The True Love Experiment

What does a man do after being propositioned by one of the most beautiful women in San Diego and then turning her down?

He considers slamming his head into a wall because he’s an idiot for deciding casual sex doesn’t work for him.

He has a wank so many times imagining it that he wakes up a bit chafed the next morning.

He goes to work—where he has been tasked with finding the soulmate of the very woman he wants, and who apparently also wants him—because his livelihood and access to his child depend on it.

He makes a mental note to get very drunk afterward.

And a plan for drinking later is wise considering the once-familiar office I walk into suddenly looks like a beefcake sweet shop.

There are men everywhere: in the lobby, clustered in conference rooms, and just casually—albeit attractively—leaning against cubicle partitions. In front of me stands every possible male phenotype—businessmen in suits, surfer dudes in shorts, inked-up blokes in torn jeans, cuddly-looking lads in jumpers—and each has the potential to be Fizzy’s soulmate. Wonderful.

My phone rings as I round the corner near my office. I take a calming breath, unsure whether I’m ready to put out any fires yet this morning, but relax when I see a photo of Nat and Stevie filling the screen.

“Hello—”

“I have a favor to ask,” Nat says immediately.

“Go on then.”

“Insu was asked to speak at a convention in Vegas this weekend and invited me to go. I’d have to leave Thursday, so I was wondering—”

“Of course. You know I’ll always take her early.”

“Thank you,” she says on a relieved sigh. “Stevie mentioned you had a date last night, and I didn’t want to assume anything.”

“I told her it wasn’t a date.” I told her several times, in fact. I should probably be concerned that my ten-year-old is getting this invested in my love life, but I’m neck-deep in twenty-six-to-forty-eight-year-old eligible bachelors and just do not have the time. “It was a work thing,” I say, and then add, “With Fizzy.”

The line goes quiet; I can practically hear Nat’s grin. I regret the clarification immediately.

“Ah,” she says. “So it’s Fizzy now.”

My first instinct is to tell Nat it was nothing, but I’ve never been able to keep anything from her. We turned into adults together. We’re forever connected through Stevie. She’s seen me at my best and my worst, knows me better than anyone, and loves me anyway. Ducking into a vacant office, I close the door behind me.

“It’s not as exciting as it sounds.” Then why is my heart beating like I walked the eight flights up here instead of taking the lift? “All right, maybe it is, but it shouldn’t be. We spent the evening together after her book signing and talked about the show over dinner. Then she, uh… she invited me to spend the night.”

“Are you telling me that you and Felicity Chen—”

“I said no, Nat.” It sounds just as stupid the second time. “I told her I couldn’t. I’m the producer on her dating show.”

“Okay,” she says, processing. “Right. I get that, but—”

“There’s no ‘but.’ Even if I wanted to, I can’t.”

“Do you want to?”

“The easy answer is yes. The answer that’s based in reality and the way my life works right now… is more complicated.”

“How did she take it? Was she upset?”

I’m not about to flatter myself into thinking Fizzy’s proposition was anything more than a moment of mutual attraction and wanting to scratch an itch. But it’s nice to know I wasn’t imagining it. “I don’t think she was too upset.” Fizzy can have any man she wants. I’m not going to delude—or torture—myself into thinking it was anything more than it was. “Anyway,” I say, searching for a change in subject, “I can absolutely pick Stevie up and keep her however long you need. More time with our kid is never a hardship. I’m sure I’ll have to pull in a few favors myself once the show starts. Speaking of which”—I check my watch—“I need to get going.”

“Thanks, Conn. This speaking thing is a big deal for Insu. And in Vegas! There will be buyers from all over the country.”

“Tell him congratulations, really.” Insu and a friend started a fledgling software company a few years ago and have been working on a VR game. He must be over the moon at this opportunity. “I’m not sure he’s old enough to gamble, but you kids will have fun either way.”

“Didn’t you say you had work to do?”

We ring off, and I continue to my office, pausing as I stop outside my door.

My hardworking, straight-from-Kansas assistant has two very fit-looking young men moving her desk from one end of her workspace to another.

“Good morning, Brenna,” I say.

She spins around, cheeks flushed. “It certainly is!”

