Once upon a time a city was erected, and when the neon lights were turned on, the people came in droves. Their dreams were advertised to them wholesale and everyone clamored over each other to buy them. When they realized these were not the dreams they wanted, the people turned to each other for meaning. But before they could embrace, fault-lines in the earth tore apart, separating them, and these chasms were filled-in with highways roaring with traffic. Alas, the people found themselves isolated on concrete islands with no way to reach each other. They now make up the permanent and wounded infrastructure of this city. They had loved and destroyed Los Angeles. . . and Los Angeles had returned the favor.

It makes sense that a town as fractured and desperate as L.A. would be the birthplace of speed-dating. Believe it or not, speed-dating was created by a Rabbi in Beverly Hills and the first event was held at a Pete’s Café in 1998. So the practice of lonely people voluntarily playing musical chairs with other lonely people is a distinctly 21st century activity, and an L.A. invention to boot. So when my colleague Sophie Kipner had suggested we partake in a night of speed-dating for an article, I couldn’t resist. We had been scrambling to come up with a male / female story for this issue, and previous efforts (including Porn Star Karaoke and Transvestite Bingo) had proven endearing, but fruitless.

Sophie arrives at my place and looks around, peering into my room, “So this is Marco’s love-den, huh?” she asks with a smirk.

“Ha. Not exactly. More like Marco’s writing-den,” the sad truth.

Having just left work, Sophie heads straight for the bathroom to get changed. She opens the door revealing her new outfit: dark, fitted jeans and a black, short-sleeved blouse with a large heart on her back comprised of shreds that reveal her skin. She engages me in conversation while she applies her make-up in the mirror. There is something wholly comforting about watching a girl putting on her make-up, getting ready for the night. It is a gentle, charming ritual I enjoy observing for some strange reason.

Minutes later we are in my car, leaving Mar Vista in our dust. We take Venice to La Cienega and shoot up into West Hollywood. Along the way, Sophie asks me for some male advice on her current state of social affairs, “My friends are trying to set me up with this one guy, who is really nice but not my type.”

“What’s your type?”

“I find myself attracted to musicians with lots of tattoos for some reason, although I know they’re not good for me. I wonder if I’m drawn to them out of some sort of subconscious effort to ensure they won’t last? Maybe I really want to be alone.”

“No one wants to be alone,” I tell her.

“Do you think I should go on the date even if I’m not attracted to him? My friends really want me to and maybe we will hit it off?”

“As corny as this sounds, you really need to listen to your heart. You can’t force attraction and there is no point in going through the motions to please your friends. Who the hell cares what they think? Life is too short to go through the motions.”

Ah, yes. The Motions. Those pointless circles we all find ourselves spinning in from time to time—usually out of sheer, mind-numbing boredom. The problem with The Motions is once you start them, it’s hard to stop. People lose their entire lives going through them, most of the time without even knowing it. Relationships and marriages, frozen in a polite co-dependency, devoid of joy or passion. They’re all around us like zombies in the night.

Sophie then asks about my love life, or lack thereof.

“I haven’t been on a date in almost three years,” I admit with only mild embarrassment.

“How come?” she asks me with a tone of concern that makes me even more self-conscious.

“Well, I was with my ex for two and a half years, and we broke up about six months ago, in which time I’ve been flying solo.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, what happened?”

What happened, indeed. What happens to all of us? Our hearts intersect in brilliant and beautiful ways only to veer off into sad and mysterious directions, but the answer Sophie gets is simply, “It just didn’t work out.”