(Joe’s note: In honor of France, I am taking most of the month of August off from the column. I will be traveling, visiting family and attending a wedding. While I’m gone a few of my friends have volunteered to guest-write The Joe Donatelli Column. They are all very talented people and I hope you enjoy their work.)

Nobody dates in L.A.
By SARAH BROWN and ABBY KINCAID

The following situation actually happened to Abby:

“This is such a date,” said the 31-year-old man-child as we shimmied into our seats and awaited the start of the movie. “I can’t remember the last time I went on a date,” he continued with a touch of bewilderment. “What do you mean you can’t remember the last time you went on a date?” I asked, mirroring his tone of surprise.
 
“I mean usually, you just get together and hook up,” he responded. I had been in Los Angeles a mere six months. The dating language he spoke was foreign. But eight months later, when he started “hooking up” with another girl, and explained to me that eight months of what I thought was dating was something quite different, I realized I wasn’t in the proverbial Kansas anymore.

It’s a fascinating thing, this dating Petri dish we call Los Angeles. In addition to the “Baywatch” promise of sun, surf, boobs and blondes, Los Angeles offers one of the most diverse dating communities in the world; and with diversity comes difficulty. Why, in a city loaded with attractive, talented, and available singles, is finding even a nice, simple one-on-one date, let alone (gasp) –a relationship!– so challenging? We posit the following theories. 

1. Dating distracts you from your goals of fame and fortune
Los Angeles is where America’s most insecure people come in droves in the hopes of flipping the proverbial bird at their high school tormentors through the achievement of fame and fortune. Dinner with someone you like is a mere distraction from the single-mindedness required to achieve ultimate payback at your 20-year high school reunion. We think, “If I go to dinner, and I like this guy, and he likes me, I’m going to have to make time for him. If I have to make time for him, I’m going to have less time to flat-iron my hair and experiment with new Sephora products. If I have less time for these things, I’m going to look less hot. If I look less hot, I will feel even more insecure than I already do and some other hot girl will get the kernel of fame that I might have gotten … and then this guy will cheat on me with her!”

This scenario works for guys as well … just simply replace hotness with money or success. The point is, dinner is simply too intimate, and the ultimate possibility of rejection too great. So, instead, we get drunk and randomly make out at parties a few times before taking the “date” step. This way, we already know hot tongue action is just a bottle of pinot away. No need to fear rejection, which not so surprisingly, is the crux of our second theory.

2. Fear of rejection
To add insult to injury, these people, with self-esteem so epically low that they actually care about getting the last laugh at their high school reunion, have masochistically chosen a career path with built-in, repeated opportunities for rejection … i.e. actors, musicians, writers, comedians, etc. They are routinely told things like “You have a ‘Simpsons’ chin,” or “You need to tighten up your muffin top,” or “Your script … it’s just not that funny … and we’re going to go in a different direction.”
 
The absolute truth is that these inconsequential things really do matter in the entertainment industry. That “Simpsons” chin WILL look weird on camera … your muffin top WILL look horrible in the Speedo scene … and your script, even if it is a freakin’ hoot, WON’T get financing if that stick-in-the-mud in the suit doesn’t get the joke. These are the realities of the daily rejection we artists face in Los Angeles, and it becomes part of the baggage we carry with us. As such, we’re not only carrying the standard, “I’m a geek in designer clothing who hates his father” baggage that everyone carries. We’re geeks in designer clothing who hate our fathers and who were told two hours before the date that our noses were too Moe Szyslak and we’d maybe work in this town after rhinoplasty. Since the date itself offers even more chance for rejection, we develop heightened anxiety about “dating” and again choose to get drunk and make out. Seriously, nobody wants to hear “I’ve decided to go in a different direction” twice in the same day.

(Above: Typical Los Angeles woman on a Friday night. dragonflaiii/flickr.)

3. Opportunists in sheep’s clothing
Or hot mini-dresses, in this case. A male friend who has since fled Los Angeles summed it up like this – no one wanted to go out unless he could do something for them or introduce them to someone. Our guess is that men encounter this more than women; however, the rise of Ryan Reynolds suggests that this practice is not limited to either gender.
 
Perhaps the real problem here is that there are simply too many people in Los Angeles who CAN offer some sort of career advantage, and who will do so for the chance to play with a hot young thing. But then, dating is always a game of give and take … and because many people in Los Angeles are career-driven, dating becomes a tool used for career advancement, rather than a step to finding a relationship. To quote Kanye, “I ain’t sayin’ she’s a gold digger…” – but she may like you a little bit more if you can introduce her to the head of new talent at CAA. And if you can’t, but you are willing and able to buy her Louis Vuitton, then you’re golden too … because, well, maybe we are sayin’ she’s a gold digger.

Don’t let all of this push you over the edge. You know they’re out there – those girls and boys who look at the scenarios described above with utter disgust. The question is how do those boys and girls find each other? Maybe you need to hang out in different bars. Maybe you need to go to the Laundromat more often. Maybe you men should take a yoga class – but stay away from Pilates. Those girls are out for blood. Anyway, they’re there. Don’t give up. There’s just a lot more crap to sift through in this town. The logical solution, then, is for people to go on more dates. So get out there, single Los Angeles. Go forth, in pairs, to modestly-priced yet tasteful sit-down eateries, movie theaters and mini-golf courses.

(Abby Kincaid appeared on the Feb. 14, 2008 podcast “Abby Valentine’s Day.” Sarah Brown is a loyal column reader and podcast listener. She is married. She did not meet her husband in Los Angeles.)