Trent rounds the corner, briefcase and car keys still in hand. He looks as tired as I feel.

Confused, he surveys the chaos around us. “What in the fresh hell is happening?”

“Casting,” I tell him. “We’re narrowing down the final contestants for my dating show, The True Love Experiment.”

He continues to look around, and I imagine his bewildered expression looks much like mine did barely ten minutes ago.

“What are you doing here, anyway?” I ask. “I thought you were on a bus for six weeks.”

He runs an exhausted hand down his face. “I’ve got to meet with some lawyers and fly right back out tonight. I’ve barely slept in four days; these contestants never shut up, and there are just so many rules! Did you know there are insurance clauses about different protective cups for this type of show?”

Brenna tilts her head, confused. “Different… oh.”

“Right.” He nods. “I’ll never forgive Blaine for putting phrases like ‘testicular degloving’ in my vocabulary.” At both our horrified expressions, he adds, “It’s absolutely as bad as it sounds. Learn from my mistakes and don’t google that one.”

Brenna gently turns Trent back toward the kitchen. “Why don’t we get you some coffee before your meeting?” Trent continues to mumble about penis dislocations as they move down the hall.

“Be grateful you got a dating show, Connor,” he says over his shoulder.

Later that morning, I’m set up with Brenna; the casting director, Kathy; and our director, Rory, in North Star’s largest conference room. We’ve successfully signed on a viral YouTube sensation named Lanelle Turner to be the show’s host—an intermittent role requiring her only to pop in at the beginning and end of each episode—but the bulk of the day’s work stretches ahead of us, with a call sheet approximately seventy beefcakes deep.

Fizzy insisted that she doesn’t have a physical type per se, but having walked through the halls of North Star Media today, I think it’s safe to say these men are everyone’s type.

Our first possible Hero is Isaac Moore. He’s tall and fit, Black, with short, cropped hair and a smile so arresting it makes Brenna flush from head to toe when he shakes her hand. Isaac has two sisters, collects vintage board games, and works in AI modeling and development.

I make a note, checking a box next to Hot Nerd.

“What does that mean exactly?” Kathy asks, looking at him over the top of her tortoiseshell glasses. She’s in her midfifties, with curly red hair and a diamond on her ring finger that’s so large I’d imagine her left arm is significantly stronger than her right. Kathy has been brought on as a consultant; she doesn’t usually cast the kinds of things I make—obvious, perhaps, given that the kinds of things I make usually feature marine mammals—so we’ve never worked together before. “AI modeling and development?”

“I work with artificial intelligence systems that build and implement engagement algorithms. Specifically, I program the ethics and accountability that come with those systems.”

“So, like… dealing with trolls on Twitter?” Kathy asks.

“Exactly.” His smile morphs into a small laugh. “Yeah.”

Brenna giggles again and I catch her eye. Keep it together. Even Rory, who rarely cracks a smile, glances up from her notes. Rory is also new to me, though not by reputation. She’s worked on some of the most popular unscripted shows of the last few years, and seems to be nice enough, if a bit intense. She has a reputation for things getting a little dramatic on set, but once her name came up, Blaine was like a dog with a bone until we had her signature on the dotted line. She also wasn’t cheap, but thanks to North Star’s new flair for throwing money around, that wasn’t a problem, either.

Together we go over Isaac’s questionnaire, ask about his family, his reasons for doing the show, his political leanings—per Fizzy’s request. I listen to all of it, taking more notes and asking my own questions while the camera silently captures everything in the background.

“Isaac, what do you think men want in a partner?” I ask.

He tilts his head thoughtfully, tenting his hands on the table. “I think most men want someone who’s smart, loving, and kind. Open to adventure. What I want is a companion. Someone to share the good and the bad, to laugh and hang with, to respect and support and share all the things that make us who we are.”

He’s perfect. Charming, interesting, thoughtful, and supportive. He even manages to pull off a sweater vest. Fizzy will love him.

It’s irrational, but I hate him already. He’s in.

Man number two is in skinny dark jeans, a distressed black band tee, and worn black Converse. Is this what Fizzy meant by Vampire? Somehow I don’t think so. As soon as he’s gone, I write no next to his name.

