100 Days, 100 Dates:
Meta-Memoir of a Pansexual, Polyamorous, 39-year-old divorcée
PROLOGUE
A single candle flickers on a table for two. Across from me sits Jae, a charming, six-foot Eurasian-American with a baritone voice that seamlessly weaves sarcasm with kindness. His eyes are direct and warm. If it weren’t for those eyes, his grin would appear smug instead of charismatically quixotic. I’m accustomed to the intensity of his gaze, so I hold it for longer intervals than I do most. The stifled excitement we feel being in one another’s presence as irrefutable as it was the first time we set eyes on one another.
Four hundred and two days ago, I dressed in a slinky, black dress and after a rideshare mix up that cost me thirty-five minutes, showed up late for a date with a fellow polyamorous filmmaker. He was kind about my faux pas, and approaching the poolside table where he was sitting, I felt myself instantly enamored by the man whose voice and verbose texts had captivated my attention for weeks.
At that point, I could count the number of first dates that rival my first date with Jae on one hand: my first girlfriend— a fellow NYU film student who I would fall in love and lose my virginity with in the seventh arrondismont of Paris— and my significant ex— a non-binary visual artist who I would marry seven years after meeting at a lesbian dinner party. Three perfect first dates, two of which lead to the cornerstones of my romantic identity. With all three, there was no question about our connection from minute one of being in their presence.
With Jae, there was an immediate understanding that we were interviewing for the role of part-time lover. At the time, I was married and Jae engaged to long-time girlfriend, Leah. To hear him tell it, Leah was a congenial, blonde-haired, blue-eyed animator whose sapphic tendencies brought the happy couple to polyamory. In other words, Jae and I dating. . . that was his wife’s doing, broadly speaking at least.
Jae and I would have a dopamine-driven affair that would span several months of very little contact while Leah adjusted to the idea of sharing her man in the way he’d long been sharing her. My two dates a week request was ignored except to spark her anxiety, and left me in a constant state of yearning so miserable I finally ended the whole thing. After seven months apart and meeting a new guy with mind-blowing chemistry, Mark, I noticed Jae back on the dating apps, where we both swiped right for a second time. Having been the best connection I’d found on the threesome app, Feeld, seeing Jae’s visage on a traditional dating platform took me by surprise. Was he finally ready for a more serious secondary partner? If not, was I open to something less serious with Jae? What I wanted most was a primary partner, and I saw that potential with Mark. Yet Mark never had enough free time for dinner and a movie, so I began imagining a redo with the only person I had dated who loved film as much as I did.
It had been five months since Jae and I had started seeing one another again. Every other Friday or Saturday was our date night. Typically, dinner and a movie, mixed cocktails, and the slowest, most sensual sex of my life. I hadn’t realized men were capable of that sort of sensuality prior to Jae, and while it wasn’t my default mode, it was a fantastic style to add to the erotic menu.
“So. . . how was your week?” Jae asked me while waiting for our bottle of sake to arrive.
“Dating like it’s my job. I didn’t land that streaming half-hour comedy,” I said sheepishly.
“How about your own projects? How’s the writing coming along?” Jae treaded lightly.
“Not really feeling inspired, to be honest.” The words came with the shame of someone whose life was infinitely better than could have been predicted at birth, yet had only moved forward in spurts of divine intervention: intermittent refuge throughout years of slamming hard work into other people’s projects. Progress in my personal projects was nominal at best.
“Why don’t you write about your dates? Write a book. You could call it 100 Days, 200 Dates.”
“That’s insane. Even if I could pull that off, what would people think of me?” Salacious images from my most recent dating-bender flashed on an internal cinema screen. I countered: “100 Days, 100 Dates.”
“Much more respectable,” he concurred.
What I’m telling you is, this book was my boyfriend’s idea.
“Learning and practicing the art of creating rather than waiting; throwing the net wide in order to meet a lot of people, men and women alike, who will enrich your life; operating from a mindset of abundance, not scarcity; developing and adhering to the attributes of a woman of high value; upholding your own standards; understanding that you are in control of your own choices—these skills strengthen your sense of self-worth and will improve all areas of your life. It’s the project of a lifetime.”
Matthew Hussey, Get the Guy: Learn Secrets of the Male Mind to Find the Man You Want and the Love You Deserve
“In life, people tend to wait for good things to come to them. And by waiting, they miss out. Usually, what you wish for doesn't fall in your lap; it falls somewhere nearby, and you have to recognize it, stand up, and put in the time and work it takes to get to it. This isn't because the universe is cruel. It's because the universe is smart. It has its own cat-string theory and knows we don't appreciate things that fall into our laps.”
Neil Strauss, The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood[…]who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.”
Theodore Roosevelt
“I want to show up and be seen in my work and in my life and if you’re going to show up and be seen there is only one guarantee and that is you will get your ass kicked.”
Brene Brown reflecting on Roosevelt’s arena speech