I’m striding through LAX, pulling my Gucci Globe-Trotter carryon—swag I scored when I did a story about iconic travel bags—when my cellphone rings. I pull my phone out of my pocket, look at the screen, and smile when I see my mother’s name on the caller ID. My mom is extra extra, but she’s the only person I would answer the phone for while nursing a serious Tight Snatch hangover.
“Hi, Mom!”
“Marlow, darling,” she says in a breathy, Marilyn Monroe-esque voice and I know she must have a man with her. “Where are you?”
“LAX.”
“Oo, fun! Where are you headed?”
“A beach resort in Spain.”
“New Latin lover?”
“I wish,” I laugh. “I’m interviewing…ready for it?”
“I hope so.”
“I am interviewing Ian Chapman, a relationship expert known as the Love Guru.”
“Yikes,” she says.
“Big yikes.”
“Tell me you aren’t headed to Mallorca?”
“Ibiza.”
“Thank God,” she says in typical Marla Donnelly dramatic fashion. “You do not want to go to Mallorca, darling. Anybody can holiday in Mallorca. The wealthy go to Ibiza.”
“Seriously, Mother?”
“Seriously! You know what the Germans call Mallorca?”
“No.”
“Putzfrau Insel, which means the low-rent island.”
I snort.
“It’s true! My friend, Gretchen Galloway, the German woman I met at La Clinique, she told me they call it Putzfrau Insel. Why would she lie?”
My mother loves to drop place names and La Clinique is one of her faves because the super luxe, super pricey Swiss spa has a history of attracting notable people like oligarchs, royals, and rock stars.
“La Clinique?” I say, feigning ignorance. “Is that the medical spa you went to for cosmetic surgery or menopause treatments?”
“Marlow!” she cries.
I laugh. I know damn well she went to La Clinique to have platelets injected into her clit and vahjay to tighten and heighten, but I get childish joy at hearing her shock. There are three things Marla Donnelly never discusses—money, my father, and menopause.
My parents divorced when I was eleven and it devastated my mother. She spent two years prostrate with grief and, frankly, a little out of her head. She talked about my father obsessively. Cormac liked this song. Cormac took care of the mundane things like auto insurance and taxes. Cormac is dating a horse-faced woman, a medical assistant who works at the heart institute.
Watching my glamorous and vivacious mother stumble out of her room with two-day-old mascara ringing her eyes was traumatic. My mother has always been my hero. A Vassar grad who became the It Girl of the early eighties, with her big blond hair and dozens of signature pearl strands wrapped around her slender neck. She was a brand ambassador for several designers, and rumored in some circles to be the inspiration for Madonna’s Material Girl look. That she used her fame and influence to become a bespoke luxury jewelry designer who counts the world’s wealthiest as her clients is everything. Every. Thing.
I inherited my mom’s blond hair, blue eyes, and facial features. Unfortunately, I also inherited my dad’s height—five-eight without heels—and ridiculously large lips—one hundred percent natural, no filler or Kylie Jenner lip kit.
“I am almost to TSA, Mom. Did you want something?”
“Marshall asked if you’d like to join us in Croatia for Christmas.’”
“Marshall?”
“My boyfriend, darling.”
“I thought you were dating someone named Grayton.”
“Last season.”
My mother is a statuesque blue-eyed blonde with a cool sophistication like old-school actress Lana Turner. At fifty-three she gets more male attention than I do…and I can pull. She rotates men like her wardrobe. She is goals.
“I’ll have to get back to you on that, but please thank Marshall for the invitation.”
“Ciao, darling. Have a safe flight.”
“I love—”
The line goes dead before I say the last word.
I clear security and walk to my gate, lost in a maze of memories.
The next stage of my mother’s grief was scathing anger. Cormac met Seabiscuit on a dating site. Gold-digging tramps who want to land a sugar daddy use dating sites. Elaine said she saw Cormac’s girlfriend coming out of the women’s clinic. She probably has herpes. The anger stage lasted the longest.
I don’t know when my mom entered the final stage of grief: acceptance. One day she was talking about sending a bucket of oats to my father’s horse-faced girlfriend, and the next day she was designing a collection to wear to Royal Ascot and dating her divorce attorney. With a snap of her perfectly manicured fingers, my mother banished my father’s ghost and created an iconic jewelry line that is still worn by royals. After the divorce attorney, she dated an heir to the DuPont fortune, a sugar scion, and a Texas oilman. My mom showed me love, marriage, and a Silver Cross Balmoral baby carriage aren’t the only ways to find your happy ending.
I’m stretched out in business class, a champagne cocktail in my hand, my MacBook open on the lap tray. I’ve been scrolling through a dossier the research department emailed me on Ian Chapman. I am trying to figure out how a thirty-four-year-old Princeton grad from Strathpeffer, Scotland became a New York Times bestselling author, YouTube star, Sirius Radio talk show host, dating seminar sensation, and the most sought-after relationship expert on the planet. I lean my head back, close my eyes, and try to imagine a wee Scottish lad telling his gruff Highland father that he wants to grow up to be a Love Guru. Like, how the fuck does that happen? The United Kingdom is where you go for bland food that sticks to your ribs, thick rubber rain boots, getting properly pissed in a pub older than George Washington’s dentures, and trying to charm a smile from men with stiff upper lips.
If you told me Ian Chapman came from a place where the consumption of food and drink is viewed as a libidinous-enhancing pursuit, an endeavor meant to be embarked upon with the same unhurried focused effort as foreplay, I wouldn’t bat an eyelash. France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal know food should be enjoyed slowly.
