It was one of those weeks where everything was too much.
Too many birthdays, too many late nights, too many half-finished martinis and full-body eye rolls.
By the third day of celebrating the same friend, I was already downtown, already dressed up, already exhausted by my own reflection.
I figured I might as well make the outfit count.
So I texted the senator’s son.
We’d been circling each other for weeks—me being vague, him being persistent—and in a moment of laziness disguised as spontaneity, I told him to call me a car to the West Village.
If he wanted me in his neighborhood, he could pay for the privilege.
The Uber drops me off in front of a run-down gay bar.
I look around.
A figure in a doorway a few feet away says my name.
It’s him.
More disheveled than his Raya photos, less senator’s son and more…guy whos house i shouldnt go into.
Turns out he sent the Uber to his apartment, not the bar.
He says he just “wanted to get himself together before we went out.”
How he’s been out all day. How his friend had a set somewhere.
It’s a lot of words for a man who can’t stand up straight.
I follow him inside anyway.
The apartment’s small but trying.
Stacks of cash on the couch. Books on the floor. A sea of empty cups.
He’s six-four, but somehow the mess is taller.
I sit.
He paces.
I realize very quickly this isn’t a date—it’s a live performance of a man unraveling in real time.
After thirty minutes (which felt like hours), I say I’m going back to LES.
He says he’ll come.
Normally I’d say no, but I was broke and tired and figured if I’m already stuck in this fever dream, I might as well get a free Uber and free drinks out of it. Plus it’d be something to write about.
So I let him tag along.
In the car, he tries to kiss me, calls me “exotic”-- which was basically code for I have no idea what your name is, but I’m hoping you’ll still make out with me.
We get to Clandestino.
We walk in and my friends look at me like I’ve brought a rescue project into the bar.
I tell him to get me a mezcal on the rocks with an orange peel.
He comes back with tequila. Says, “I forgot what you said.”
Right then, one of my friends leans over and whispers, “Kaia…you know Mr. I’m married” is here, right?”
And I realized I’d invited him earlier in the night. Then completely forgot.
Important to note that Mr. I’m married was technically, legally married—though separated and mid-divorce, which I did not learn until three months in, at 4 a.m., in his dining room.
He was wasted. I was mostly sober.
He told me like it was a punchline. Literally blurted out “I’m married” and laughed harder than I’ve ever seen him laugh before.
We’re seeing a pattern here.
Anyway,
Now I’m standing there with a drunk senator’s son calling me exotic and a married man scanning the room for me.
The bartender—a guy who’s never once pretended to like me—starts hovering nearby, eyebrows raised like, you good?
I nod.
He lingers anyway. I want to see how far down this can go.
Eventually, I tell the senator’s son he should go home.
He says, “Finally. Let’s go.”
I say, “No. Just you.”
He doesn’t get it.
So I take his phone, call him an Uber, and while it’s loading, he tells me he’s “never hooked up with a Latina before.”
Cool. Still hasn’t.
When the car arrives, I walk him out.
Open the door like the gentleman I apparently am, and say, “Hope you get home fine or whatever.”
Then I shut the door. Hard.
I sneak back into the bar, find Mr. I’m married, and pretend none of it happened.
By the time I get home better known as Mr I’m married home, my phone’s lighting up like a slot machine.
Thirty-six texts.
“Yu were a hot gal indeed.”
“Do com back.”
“Whee are you.”
Poetry.
Months later, in December, he texts again. Said he felt bad about that night. Said he was sober and relapsed the day that we met and remembers nothing but has me saved in his phone as “really hot gal” and that’s all he remembered about me besides the fact that I lived uptown.
Then adds that he’s “in my hood” — the Upper West Side — for an AA meeting.
I remind him I live on the Upper East Side.
I tell him that’s great, that I’m happy he’s getting help.
He says, “Oh no, I wasn’t attending. I was speaking.”
As if he’d just been flown in to save a room full of broken people.
As if he wasn’t one of them.
As if we’d both forgotten the night he couldn’t remember.
He wanted to see me again.
Suggested I come to his place at 10 p.m.
I said, “What about an actual date?”
He said, “I’ll get back to you on that.”
He didn’t.
Which was fine. I didn’t want a date. I just wanted the story.
Now it’s October and almost a whole year later.
I’ve dated everyone in New York and somehow Miami and Los Angeles too.
Cleared the roster. Ended two pseudo-relationships. Achieved emotional bankruptcy.
My Instagram ads are starting to mock me: egg donation, femdom recruitment, Uber assault settlements, archival fashion I can’t afford.
And then—one night, I get an ad for a dating app.
Not unusual. Except this one says,
“A matchmaking club. For intentional daters only.”
And right there, looking back at me like divine punishment, is him.
The senator’s son.
Underneath his photo:
“We introduce you to the right person.”
Maybe.
But if that’s the right person, then I’ve been the wrong one all along.