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Style<br />
Relationships<br />
L.A. Dating Post-Weinstein:<br />
‘<strong>The</strong> Office Romance Is Dead’<br />
A TV comedy writer turns to two industry matchmakers who help singles<br />
navigate in the #MeToo age: It’s ‘like having an agent for your love life’<br />
By Ari Berkowitz<br />
O<br />
nce, on my way to the bathroom in<br />
a West <strong>Hollywood</strong> restaurant, a guy<br />
asked if I was his waitress. “Excuse<br />
me?” I said, genuinely shocked. “You think I’m<br />
pretty enough to be a waitress in L.A.?”<br />
Dating in this town has always been hard.<br />
Aside from having the highest concentration<br />
of beautiful people on Earth,<br />
<strong>Hollywood</strong> is a small world where<br />
being successful often means<br />
being social. Most of the people<br />
Berkowitz you meet — and date — are in the<br />
biz. And that means most of the<br />
people you meet — and date — know everyone<br />
you’ve ever met and dated.<br />
But in a post-MeToo world, dating in<br />
<strong>Hollywood</strong> has grown even harder. Let me say<br />
this: I am a militant #MeToo/#TimesUp feminist.<br />
I think a spotlight on unwanted advances<br />
is incredibly positive ... but it does make it<br />
harder to navigate the wanted ones.<br />
In November, I went out with a friend-of-afriend<br />
in the industry. He bought me drinks<br />
until the bar closed, but after that, he left every<br />
move up to me. It wasn’t just the “yes-meansyes”<br />
standard that I expect, it was like Mad<br />
Libs Dating. He presented every decision and<br />
left me to fill in the blanks: What should we do<br />
now? Where should we go? Even after I got him<br />
home, got him another drink, sat him on my<br />
couch and intertwined our legs, I still couldn’t<br />
get him to make a move. Neither one of us knew<br />
how to navigate this new post-Weinstein world.<br />
Illustration by Eleanor Taylor<br />
Over the past few months, I’ve heard of<br />
companies in <strong>Hollywood</strong> instituting open-door<br />
policies, or sending female execs into meetings<br />
to chaperone powerful men when they<br />
meet with women. <strong>The</strong>re are many political<br />
and business ramifications, but, honestly, I’m<br />
about to spend another Valentine’s Day alone,<br />
so I’m just gonna focus on the dating ramifications.<br />
In <strong>Hollywood</strong>, the office romance is dead.<br />
General meetings will never again bleed into<br />
late-night drinks. <strong>The</strong> blurred lines are focusing.<br />
And I’m glad. But <strong>Hollywood</strong> singles are<br />
facing a totally new era of dating.<br />
Enter matchmakers Jaydi Samuels and<br />
Lauren Rosenberg. I learned about them the<br />
way I learn about everything — in a general<br />
meeting. When the female<br />
exec I was meeting with casually<br />
mentioned she had just<br />
started using a matchmaker,<br />
I casually mentioned that<br />
she had to fucking tell me all<br />
the details immediately.<br />
LJMatchmaking, which<br />
started three years ago, costs<br />
$199 a year for women. Men<br />
pay nothing upfront, but are expected to<br />
pay for the first date. Members, who are referral<br />
only, answer a questionnaire, and then<br />
Jaydi, a comedy writer, and Lauren, a reality<br />
TV producer, follow up in person, sussing out<br />
dealbreakers you didn’t know you had. (When<br />
they asked if I’d date someone who voted for<br />
200%<br />
LJMatchmaking<br />
membership increase in<br />
January compared with<br />
an average month in 2017.<br />
Trump, I answered: Maybe — if they deeply<br />
regretted it now. When they asked if I’d date a<br />
guy who was bald, I said: Fuck no. Who knew<br />
I was the worst?!) <strong>The</strong>re are no guarantees on<br />
how many dates they get you — they just let<br />
you know when they find a good match (i.e., a<br />
hairy, regretful Republican).<br />
A week after I met them, they emailed me<br />
my first match. I got his first name, age, religion,<br />
job, and a sentence about his personality<br />
and looks. No picture. No way to google him.<br />
Jaydi and Lauren asked me: Was I interested<br />
in meeting him? Was I free on one of three<br />
nights? Yes and yes. Jaydi and Lauren made us<br />
a reservation. All I had to do was show up.<br />
My first match was with a guy we’ll call<br />
“Tom.” Tom was 10 years older, a successful<br />
writer. We had a nice time drinking margaritas<br />
and talking about harassers, and after two<br />
hours, he drove me home. But the best part<br />
was that afterwards, I didn’t hear from him. I<br />
heard from my matchmakers. <strong>The</strong>y checked in<br />
the next morning: “How did it go?”<br />
It felt amazing — this was like having an<br />
agent for your love life. You can leave a staffing<br />
meeting thinking everyone loved/hated you,<br />
but your agent always gets the real story. I told<br />
Jaydi and Lauren that I was interested in seeing<br />
Tom again. He wanted to see me, too! <strong>The</strong>re<br />
were no Mad Libs about it: We had gone on a<br />
clearly defined date and wanted to do it again.<br />
<strong>The</strong>n Tom flaked on me twice in a row, and I<br />
pulled the plug. I’m not saying matchmakers<br />
fix all your dating problems in <strong>Hollywood</strong>. Just,<br />
like, a dozen of them.<br />
My second match was with “Josh.” Josh spent<br />
the first hour of our date mansplaining<br />
American foreign policy. When he segued to a<br />
football player who had been (very mildly)<br />
slandered in an article about campus sexual<br />
assault, I interjected: “Cry me a fucking river.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> next day, I told my matchmakers it was<br />
a bad fit. <strong>The</strong>y were surprised — he wanted to<br />
see me again.<br />
What?! I got clammy<br />
thinking of how I was going<br />
to extricate myself. <strong>The</strong> one<br />
time Josh had asked a question<br />
about me, I told him<br />
about the pilot I was writing<br />
and he deftly brought the<br />
conversation back to him by<br />
listing all the powerful<br />
people he knew who could help me. If I offended<br />
him now, was there a chance he’d ask those<br />
powerful people to hurt my pilot? With a rush<br />
of relief, I realized I needn’t worry. My love<br />
agents would extricate me! I’m holding out<br />
hope that by next Valentine’s Day, they’ll find<br />
me someone who thinks I’m smart, funny<br />
and — just maybe — pretty enough to be an<br />
L.A. waitress.<br />
BERKOWITZ: COURTESY OF SUBJECT.<br />
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER<br />
50<br />
FEBRUARY 7, <strong>2018</strong>