Why Not Me? (22 page)

AHHHHH
YOU ARE SO CUTE YOU ARE SO FUCKING CUTE YOU ARE SO CUTE!

I was so into him. Sonia brought me a McDonald’s Extra Value Meal #1 (the meal she rewards me with after a late night of writing or, extremely rarely, a late night of passion). I was already concocting Will’s and my happy ending, in the way only a woman whose job it is to write romantic comedies can. We’d probably get engaged in a year, he’d become a senator, and I’d move to Washington, giving up my career to become a full-time political trophy wife. I’d learn the chronological order of the presidents and get really smart about the news. Just that slightly crazy, embarrassing stuff you think about the night after you first sleep with someone.

But as you probably guessed, since I am not currently the wife of a senator, it didn’t work out that way.

Will and I continued to text and email, and would try to see each other, but it never seemed to crystallize into anything more. Whenever he would visit L.A. with the president, I was shooting the show; whenever I would invite him to a party I was throwing, he was traveling. It felt to me like I was making more of an effort than he was, and when I sensed that, I pulled back, not returning his calls or texts because I felt hurt. But none of that mattered, because I knew the truth, which is if someone really wants to see you, they always find a way. Always. That hurt my heart, but I realized, unlike in past relationships when I was younger, it didn’t need to be dramatic. Will and I didn’t know each other that well; I couldn’t even remember if he had any siblings, or what month his birthday was. I knew I had the power to make this a big deal if I wanted to, but the truth is, I wasn’t in my twenties anymore—in a good way! Obviously there’s a part of all of us who wants to pull a full Courtney Love about every breakup—it’s so dramatic and makes you feel like:
See?! You’ll remember me one way or another, dammit!
But spending a lot of time and energy nursing a breakup is just not a good use of my time now. Which is too bad, because if you heard my haunting rendition of “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” while I wept in the shower during a breakup, you would be moved as hell.

Sometimes a story just needs an ending, and I used to not be a creative enough person to think of an ending to a romantic story that isn’t a wedding or a death. This story didn’t end in fireworks, because the truth is, fireworks are something from my twenties. I could have made fireworks, but I chose to make a nuanced memory of a person who is neither a hero nor a villain in my life. All I had to do now was move on. In the words of both Mariah Carey and Taylor Swift, I knew I could shake it off. How could it not be true if
both
songs have the same name?

A PERFECTLY REASONABLE REQUEST

W
HAT I’M ASKING
for is not that much. I just want a boyfriend who is sweet and trustworthy. That’s it.

He doesn’t need to have a perfect body or look like George Clooney. I want a guy who wants to curl up on a Friday night and watch Netflix. He can even pick the show. I mean, ideally, it’s serialized and female-driven, and maybe not that boring political one. But honestly, I don’t care. It’s not important.

All I want is someone reasonable who is basically a good guy. Someone patient, who doesn’t mind if I’m taking an extra few minutes getting ready before we leave the house. But who is impatient with the same things that I am, like when we are waiting too long to be seated for dinner and he should maybe go talk to the hostess. Because otherwise, why did we make a reservation at all?

I want a guy who is a feminist, someone who knows that all that means is that men and women are equal. A man who admires strong women, like Hillary Clinton or Ruth Bader Ginsburg. But not that really accomplished woman from his office who seems cool and put-together. I don’t mean her. I’d like him to resent her irrationally, actually. I mean older, strong women in the theo- retical.

And I don’t need some über-rich hedgefunder either. He just needs to be successful enough to financially support himself. And me and our children if I take time off from work after the babies are born. I just want him to love his job; I don’t care about how much money he makes. Just as long as it pays enough to give me the option to go back to work part-time if I decide to pursue my hobby professionally, which is photographing cool manicures for Instagram.

I’m not even one of those women who doesn’t want their boyfriend to watch porn. I think it’s hot! As long as I’m watching it with him, and there’s some kind of entry point for women, like
Fifty Shades of Grey
or
Magic Mike
.

One thing I definitely don’t need is lavish gifts. I’m not some princess living in a fairy tale. A simple compliment once in a while is enough to show he appreciates me: “You look pretty today.” “I love your laugh.” “You’re such a good cook, even better than my mother and my sisters.” “I love you more than my mother and my sisters.” See? It’s so easy!

