Them Fellas

I'm kind of excited for Thursday. Lemme take a ridiculously windy way to tell you why.

I think I've got to do some reprogramming when it comes to the menfolk.

Upon reflection and regular conversations with my roommates on the subject, I've only found myself instantly attracted to a handful of men, like 5. Like, couldn't speak kind of attracted. Five. Over the course of my entire life.

I've become attracted to the guys I've dated over the years but very few of them have just punched me in the face with their pheromones and swagger.

I have a few explanations for this:

1) I really don't consider guys that aren't LDS. I've been taught to scan the room for possibilities and only Temple-bound fellas would qualify.

2) Most LDS men are not what I would consider attractive. They are many other wonderful things; kind, smart, funny, attentive, personable, convicted - but, sadly, at least in my immediate demographic are all a bit on the goofy side of cute.

3) I grew up in a very LAish part of LA. There are A LOT of good looking people here. It's a modeling/acting/singing hot spot. That demographic ran off into a lot of the coffee shops, comedy clubs, music halls, pool games and boutique shops in which I spent most of my high school weekends.

4) Growing up with and in my family.

I like to talk about my family a lot. They're fairly amazing to me. It's a constant source of wonder to me that I might be a part of the group that most of them occupy.

They are all excellent, bright, kind, hilarious, and extremely good looking people. They regularly blow me away with their levels of insight and their ability to stop foot traffic with an eyelash flick. This is male and female inclusive.

I say this as someone who has truly struggled to feel part of this group my whole life and thereby absent of any self aggrandizement. It's just fact. If you don't believe me, I'll make introductions and you can see for yourself.

Growing up thus, I think has spoiled me in a lot of ways. I'm used to lively and intelligent conversation on a regular basis with people who are fundamentally kind and the best looking person in the room. This is my norm. Sounds amazing but outside the walls of any given family reunion it's grounds for heaping portions of letdown. Especially in the dating world.

I dove in to the dating world at 18 and found some lovely prospects. One of the previously mentioned Big 5 was a Harvey Mudd student we'll call Adam. He was a 6' 4" black belt, rock climbing paragon from Las Vegas that blew me away, dated me for a while, but ended up having never broken up with his girlfriend who was attending BYU at the time (there are SO many reasons why I don't care for that place) and he bitterly broke my heart with his cheating self. But I was 18. That's what happens when you're 18 and you think nothing can hurt you.

The next one of the 5 was an Adonis from Morocco that I knocked across when I was serving my mission in Washington DC when I was 21. I had heard Elders tell stories of knocking across beautiful women and having to pick their jaws up off the floor but these were silly sexually repressed LDS boys. I had fairly low expectations of them. Until I met Sahim. I still remember every awkward foot shuffle and crack of paint on that doorway. We were knocking a few apartment buildings in the interior of Alexandria and a lot of the Latino community I was called to teach lived in tandem with the immigrant Muslim community. So, in turn, I spent a lot of time with them and REALLY learned to love and respect them along with my darling Latinos. That day, from the smell of curry in the hallways and not of maize, we gathered we wouldn't find many Latinos but we knocked up the apartment building anyway. Then, this one door was opened by another 6' 4" (that's a favorite height of mine) caramel skinned, emerald eyed, 25 year old Apollo in training with a jaw bone you could use for a straight edge and cheekbones that could cut paper. He. Was. Amazing. He smelled like fabric softener and baby lotion. He was beautiful but what was the most impressive was how soft his eyes were and how sincere his smile was. He reeked of sincerity and genuine kindness and I was a puddle with a name tag and clunky shoes.

I had only been in the field a few weeks but my eyes popped and I think I said "Hi. We're missionaries from the Church of Cheese and Rice and Rattle May Snakes" and then just dropped off. My companion was unaffected for some reason and very entertained by this awkward and potentially humiliating situation for me (She didn't like me too much.). Under normal circumstances a companion would scrape her companion off the floor and diplomatically take over the conversation until her companion could compose herself, but my companion just kind of let me writhe. He introduced himself as Muslim and likewise was kind, hospitable, and very grateful for our visit, like 99.99% of the Muslim community always was. He invited us in even though his father wasn't at home. He got us something cool to drink. I think that I can definitively say that the people who let us in and gave us something warm on cold days and cool on hot days were almost always Muslim. Did I mention I really loved those people? Because I do.