My mom took me to Paris for the first time when I was fourteen years old. Do you know what I remember most from that trip? Seeing the Mona Lisa in the Louvre? Riding the elevator to the top of the Eiffel Tower? Sipping foamy hot chocolate at Angelina Tea Room? Nope. I remember strolling through the Marais, a historic district in the fourth arrondissement, and gawking at the goods for sale in the shop windows—the laciest of lingerie, shiny chocolates shaped like nipples infused with aphrodisiacs, slender volumes of poetry, exotic perfumes in crystal bottles, bouquets of peonies tied with ribbons and raffia, and bottles of bubbly. Passion pulsed with every stray note from a wine bar or tap-tap-tap of stiletto heel striking cobblestone. It made a huge impression on my tender pubescent heart and is probably why I jones for Gallic guys in Giorgio Armani suits—hence, my one-off hook-up in the Air France lounge.
What could a pale-faced, porridge-eating Scot from Strathpeffer, a village famous for its gloomy Victorian architecture and even gloomier past as a retreat for incurables seeking restorative waters, know about the inner workings of the human heart?
I open my eyes, take a swig of champagne, sit up, and scroll through the file until I come to a photograph of Ian Chapman. I nearly choke on my bubbly when I see his handsome face. Dammmmn, son. Porridge does a body good. The pale-faced Scot is a babe in a button-down with a square jaw, cleft chin, and roughhewn, chiseled features that seem incongruent with a pinky-lifting, tea-sipping, Ivy League-educated snob. His relaxed posture and direct gaze suggest a confident, kind man, not a charlatan hocking hokey love mantras to the hopeless to fund his house in the Hamptons.
I open a new file and begin typing questions in a stream-of-consciousness format. The answers to some of my questions will be found within the dossier, but many will be edited and refined until there are a few dozen open-ended questions that will reveal the man behind the mantras.
I scroll to a London Times article published two years ago, titled “Chapman Kills Serial Daters Softly with His Song.” In the first paragraph, Chapman defines a serial dater as someone who doesn’t play by the widely accepted dating rules.
Seriously? Who in the hell follows dating rules? There are too many and they often conflict. Old-school dating rules say you shouldn’t date more than one person at a time, but modern dating experts encourage a popcorn approach to finding the one. You always throw more kernels in the pot when you’re trying to make a bowl of popcorn because you know there will be a lot of duds. So which is it?
Remember that episode on Sex and the City when Miranda asks Carrie’s boyfriend, Jack, a writer with a jaded outlook on relationships, to analyze the behavior of her love interest? She wants to know why the dude didn’t accept her invitation to come up to her place after their date, and whether his excuse—that he had an early meeting—was legit. Without missing a beat, Jack says, “Yeah, he’s just not that into you. When a guy’s really into you, he’s coming upstairs, meeting or no meeting.” That episode inspired a book, movie, and a fresh set of dating rules. A few years later, another author published He IS Just That Into You, which suggested women kill potential relationships by overanalyzing their date’s intentions. The author included fifteen rules that contradicted the core philosophy of He’s Just Not That Into You.
How’s that for some serious mind-fuckery?
Is it any wonder courtship has been reduced to swiping left or right, followed by mad texting, a phone call, a dick pic, some sexting, a drive-by date at a coffee shop with multiple exits, and then, maybe, if you’re lucky, dinner and a hookup?
I keep reading the article.
“‘Serial daters aren’t clear about their intentions, which are usually shallow and self-serving,’ Chapman explains. ‘They lead people on and disappear when things get too intense for them. They are experts at breadcrumbing and ghosting, sliding in and out of DMs like a phantom moving through walls.’”
Is it me or is the Love Guru coming off as a little judgy? Maybe serial daters aren’t self-serving but self-preserving. Maybe they disappear because they’re not vibing with their date and they prefer to avoid the inevitable “Is it me? Is it something I did?” convo. Trust me, there is no right answer to that question. Don’t believe me? Let’s roleplay this shit.
“It’s not you. You didn’t do anything wrong. You’re awesome.”
“Then why don’t you want to go out with me?”
This is where you shift around uncomfortably, avoid eye contact, and try to think of an answer that won’t make them feel like they just took a bullet to the heart. So, you come up with lame-ass reasons they swat away like mosquitos.
“I’m still in love with my boyfriend.”
“Then why did you go out with me?”
Fail. Try again.
“I think we just need to slow things down.”
“But we’ve only had two dates.”
Fail. Try again.
You can’t tell them the truth, either. Not ever. Don’t believe me? Here are some of the truth bombs I’ve dropped on guys I didn’t want to see again:
You didn’t talk enough.
You talked too much.
You’re boring.
You showed up with spinach stuck between your teeth.
You mentioned your ex fifteen times—just over drinks.
You drank too much.
You didn’t drink enough.
You’re wearing dad jeans.
You have a dad bod.
You talked about wanting to be a dad.
I want to know what Mister Love thinks the best way is to tell a dude you don’t want to see him again. Not for a bootie call. Not for dinner. Not even for a FaceTime.
I go back to the article. “‘The serial dater is motivated by the thrill of the chase, the excitement of the first date, the exhilaration of sexual capitulation. Like any skilled predator, they move with devastating speed. They fall in and out of lust/infatuation/love before their prey even knows what hit them.’”
I let out a long, low whistle. The Love Guru packs a mean punch once he peels off his touchy-feely gloves, doesn’t he?