Free If at Birth You Don't Succeed by Zach Anner

soda, a process that begged for all sorts of innuendos and puns I wouldn’t dare make on the Oprah Winfrey Network. The egg cream tasted like a carbonated milk shake and I would have gladly had three of them, but I didn’t need any more of those to bring all the girls to the yard because there were seven lucky ladies waiting to date me in a bar across town.
    I wish I could tell you more details about this location, but I inherited my sense of direction from Christopher Columbus. All I know is that it was somewhere in the New York City metropolitan area and across from a Starbucks. The only reason I remember this detail is because that’s where Andrew and I went to kill the two hours it took them to set up lighting in an intentionally dark bar. Andrew had a peppermint latte; I had a panic attack. Speed dating was a far more terrifying prospect than doing stand-up. This wasn’t a mock wedding, this was actual dating, to be mocked later by a television audience. The speed at which I had dated women previously had been a spritely zero to three dates per twenty-six years. I had no suitable explanation for my lack of romantic endeavors, and Andrew had suggested that instead of explaining my lifelong drought, I simply say I was “between girlfriends.”
    â€œTechnically it’s true,” he said, sucking his latte through a straw. “You’re between zero and one girlfriends!”
    Now I was about to date seven girls in a row for eight minutes apiece, with explicit instructions to become romantically interested in at least one of them. It was in the script and I had learned over the past few weeks of filming, the best way to make reality television was to follow the script to the letter. But if I couldn’t calm my nerves, I’d be approaching these stilted rendezvous with all the charm of a sweaty serial killer. You know, the kind in those Dateline murder shows where they say, “On the surface, Zach seemed like a picture-perfect guy. But something was off when he was around women. Could it have been enough for him to … murder ?”
    When the lights were finally illuminating that bat cave of a bar, filming took two hours longer than scheduled. Instead of the standard eight minutes, I was given twenty with each prospective soul mate that were later edited to look like eight. I was cordial with each of my suitors but clicked with none. We were encouraged to split desserts and share intimate moments with just me, my date, the two camera guys, the sound guy, the director, the comedy producer, the matchmaker, the bar owner, and a very impatient and nervous producer, yelling over at the director, “We gotta hurry it up, guys. This is going on WAY too long.” The camera guys grinned—“Yeah, bitch, get me some more of that Oprah money!”—knowing we were now officially in overtime.
    Over the course of my dating spree, I met a woman from Cape Town, South Africa, and another who intrigued me merely because she made her own ice cream. The most awkward encounter was with a girl who broke the ice by declaring, “I like dark Asian horror movies.” I sheepishly responded, “I like brighter things, like little romantic comedies,” which was followed by unimpressed silence. Our conversation was over and we still had to sit there for either six or eighteen minutes, depending on whether we’re talking about reality or reality TV. This girl’s name, as it turned out, was Caroline. I took this coincidence as an omen that I should expect a similarly cool reception from Carolines, the comedy club.
    In the end, I picked a girl named Ella. Our deepest connection was made when I remarked, “Oh, Ella! Like Ella Fitzgerald?” and she replied, “Yeah.” A woman having the same name as a singer I sort of liked seemed as good a reason as any to date someone after a thirteen-hour shoot day. I also liked how Ella seemed to be the person least