We Are Never Meeting in Real Life

I am a deeply troubled person.

Have you ever filed for bankruptcy or Chapter 11? No, but I wish I had thought about that shit years ago before I decided to overdraw on an old bank account. DO NOT WALK AWAY FROM AN OVERDRAWN CHECKING ACCOUNT, FRIENDS. Why didn’t anyone ever teach me that shit? I mean, someone should write a primer for adulthood that’s just two or three sentences long:

1. WEAR CLOTHING THAT ACTUALLY FUCKING FITS.

2. BUY DRUGS FROM REPUTABLE DEALERS ONLY.

3. DO NOT WALK AWAY FROM AN OVERDRAWN CHECKING ACCOUNT.



I could have been such a better human.

Have you ever auditioned for or been a performer, participant, or contestant on a reality or other TV or radio show or in a film? What are the rules as far as comedy podcasts and rudimentary videos of stage performances recorded on shitty camera phones and uploaded to YouTube by assholes? Do those count?

Do you drink alcoholic beverages? DO I.

What’s your favorite drink? I don’t believe in pretending to be cool anymore. If I did I would tell you that I enjoy two fingers of nicely aged bourbon, neat with a water back. In real life I drink daiquiris and Skinnygirl margaritas and shit like cupcake-flavored vodka. Also I really love beer, but not any of the impressive kinds that you order to show how exceptional you are. I basically drink like a sorority pledge.

Have you ever been married or engaged? NOPE.

Do you have any children? I’m counting the cat here. So, yes.

Are you genuinely looking to get married, and why? Honestly? I don’t know, homie. Marriage seems so hard. I mean, even the ones on television look like they just take so much goddamned work. I’m lazy. Plus, getting out of one seems ridiculously expensive. And then when you get divorced, after all of the crying and draining of mutual bank accounts before your partner gets a chance to, you have to cut the children in half, which is probably very bloody and messy. You know, what I really need is someone who remembers to rotate this meaty pre-corpse toward the sun every couple of days and tries to get me to stop spending my money like a goddamn NBA lottery pick.

Why would you want to find your spouse on our TV show? Have you been to the club lately?! Shit’s fucking dire, man. Also, I need someone to watch Shark Tank with, and I feel like that’s a spousal kind of expectation. Can’t just ask your casual booty call to commit to spending Friday nights indoors arguing over the valuation of some at-home mom’s jelly and jam business. And I’m too poor to run multiple background checks.

Please describe your ideal mate in terms of physical attraction and in terms of personality attraction. Physical attraction? Not a real thing. If, at thirty-six years old, I’m sitting over here talking about chiseled abs and perfect teeth, then I am undeserving of genuine romantic love. I have slept with a handful of conventionally attractive humans, the prettiest of whom was this dude who worked at Best Buy and kind of resembled “So Anxious”–era Ginuwine. He was boring and lazy and totally caught off guard when I pointed those facts out to him. No one ever tells attractive children how much they suck, and then the rest of us get stuck with insufferable, narcissistic adults who can barely tie their shoes because someone else is busy either doing it for them or congratulating them on their effort. I do not have the energy to be in a relationship with someone exceptionally good-looking.

I don’t know what an attractive personality is. I like charisma and charm, but what I really need to find is someone who doesn’t get on my nerves but is also minimally annoyed by all the irritating things about me. That is my basic understanding of relationships at this point in my life: that it all comes down to finding someone too lazy to cheat and who doesn’t want to stab her ears out every time I speak.

How many serious relationships have you been in and how long were they? If I’m being honest, the answer is probably two. And if I’m really being transparent, one of those was mostly sexless bullshit, and the other spent half our relationship going to Barbados with women who weren’t me, so none.

What happened to end those relationships? IRRECONCILABLE DIFFERENCES.

What have you not found but would like to have in a relationship? Someone who will leave me the hell alone for extended periods of time without getting all weird about it. I have a lot of audiobooks to listen to on the toilet.

What are your hobbies and interests? Hobbies: eating snacks, sleeping during the day, scrolling through Facebook quickly enough that people’s stupid videos don’t start playing automatically, listening to slow jams.

I pretend to be interested in a lot of things: art, theater, recycling, donating to things, expensive varietals of coffee. But mostly I just watch television and read celebrity gossip on the Internet while getting most of my important news from Twitter, which I don’t even really like that much. I’m interested in animals and novels and red lipstick, but let’s just say “world issues” and “social justice” so I sound kind of smart to the viewing audience.

Do you have any pets? I HAVE A CAT-CHILD NAMED HELEN KELLER; I believe we’ve been over this already.

What accomplishment are you most proud of? If this is in a real book that someone is actually holding between her sweaty, chocolaty paws, then this is my proudest achievement. Also, learning to drive stick while wearing flip-flops. You have to be kind of a genius to do that, for real.



Samantha Irby's books