VEGAN PEANUT BUTTER BANANA OREO PARFAITS.

I’ll confess—in my single world, the holiday does feel mostly like an affliction, something put upon me by the capitalist powers that be. In days of yore, when my mom was still alive, she would hand craft the most gorgeous Valentine’s Day cards for me, from doilies and glitter and red craft paper and sweet cupid stickers. She’d write me love poems.

But now I’m single and Valentine’s Day, motherless and partnerless, is, yes, somewhat of an affliction. But instead of remaining afflicted, I thought I’d share with you a story from my weird and (sometimes) thrilling dating life as a single woman in Los Angeles. Except this story begins in the sky. On a flight.

We talked the entire plane ride to Hawaii. Five hours. He was handsome. He was Jewish. He was a world traveler. He’d been in the Peace Corps. He showed me every single picture on his phone, all the cucumbers and potatoes and herbs he’d grown in Africa, his ex-girlfriend, the pizza he made for his parents. I showed him photos I was editing, of our vegetarian Thanksgiving feast (it was November). Sometimes I thought we might kiss, but then that shift in the air would shift again, and pass. And when he stood up to go to the bathroom, somewhere in the middle of nowhere, 36,000 feet in the sky, I realized that the body he occupied—the actual human that he was in space, not confined to a tiny airplane seat—was much different than I’d imagined.

Not better or worse. Just different.

In my mind, sitting with him in the liminal space of the plane, only his torso and arms visible to me, he became my ideal man. I crafted for him a body and a gait, an entire way of being. I crafted the man I thought I wanted. And then he stood up. And he was his own self.

We parted ways upon landing, and later that day I joyfully exclaimed to my friends and family that my faith in humanity had been restored. So rare it is to have such an easy, humane connection with someone. So sweet.

Months later—just two weeks ago, in fact—I matched with another handsome fellow on a dating app called Bumble. (That’s the one where the lady has to message first. Still trying to figure out how they handle that for same sex couples, but I digress.) This fellow and I start chatting, and he mentions he, too, is very into photography. He sends me his photography site, and I start clicking through sunsets and wave crashes and ladies with hair flowing in the wind and THE GUY I TALKED TO FOR FIVE HOURS ON THE PLANE TO HAWAII.

I have to ask you something weird, I text. I send a screenshot of the photo in question and ask, Is this a friend of yours? As I’m typing my explanation, his text bubble comes through: That’s my brother!

And then my head explodes. I tell him everything. We confirm details, dates, his brother’s intended destination. We’re both slightly intoxicated by the weirdness of the situation and the beautiful synchronicity of this coincidental history becoming romantic mythology. Now this would be a great story for the grandkids.

Of course, he asks me out.

The next day, he calls. We chat. He is a therapist. He is on his way into the office. He is also aggressively and artlessly throwing pick up lines at me. I tell him I’m recipe testing and he tells me he wants me to recipe test all over him. I ask if he told his brother the story and he asks why his brother always gets all the hot women. After a few more aimless lines, I say, You’re ridiculous. Let’s make a date. I want this to stop before it gets worse.

We set a time and a place and I tell him it’s in the cal. There’s a long pause and then, in deep earnestness, he sighs: Wow. You’re like a real adult. At which point my jaw drops and I feel deep fear for all the clients he is supposed to treat that day, and every day. But I laugh it off.

Later, he texts me: Don’t worry, I’m not always that weird. Ok I won’t 🙂, I respond. Gotta give a man some slack.

The next day, he writes to reschedule our date. I respond with options. He never writes back.

I was relieved, honestly. Despite the potential for romantic mythologizing. And yes, even despite his offer to let me recipe test all over him, as tempting as that was.

Too bad for him, though, because if he, too, had been a real adult he might be cuddling with me and eating one of these peanut butter banana mousse oreo cookie parfaits this very minute.

They’re heavenly. Make them. Eat them. Be love.

Nota bene re the vegan oreos: I adapted these to be vegan from my brilliant friend Molly Yeh’s blog, and while my vegan version is perfect for creating cookie crumbles, it didn’t make for the sturdiest cookie. Be gentle!