Being In Love Doesn't Cost Money

You know that feeling you get when you’re waiting for your date to show up and your heart is pounding and you keep adjusting your clothes to make sure you look perfect and you check the time every five seconds? Well guess what? Being in love doesn’t cost money. (Yet.)

For our third date (don’t worry, I’m not going to turn this blog into a chronology of Selena’s dates – you’ll have to wait for my book to get that kind of excitement – I’m just trying to illustrate how inexpensive it is to impress someone early on), “Larry” and I made plans to meet at a coffee bar in Silver Lake, a neighborhood in Los Angeles described as “an eclectic gathering of hipsters and the creative class”. Interpret (or judge) that description as you will. (By the way, did you know that Silver Lake is famous for its many outdoor staircases to help people get up and down the steep hills and that the Descanso stairs are featured in Laurel and Hardy's film The Music Box ? Neither did I until Larry told me.)

Café Intelligentsia – and I only mention it because as a non-coffee drinker, this is the only coffee I will drink and, key word here, enjoy – is a funky little place and the atmosphere kicked off our date most delightfully. For starters, my latté was served in a white porcelain cup with a heart etched into the foamy milk – was that a sign of good things to come, or what? True, the coffee was more expensive than Starbucks, but as you’ll see, very little cash was doled out the rest of the evening, so put away your calculator, this still counts as a “dating without money” tale.

We headed down the street to Secret Headquarters, a comic bookstore (a shop that sells comics, that is, not a bookstore that tells jokes), for the book signing of a graphic artist. The artist/writer was very nice and Larry had a conversation with her about art and publishing, and then they compared what kind of pens they use to draw. It was like I was on a date with Picasso! Watching him talk to her gave me the chance to observe the way he interacts with people (very important when getting to know potential boy/girlfriends; I had lunch with someone who treated the waiter like a servant and that was the last I saw of him). I also loved listening to him (Larry, not the moron I went to lunch with) talk about his passion, his vision.

As we continued to mosey on down the street, we admired the eclectic shops, admired the graffiti art and murals that seem to be popular in this neighborhood (which is, after all, inhabited by the “creative class”), and ducked into nooks and crannies to admire each other’s lips.

We headed further down the street in search of cheap eats and all of a sudden the sound of beautiful acoustic guitar playing made us both stop and look around. In that moment the earth stood still – all traffic on busy Sunset Blvd. disappeared and it was completely quiet except for the sound of the old man playing guitar on the opposite side of the 4-lane street. We stood there, holding hands, and were mesmerized by the music that seemed to be just for us. As soon as the mysterious guitarist finished the song, the cars and noise and movement returned.

We had a simple repast at Café Tropical and then returned home via bus which, when experienced with the man you are rapidly falling in love with, can be delightfully romantic (as opposed to delightfully traumatic, as I experienced when Mr Pantsless bent over in front of me on the #4 in Santa Monica).

All in all, this date cost less than two movie tickets and was far more memorable than a night at the multiplex.