We chatted for a modest amount of time and I attempted to be cogent and on topic but am still not aware how successful I was. Then his dad came home. At that point I wasn't sure there was a more beautiful man on the planet but his dad looked like Sean Connery's better-looking younger brother. I wouldn't have thought that it was possible but you didn't get to meet this family. I do not know what they put in the water in Morocco but it WORKS. My companion started getting a little rosy-cheeked around his dad, which I found quite weird, so at that point we went home. But My. Word. Yay Morocco.

I didn't meet another one of the 5 until I had been home for a few years. I was 26 and a very good friend of mine had recently taken the post as head Pastry Chef at the Westwood "W" hotel. She met a good amount of the aforementioned Beautiful LA People there because they were holding down jobs as valets and servers etc in the hotel while they were working on their acting/modeling/music career. One of these blokes was a guy named Joe. Joe has a band called Lady Sinatra. He's that lead singer-type guy. He kind of looks like a rogue vampire from "Angel" but he's really this incredibly tender vegan that rescues kittens and has an Eagle Scout. Because Joe is about 6' 8" he also moonlights as a bouncer for the Viper Room, this slightly well known music club on the Sunset Strip. So, naturally Joe's band plays the Viper Room a lot. My friend and I ended up on the list for a lot of these shows pretty frequently and one time one of Joe and my friend's mutual friends decided to drop by the gig.

We'll call him Byron.

Yes, Byron.

And he was perfect. It is very difficult for me to be interested in a guy without having a conversation first but Byron did not need any prerequisites. I noticed him when he first came in because one he was very tall. Most male LAites are in 6' to 6' 3" region. I'm pretty sure Byron stood somewhere in the 6' 6" realm, so naturally he stood out. He stood out in every way. The Viper Room is one of these places to be seen so the crowd can be a bit presumptuous and overdressed. Guys are typically in their starched collared finest Guess and Armani dress shirts and stupidly expensive 7 jeans, tanned and gelled up within an inch of respectability and a little bit over sometimes.

Byron kind of swayed in with a white tank top on, regular dark jeans, a black skull cap and a modest sliver belt buckle. He didn't look a thing like anyone else there but was the best dressed one. He was observant and contained and confident, like Rat Pack kind of presence. I couldn't stop looking at him. I'd rarely reacted like that to anyone in my life so my conscious kind of split for a second as I continued to be unable to look at anything else in the club except him and marveled at the first-time nature of this experience and the attraction without any familiarity. It was new and pretty delicious. And all this without an introduction or even knowing that he was part of the Lady Sinatra crowd.

When introductions were finally made and I'd established that he wasn't a figment of my very single imagination I became further dithered out when, in an effort to make conversation and simply be near him, I asked him about this odd tattoo he had on the inside of his arm. I don't like tattoos very much, if at all. Sometimes they're not horrible but if anything, they're conversation starters. Unlike most Angelinos built like him, he didn't have some obtuse and out of place trite tribal tattoo. Instead he had a written paragraph. He got a little embarassed and asked if I knew of a book called "The Stranger" "You mean the 1942 definitive Existential treatise on Human Nature by Albert Camus?" I said "Never heard of it". We laughed and I felt Kathrine Hepburn-awesome for a minute or two before he disclosed that it had changed his life and had tattooed one of his favorite quotes on his arm when he graduated from high school.

*ding*

The kitchen time went off. I was officially done.

Tall? Check.
Literate? Check.
Insightful? Check.
Employed? Check.
Articulate? Check.
Music fan? Check.
Beautiful? Check.
Poised? Check

We never really talked after that 3 min of seemingly obligatory conversation. I think I saw him at one more show but then my friend and I stopped going for one scheduling snafu or another.

We never connected on MySpace. (That was back when it wasn't the WhoreTown/Pediphileville it is now) He didn't pursue a phone number or anything. I'm pretty sure there is a line of models lined up outside his apartment door. I don't think he'd remember me but I definitely remember him and getting knocked off of my 4" heals.

So this Thursday my friend and I are heading to a Lady Sinatra gig for the first time in forever. It's at the same old venue they always were. It's Joe's birthday and I think, if he hasn't received his angels wings and flitted off or been hijacked by human traffickers there is a good chance he might be there. :)

That would be a lovely birthday present indeed and yeah, I'm a bit excited.