After listening to several female friends explain how hard it was to find a good man these days, I decided to put myself in women’s shoes.

I’ll admit it. I stumbled at first. I fell down. I even broke a heel when a gang of toughs pummeled me for not wearing Air Jordans. Those experiences made me think, “I look fabulous, girlfriend, but wouldn’t it be better to approach this metaphorically?”

And so I wrote a column last fall sympathizing with the fact that good men are hard to find. I included my e-mail address so that this nation’s 43 million single women could get in touch with me whenever they felt lonely. I won’t bore you with the specifics of how many women responded. We’ll just say it was in the mid-to-high zeroes.

Anyway, that column was full of bad news. So in the interest of balance, I thought it would be nice to share some good news for women from two magazine articles I read recently while waiting 10 hours for a United flight out of Washington, DC, which I will write about at some other time, when my murderous rage abates.

The first piece of good news comes courtesy of July’s “Atlantic Monthly.” I know what you’re thinking: “Atlantic Monthly _ the political magazine?” Trust me when I say that everything I learned about women, I learned from the glossy pages of “Atlantic Monthly” _ which explains things.

Next to an article entitled, “5 Simple Love Tricks Canada Craves” was a piece with the headline, “Gentlemen Prefer Brains.” A University of Washington professor has found that “as women’s education levels have risen in the United States, marriage prospects for educated women have also markedly improved.”

The study stated that in 1980 a woman in her early forties with 19 years of education had a 66 percent chance of being married compared to 83 percent of women with 12 years of education. Today the gap has disappeared.

If you’re an educated woman looking for a man, this is outstanding news.

Some countries _ I’m looking in your direction nations that ends with -stan _ prefer their women uneducated. Not the United States. It took a while, but American men finally realized that they’re going to have to talk to their wives eventually, and wouldn’t it be nice if she was smarter than your best friend Sean who still cries at the end of “Goonies”?

It’s mind-bendingly stupefying to think that men feared their intellectual peers and superiors. It’s no wonder that 18 out of every 23 couples over the age of 65 spend most of their time in public fighting and all of their time in private tampering with each other’s medication. Many married badly.

And because they stayed married, they suffered. Which brings us to our second piece of good news for women, courtesy of “Reason” magazine, which some call the “Redbook” of the libertarian political movement.

Next to an article entitled, “Nicole Kidman Speaks Out Against The Nanny State” is a blurb with the headline “Defending Divorce.” A study by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that “declines in … female suicide, wife abuse and murder of women by their husbands are the result of no-fault … divorces in most U.S. states.”

The bottom line: A good man is still hard to find, but for the first time in history the smart ones are looking for you and the bad ones aren’t in control anymore.

Next week: “How to Build a Birdbath on a Budget” from “The Economist.”

(Originally published 6/23/04.)

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If you have a comment, e-mail me at joedonatellicolumn@gmail.com.

In a stunningly unprecedented turn of events, research has managed the once unthinkable. It has proved men correct on an issue of vast social significance — marriage.

I’ll admit it. As a gender we were wrong on the not letting women vote thing. Same with sexual harassment. Now that we think about it — bad idea. And we’re still apologizing for the XFL.

But according to a report authored by Richard E. Lucas of Michigan State University in the “Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,” our ages-old argument that marriage will not improve our lives now appears legitimate.

Marriage, as many of you know, is the phase of life that begins when two people publicly profess their love for each other in front of family and bored co-workers. The bride wears a very expensive gown she will never wear again. Oddly, the groom’s clothes are rented.

Afterward there is a reception where the best man’s struggle to remain coherent leads to the following toast: “Of all the chicks Todd hooked up with, and there were lots, I always thought Jody was the hottest. I think it’s cool she’s a bridesmaid. That could have been awkward. To a cool couple. Burp!”

After the guests inhale breaded chicken and green beans with slivered almonds, a DJ plays “It Takes Two,” “Celebrate,” “The Chicken Dance” and the same 60 songs you hear at every reception.

Hours later the best man wakes up on the hood of his Buick LeSabre in a Denny’s parking lot. He reaches in his pocket for his keys but pulls out a breaded chicken cutlet. To his dismay, it does not fit in the ignition.

The next day the happy couple flies as far from their families as they can afford.

Thus concludes the happiest day of their lives together.

For good reason, men have long debated the value of marriage, though never eloquently. Until this report, our strongest argument against betrothal was, “Why buy the cow when the milk is free?”

(Upon further reflection, that statement is entirely inappropriate. I would like to apologize to bovines everywhere for dragging you into our species’ inter-gender squabble. It was a poor analogy on our part.)

The cow is nature’s slutty whore. Always giving it away.

With this report, which I’ll go out on a limb and call the most important document since the Constitution, men finally have official confirmation that marriage will not improve our lives. The report found that most married couples experienced brief emotional bliss after their weddings but eventually returned to the same outlook they had on life while they were dating.

In other words, marriage is like Fruit Stripe gum. For 10 seconds, your taste buds are treated to a crack-like euphoria. But the more you chew, the more it tastes like your mouth before you started.

The report also says that people who were happy with themselves before marriage were still happy after tying the knot and stayed married longer. For people who were not happy before they wed, marriage did not make them happier.

So, if I’m interpreting this correctly, the only couples that should marry are the ones who are so happy they would stay together whether or not they ever walked down the aisle. It is only when neither person needs marriage that it actually works.

I have to say, that sounds way better than comparing your would-be fiancee to a certain animal (apologies, again) that gives away certain dairy-type products free.

(Originally published 3/31/03.)

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