The next few hours are pretty much the same—a lot of caricatures with a couple of keepers along the way. Some are quick no’s: the potential Tattooed Bad Boy who is obviously just here to be on television; a Darcy who’d one hundred percent show up at a white nationalist rally. There’s a terribly cliché Millionaire CEO who looks like he intentionally put white powder under his nose to really nail the trope.

I’m very interested in the names Fizzy gave us for The One That Got Away. I’d like to say my motives are altruistic, but even my sweet mum wouldn’t believe that. In the end, however, these interviews prove to be mostly anticlimactic. There’s no common thread or characteristic I can pinpoint in any of the men we meet from the list. Some are good-looking, some are not. A few have money and some don’t. Most of them are nice enough. No great Fizzy mystery is unlocked, and I am just as bewildered and fascinated by her as when I started. We do end up putting one Evan Young into our A group, however, and it takes me all of two minutes to realize he’s the bloke that Fizzy mentioned during our first meeting. The one with the terrible Bart Simpson tattoo.

He’s apparently picked up the pieces of his Fizzy-less life: he’s gone back to school to get an engineering degree and, when not in class, works as a barista part-time in a small coffee shop. Evan is also attractive and charming and, just like Fizzy said, incredibly nice. He has nothing but glowing things to say about his ex-girlfriend.

I cannot wait to see her face when he walks in. I’m tempted to whisper, “Ay, caramba,” into her earpiece.

By the end of the day, we’ve narrowed our top picks down to seven, with all Fizzy’s highest-ranked archetypes included but one: the Cinnamon Roll.

Our final guy is Nick Wright. After a long day of waiting, he’s got to be as tired as the rest of us, but he walks in with a bright, bashful smile. On paper he’s six three, 182 pounds, likes basketball, and has a small veterinarian practice in Orange County. In reality, he looks like he stepped out of the pages of one of Fizzy’s books. We’ve seen a lot of good-looking men today, but there is an audible gasp from both Brenna and Kathy when Nick walks into the room. We go through the standard questions, and he has all the right answers. He was engaged, but it ended when she wanted to move abroad, and he felt he owed it to his staff and clients to stay. He’s the oldest in a family of five, feels like marriage is the one thing he’s missing in his life, and he knits while watching BBC procedural dramas to unwind from a long, stressful day. Houston, we have a Cinnamon Roll.

“Nick, what do you think men want in a partner?” I say, reaching the final question.

He smiles down at the table, paradoxically looking both shy and like a lab-created hybrid of Chris Evans and Bond-era Pierce Brosnan. “I think most people would say men want someone who makes them feel good about themselves,” he says. “But I want someone who challenges me.” He rests his very tan, very toned forearms on the table. “My grandparents have been married for over sixty years, and when my grandma walks into the room, my grandpa looks at her like he’s still nineteen and trying to figure out how the prettiest girl in school is giving him the time of day.” He laughs. “I want that. To be as head over heels in love at eighty as I was at thirty. To be together and just… feel joy.”

I wonder how it’s possible that this is the moment all of this finally feels real. The show will start, Fizzy will meet and eventually date these guys, and if all of our efforts pay off, it will be a success. Fizzy will fall in love, and I get to keep my job and stay in San Diego.

When I blink back into the moment, everyone is standing. Kathy shows Nick out and closes the door behind him. “Holy shit,” she says, eyes wide in disbelief. “That was great, right? He was really great?”

“I don’t think I blinked the entire time he was talking.” Brenna stands and rounds the table. “Can you imagine him on-screen with Fizzy?”

“Can you imagine her with Dax? Or Evan? Or Isaac?” Kathy says. “I’ve never seen a reality show with a group like this.” She turns to Rory. “And we’ve done DNADuo screenings on them already?”

Rory nods. “They’ve all been binned. We’ve got a good spread.”

“They all feel so… real,” Kathy muses. “Genuine, I mean.”

“If Fizzy doesn’t marry one of them, I’m going to.” Brenna turns to me. “Connor, this could be huge.”

Rory is still staring at the door Nick just walked through. “I had my doubts, but… we might actually pull this off.”

They’re right, I think. The pieces are coming together, and if my gut is correct, it could be good.

I got exactly what I wanted. And I have nobody to blame but myself.