A Tale of Two Tickets

One of the biggest issues that's plagued me since moving to LA almost two years ago is constantly being presented with the decision to buy one ticket or two.

It doesn't matter what it's for - a concert, an architectural tour, a Halloween party, a play - I am inclined, as I always am, to buy one ticket, but I'm haunted by the voices of people who are aghast at my solitude and say things like, "Why didn't you tell me? I would have gone."

Foolishly believing them, sometimes, when planning ahead, I buy two tickets.

And I almost always regret it.

Unfortunately, I don't have enough disposable income to just chalk up the extra, unused ticket if I can't find a date. And I can rarely find a date - male or female, romantic or platonic.

I sold my extra ticket for the Playboy Jazz Festival at the Hollywood Bowl to a scalper, thumbing my nose at my own industry.

So why don't I just resign myself to the fact that my concert-going and theater-going is as characterized by "Ticket for One" as my dining out is characterized by "Table for One"?

Because I still hold out some hope of finding a mate in this city of men who just aren't that into me, and I have hypothesized that I need to dangle an extra ticket for something at a specific place and time like a carrot, just to encourage a rabbit to give me a sniff. Thus far, my hypothesis is unproven.

When I bought tickets to see Al Green in concert at The Greek over the summer, I bought two of them, thinking surely someone would want to see Al Green: The Reverend, the legend, the purveyor of Love and Happiness. I then embarked on the humiliating task of asking every single guy I knew - including those with whom I'm just friends - to go, even offering to reduce or absorb the ticket price, and then accepting each rejection and regret as they came in, one by one. (I ended up going with a married friend of mine who's a big fan and having a great time. I probably should have asked him first.)

To be honest, it's more mortifying to be turned down than it is to not ask anyone at all, and just go by myself.

Even when the tickets are free, I'm reticent to ask for two. And yet, occasionally, I still torture myself by doing so. I have two tickets to see Prince perform a live mini-concert for a TV show next week. I've asked and been turned down by one single, possibly dateable guy who I think is just not that into me, and I'm too exhausted to ask anyone else.

And so I've booked myself at three costume parties over the next week and a half leading up to Halloween, and I'm going stag to all of them. Maybe I'll meet someone there. Maybe I'll feel like an underdressed social outcast.

But either way, at least I don't have to worry who's going with me.

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