in a partner that I did four years ago? I don’t even really know what constitutes a date. But that’s what brilliant ideas are for – if we follow them, we might just find one hell of an adventure. Because I can’t help but feel that though I’ve changed, some things haven’t. That maybe who we are deep inside never changes, and isn’t that the part that loves so much, that hurts so much? Isn’t that the part that is leading this hunt? And maybe that’s it, I just don’t know yet.

So, my dear lovely Cyrene, I am going bold and selling out. I am going to date the fuck out of Los Angeles, and I am going to find love. I think my pesky determination will get me what I want this time. And let God laugh, it’s a brilliant plan, much better than the one he’s been offering these days. If I still drew up contracts, I would be ready to sign. Because at the end of the day, though I might always be an alcoholic, I’m gonna go get me a shot of being someone’s girl.

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