I Went on a Date with 90's Hugh Grant and I Get It Now

So I’ve lived in LA a year and a half now, close to. It hasn’t been the easiest transition from a city where I spent the bulk of my twenties and thirties, and although dating could seem challenging in San Francisco, at least I knew people. I didn’t know that many single people, and the ones I did know I usually didn’t want to date for one reason or another, but I could go out with different groups of friends and at least eyefuck (let’s be real, I’m more of an eye “secondbasing” kind of girl) someone at a bar or party.

Moving to LA, I had my pregnant sister and my partnered and toddler-mom best friend, who did valiantly go out with me and support me in my eye “under the shirt-ing” endeavors, even as she gamely sipped on bitters and tonic. Meeting people has been hard–I work with 100% women, and about 80% are married and live in the Valley, so I wasn’t going to meet anyone at work. I also wasn’t going to meet anyone at the gym, because as much as people say it’s a meat market, I absolutely talk to no one when I am there, except my buff and aloof instructors, who barely crack a smile at my humor attempts.

That being said, I have gone back to the apps that have never matched me with a relationship but have matched me to some great stories. I once took a tinder date to a wedding, because I actually wanted to ask this guy I had a crush on, but chickened out, and so I asked a guy I had gone on one tinder date with. He seemed nice enough, and he really was, and we had a great time at the wedding, until I drank too much and blacked out. If you ever bring me to a wedding–I am too small for four drinks. I may seem like I can handle four drinks as I am grinning ear to ear and dancing with my knees out, but four has always been the crest of the peak before the plummet down into the void. Five drinks and I am dead.

There are also not so great Tinder stories, like the time I went on one date with someone and then proceeded to send selfies of themselves the next day and messages on facebook, instagram, and text, all at the same time. There were early days of Tinder, like 2013 maybe, where I never even met the guy in real life but was sent a picture of his dick. There were guys I met on Tinder who became my friends, and guys I met on Tinder who I slept with and never talked to again. Here in LA, I thought I might be better suited to Hinge, but a male friend, the best of them, told me Tinder was the more relaxed option, and where he personally had had the most luck. Must be nice, Kyle.

Thus it came to be: a tired, tame, tepid screen with pictures of me appearing mildly attractive for people to spend an eighth of a second looking down at before flicking one way or the other with their finger, most likely on the toilet. That’s modern romance.

I needed something. I have an unrequited crush on one of the instructors at my gym, but sweating and swearing under my breath in front of them was not requiting my affections, so it would have to be Tinder. Sidenote: I did see him, the dreamboat instructor, on Tinder, but he did not match with me (I tell myself he probably deleted his profile before he had a chance to swipe on me). Tinder is everyone’s game, as I have always known and was quickly reminded of as I swiped through men with aviator sunglasses in front of cars and men holding fish and men holding guns and men holding other women awkwardly as if to prove that they have in fact touched one before.

So anyway, let’s fast forward to the Tinderoni that transpired recently: I met a British man on Tinder, and we matched, and we met last night for a drink. Ok, here is where I need you to try your best to imagine Romantic Comedy Charming Bumbling British Colloquialism-Spouting Lead Male–because that is what he was. I swear I was on a date with Hugh Grant from his pre-Notting Hill days.

SEE WHAT I MEAN???

He had the hair that was slightly disheveled, the blue eyes that stayed focused on me as he leaned into the table to mutter about “fuck-all” and “total rubbish” in LA, and he was wearing a white button down and a blue wool coat, like he was fucking in Dead Poet’s Society. His profile said he was 35 but this Hugh Grant/Dead Poet looked 27 or 28–did I mind? Nope! We talked and drank–I had two glasses of wine, which, as we know, is enough for me to be tipsy without presenting drunk, but he kept going after his two glasses. He kept sharing parts of his beers with me, and I maybe drank the equivalent of half a beer, with him drinking the other two and a half. It was not a complete surprise when he leaned in across the table and looked at me intently, as though he was studying me, like I was Sandra Bullock trying to dissuade an earnest, charming Daily Mail reporter from writing about my crooked CFO boss over drinks at a Chinatown speakeasy in that film that never got greenlit in 1997, and said “Do you know how actually beautiful you are?” HUGH GRANT ALL THE WAY. Shook me to my bones, even as I blushed and said, “Nooooo I’m nooooooooottttt.”

Drunk Hugh Grant was definitely a good time, and you know what? I get it. I can take or leave Hugh Grant on the screen as a leading man, but the Hugh Grant vibes are very convincing in real life. The kind of fast, conspiratorial, witty banter and talking really did some tricks on me. Is this person honestly 35 and a published poet who teaches Creative Writing? Who the fuck cares! Did I perhaps get reeled in by lines straight from a Rom Com that never made the light of day? Without a doubt. Was it worth feeling like I was in Love Actually for three hours? Absolutely.