It is type of like first-date jitters. As I dial the stranger’s quantity, I can really feel my coronary heart fluttering, and my fingers shaking.
I absorb a shaky breath proper earlier than the cellphone stops ringing and I hear the voice of a person on the opposite finish: “Whats up?”
For those who dwell in New York, you have in all probability already noticed one in every of his tear-off tab fliers: “Trying For a Girlfriend” is printed in daring, blackened typeface. The face of the person stares you again squarely within the eye.
The printed plea is easy and unassuming: “I am actually on the lookout for a girlfriend. This isn’t a joke. Simply bored with the singles scene and hoping to satisfy the best individual. I’m knowledgeable artist and inventive individual. You realize who you might be. To me every individual is gorgeous. Open to the opportunity of the connection morphing into one thing extra profound.”
Candy if not a tad idealistic, proper? I made a decision to ring him up and get his story.
His identify is Dan Perino and he is a 50-year-old artist dwelling within the West Village. He plans to submit 500 fliers day by day for 30 days. (For those who do the maths, that is about 15,000 fliers in complete — this man is significantly dedicated).
Up to now, he is obtained about 400 calls. On Friday alone, he obtained 131 calls.
So what’s his deal? Why not simply join on OkCupid or Tinder like all people else?
“I do not consider in web relationship or Craigslist as a result of that will simply put me on the web all day lengthy,” he griped. Honest sufficient.
For Perino, there’s truly a bit extra to this than meets the attention. He is calling it a “nice social experiment” and he is already come to a couple of his personal conclusions in regards to the fashionable relationship scene.
“I met a lady a month in the past at a bar,” he recalled over the cellphone. “She was lovely, however she turned me down. It gave me the concept. I needed to find out about ladies and men, about relationships.”
That is not to say that he hasn’t had a couple of ahem, attention-grabbing, propositions to this point.
“This lady — she was main me on — and I mentioned I used to be going to name. However once I referred to as her quantity, I acquired this message: ‘Make a chimpanzee noise to listen to my quantity. And bark like a canine to listen to my voicemail.’ It seems she was a stripper with a boyfriend, and he or she simply needed to have enjoyable with me. I am on the web now, so folks know my face. Individuals have chased me down the road. Males have referred to as asking me, ‘How a lot?’ All of them need to be intimate with me.”
Off the cellphone and across the metropolis, his interactions are drastically totally different.
“I seen one thing — that girls are very, very shy on the cellphone,” he noticed.
“However outdoors, girls present numerous affection, and also you see it in {couples} strolling down the road. The lady will rub her boyfriend’s again, contact his arm, or attempt to maintain palms. And males truly shoo that. Males are completely reverse. Lots of guys hoot and holler at a girl, however that is not affection. At this time, you’ve gotten folks getting married, however there is not any affection, no communication. There isn’t any communication on a movie show date.”
I assume you may take into account him an informal philosophizing observer of the relationship scene … who additionally occurs to be on the lookout for his match.
“I am only a man on the lookout for a girlfriend,” he mentioned. “However I will be alone in mattress earlier than I’m going right into a bar to select up a girl.”
Then I hope these 15,000 fliers work out for you, man. Better of luck.
Alexandra Churchill is a digital editor who at present works for Martha Stewart Dwelling. Her work has been featured on quite a few websites together with The Huffington Submit, Her Campus, USA TODAY Faculty, and Northshore and Ocean House magazines.
