I name my houseplants after movie characters that die. That way, if they don’t survive, it’s less tragic and more like a plotline.
This is all according to my Hinge profile.
It’s also real, unlike profiles that embellish (“where’s my happy place? with you gurl”) or lie (“still figuring out my dating goals”).
My plants are genuinely named after characters that die because I think it’s funny. Dobby (from “Harry Potter”), the snake plant. Fantine, the Zanzibar Gem. Goose (from “Top Gun”), the monstera. Tarzan’s Dad, the spider plant.
It’s not what men expect on a dating profile. And among the photos and prompts I must use to arrange myself for the male gaze, I get one sentence where I get to be me. Where I get to show my weird, honest self, and it feels like an exhale, the unbuttoning of ill-fitting jeans after a long day, a reprieve from curating photos of myself that feel like costumes.
Because those photos essentially are costumes, the product of the dating profile photo shoot I did this summer before moving from North Carolina to Nashville to restart my life. Five outfit changes, one meltdown and a carousel of props later, I had 147 photos and one video to document that I am in fact a person who exists in a body. She holds books! She pets dogs! She holds wine! She holds coffee! She laughs so naturally! (There are approximately three usable photos from this shoot.)
All summer after my divorce was finalized, my friends had been hoping I would start dating and raced at the opportunity to help get me back out there. I couldn’t exactly date while unemployed and sleeping in my friend’s unused nursery.
But after I landed a new job in a new city and signed the lease on my first solo apartment, I felt ready. My oldest friend and I were soaking up the last moments of summer at the beach when I leaned back and said, “I think I’m ready to date.”
Her eyes lit up.
The photo shoot was organized with the precision of New York Fashion Week working with the talent of a newborn giraffe. I posed in my friend’s clothes in locations around her backyard as we created the minimum foundation for a profile.
“No, no, change your hair. We have to make it look like this wasn’t all in one day.”
“Can you relax your shoulders? Why are you holding them to your ears?”
“Stop making that face — actually smile. Sara, your real smile.”
The photos gave me something to work with. Matches trickled in as I started to talk to men again and they commented on my photos.
“Clara! Where did you get the Frida Kahlo shirt?” I yelled across her house while brushing my teeth and haphazardly looking at a screen.
“Why?”
“Random internet man wants to know.”
“Target.”
I sorted through applicants and tried to not build lives with all of them in my head. I weeded through the aggressive pickup lines and learned how to use a dating app.
I thought it would be a good self-esteem boost. It was not. Instead, I learned creative new ways to hate myself.
The rules had changed since I last dated (in high school) and married my childhood sweetheart who became my adult heartache. I thought I had figured out a life hack to avoid it all: Marry the first person you ever love, and you’ll never have to do this! (#Lifehack! Follow me for more tips!) But then I was forced to learn the weight of phrases like “divorce,” “grief” and “restore maiden name.”
Life hacks are not so simple.
But since putting myself back out there, I have successfully survived two first dates. The first started with me saying, “Sure, I can rock climb,” after which I pretended to be a more athletic version of myself. He knew it, I knew it, my hands knew it as skin flayed in chalky pieces and my shoulders screamed.
There was no second date.
The second was mini golf, ending in me walking him to his car and then him driving me to my car followed by an awkward goodbye in the parking lot (involving finger guns).
There was no second date.
Since those failures, I have deleted the app and redownloaded it approximately 39 times as I try to work up the courage to try again.
Swipe, swipe, swipe and — well, he’s cute.
And suddenly I’m standing in Trader Joe’s trying to decide if it’s creepy to buy a guy a plant on a first date. He liked my plant thing, and over several days, we volleyed back and forth ideas for a store that sold plants and books. (I’m sorry, are we falling in love right now?) Each message pulled at my heart as I perked up in Pavlovian response.
“We’ve talked a lot about plants,” I think. “This one is a two-dollar succulent.”
I put it down, circle around, pick it back up.
The plant laughs at me from the cart.
I put it back.
If I buy this plant, it will be a premeditated gift. You can’t backpedal from giving someone a plant (“Oh, that’s just a little something I had in the car”). He’s going to know I was thinking about him! At the grocery store! The day before!
I buy the plant because I’m someone who buys people plants.
I’m sick of wondering what I should do, trying to figure out how much trying is too much, or what others will think. My mind is constantly racing, measuring, evaluating, screaming. Is this what we’re all doing?
No, I don’t think we are all buying plants from Trader Joe’s for the guy we are meeting for a first date. And yes, it does show I was thinking about him. But I am thinking about him. And why do I have to be so afraid of him knowing that?
I want to buy this plant. Because I think it’s fun, and I think I’m fun. Because I think it’s kind, and I think I’m kind. Because I think it’s silly, and I think I’m silly.
And all of this is the building and making and knowing of me.
And who knows, maybe we will fall madly in love and have mini succulents as party favors at our wedding. Or maybe this will be just a really fun Wednesday. Or maybe it can be something in between.
This is low stakes. This is fine.
I manage to survive a fitful night of sleep, haunted by plants and their meaning. I get ready for the day, applying waterproof mascara like a warrior’s mark because I am woman. I can do hard things! I can talk to boys!
I forget about the plant being in my car as I meet him at the taco place he picked. The conversation is effortless as we cover everything from family to “What food do you think best represents you?”
We cross the street to have an ice cream and ease back into conversation at a sticky table. I can’t help but wonder if this is how a date would have gone if I had met him in high school. Would we have dashed out of seventh period to his truck and spent hours giggling and flirting? Would he have even looked at me? Our last names are both near the end of the alphabet; our lockers would have been a stone’s throw apart.
After we close down the ice cream place, he walks me to my car, where the existence of the plant comes back to me in full force.
“Um, I actually have something for you,” I say. “It’s not weird or anything. It’s just meant to be funny, OK?”
His expression is half concern and half curiosity. I find myself tensing my shoulders to my ears as I prepare to be the weirdest and possibly most authentic version of myself. Nervousness blooms across my neck in bright pink splotches as I transfer the plant from my hands to his.
His smile is so bright that I want to go back and buy the entire case of two-dollar succulents to see it again.
I remind myself to manage expectations. I tell myself to remember that this is just a first date, and just a plant named after a character that died, so if it doesn’t work out, it’s only a plotline.
I drive home and step into my house that hosts a mausoleum of plants named after dead characters. My phone pings.
“Lil’ Sebastian and I made it home safe!” his message reads. “Thank you for a great night.”
I smile into the low glow of my phone. Next to his name, I add a plant emoji.
There is a second date.
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