I don’t get why that’s asking so much, to meet a nice guy at a bar who wants to date for six months and then propose to me while we are in Montana glamping, on a night that is perfectly clear, and then, move out of his apartment, give up his dog to his coworker, and buy a four-bedroom house in the town where I was raised, near that elementary school everyone’s raving about.

That’s why I think I should date an older guy. They say older guys are more secure and have gotten all the immaturity out of their systems. That would be so refreshing right now. To be with a man who isn’t obsessed with youth and doesn’t want to stay out late smoking weed with his loser friends. And I don’t care if he has kids. I think that’s cool! So as long as his kids are already away at college and his wife is dead, I’m in. And she needs to be normal dead, where she won’t come back to haunt me as a ghost.

’Cause that’s all I want. A sweet, mature, normal, loving guy, with no baggage. And who has an absolutely enormous penis.

A PERFECT COURTSHIP IN MY ALTERNATE LIFE

I
F I HAD
stayed in New York and had a non-Hollywood job, I’m certain I would have become a Latin teacher at a private school in Manhattan. I took Latin from seventh grade through college, and I always loved it and was pretty good at it. There weren’t a lot of us who took Latin in high school, but our small group felt very cool. Every winter, the Latin Club celebrated Saturnalia, an ancient Roman festival in honor of the deity Saturn. We wore togas (bedsheets unenthusiastically supplied to us by our mothers) and wreaths made out of pipe cleaners, and had a feast of whole roast chickens and carbonated grape juice, which we ate with our hands, like the Romans. We toasted each other by saying “Io Saturnalia!” and pretended to be drunk emperors in the teachers’ multipurpose room. You know, just the typical stuff you do when you are really cool in high school.

When I moved to New York after college, I pictured myself teaching Latin at the Dalton School, where Jocelyn worked as a geography teacher. Dalton is on the Upper East Side and felt very glamorous and
Gossip Girl
to me, so I was always coming up with reasons to visit her there. It’s a little strange to be in an environment where you are twenty-three and you know the high school students around you are better dressed, more sophisticated, and have had way more sexual experience than you have. They could tell too, I bet, because I was so intimidated I barely made eye contact with any of them. But I’m the kind of person who actually likes feeling a little bit out of place. Aspirational is how I feel comfortable.

The dream of teaching Latin disappeared, of course, when I moved to Los Angeles to work in show business. But I always wondered, in the
Sliding Doors
version of my life, about this other, imaginary version of me, living in New York, teaching at a prep school, and trying to make friends. Over the years, as the real me grew older in L.A., “Mindy in New York” stayed twenty-five. She began to resemble me less and less, and became a character all her own.

I started ascribing fun and theatrical personality traits to her. She partied too much and dated guys in ways that blew up in her face spectacularly, but she still desperately wanted to find love. She was so fun to write that other characters sprung up in her universe. Mindy always fought with one male teacher in particular, a serious-minded forty-year-old US History teacher. I will have a stern man in anything I ever write; I just love a gruff guy with a heart of gold. I guess what I’m saying is Walter Matthau is the man of my dreams.

I thought I would share some of her adventures with you. It’s kind of a Choose Your Own Adventure, or Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken,” depending on how fancy you are. Enjoy.

     MONDAY     

From:
Mindy Kaling

To:
All Faculty

Subject:
A Back to School Soiree Chez Mindy

Date:
Mon, Sep 5, 2005

Hello, Dalton friends!

Welcome back to another school year. I hope you’re all as rested and excited as I am to tackle this new semester. As some of you may know, I was lucky enough to travel to Rome by myself this summer. Traveling by oneself poses its unique challenges, but I think I learned
a lot
and I even brushed up on my Latin. You can read about it in my blog www.aromeofonesown.com. If you do, please let me know what you think by leaving a comment!

I thought it could be fun to have you all over to my new place for drinks. As some of you may know, I no longer live in Gramercy with Ethan, I live in Astoria now. Astoria is a bustling neighborhood with a vibrant culture and, according to a few blogs, Queens is the new Brooklyn. The great part is, I have a lot more space, and not just because I don’t have to share it with my ex-boyfriend, ha-ha. But you can decide for yourself! Party info:

This Saturday, Sept 10th @ Chez Mindy

36-19 Ditmars Blvd. Apt. 6A