dating has taken a toll on me. it’s too much. the scheduling, the flirting, the talking, the drinking, the masked questions that people ask each other on dates that are really just about money, sex and power. sometimes i wonder if i dolled myself up and sat there, tilting my head this way and that and said the opposite of everything meaningful (which is what i try to say), would he still pay for dinner and try come up at the end of the night?

i meet the kid at a restaurant in west hollywood. i just wanted to show up. he is a year younger than me. and for this fact alone i would have never consented to the date but he was extremely intelligent with fine aesthetic sensibilities, read books, understood art and was 6’2 with blue eyes. the place was beautiful, with a melancholy courtyard, and a vibe of pretension and taste. we sat on a private veranda as aspiring models climbed marble steps to deliver trays of grilled octopus and whiskey cocktails.

he was dressed perfectly, in a textured short sleeve button up and slimming gray khakis, worn dress shoes and broad shoulders. as he spoke about directing, he kept undoing his legs, ankle to knee and then the other. his hand drumming along the length of his calf. i couldn’t figure out how he was bankrolling the date but i kinda didn’t care. we got drunk. then we went around to a bunch of bars till 4 am, with never a lull in the conversation, have you read this? have you seen this? and finally ended up at canters where we spoke about jesus. he fumbled gently when he kissed me. i got lost on my way home.

fourth date with the korean dude. who is actually the only korean dude in the sea of white guys. though he is perfectly attentive when we are together, running in the background is an intelligence that is weighing, thinking and carefully, calibrating his options. a kind of cold calculation that fuels the effort to present himself well, as good, as worthy. check. as for me, i’m always more drawn to what is being hidden. what is attraction but the act of breaking down sophistry to its smallest, edible parts?

strange, how a certain appetite returns after years of dating white boys from the midwest incarnated as creatives and bankers in new york. maybe it’s the air in los angeles, a nostalgia for my youth, the fact that i live in koreatown now. perhaps, it’s just a korean thing. do koreans want to fuck other koreans because we are vain? when he walked in through the restaurant doors and spotted me in the back, standing, patient, there was a look in his face that i hadn’t matched in years. like when i was 25 and living in chicago, and my doctor (a korean man in his 30s), stepped into the exam room and saw me for the first time and his face froze and the air, for a moment, was electric with recognition.