I woke up on the couch in my small apartment on a Thursday morning. As I pushed my way into an upright alertness, I knew that one of two things was soon to happen. Either my best friend Matt would knock on the door, bringing donuts and unwanted advice or one of my brothers, Taylor or Isaac, would barge in search of some rare food item their latest sexual conquest was requesting for breakfast. True to my suspicions, Taylor let himself in a few minutes later using a key I had given up in a moment of true stupidity.“Do you have any truffles?” he asked, looking like he hadn’t bathed in two days and smelling like sweat and whore perfume, as he brushed past me in my tiny kitchen, immediately digging through my food cabinets.
“Like the candy?” I queried, continuing to pour milk into my cereal bowl, watching the colorful bits of Fruity Pebbles float to the surface.
“No dumbass, like the mushrooms,” Taylor replied.
“Why the fuck would I have those?”
“Because rich chicks like them, especially in omelet’s for breakfast. But wait, you don’t have to worry about that knowing stuff like that, do you?”
“Just because I don’t go out looking to get laid by rich bitches like you doesn’t mean that I don’t get laid ever,” I fought back.
“Oh yeah? When’s the last time you did have sex? It was with Layne, wasn’t it?” Taylor asked, referring to my ex-girlfriend. The one who had broken up with me over a year prior. I hadn’t dated anyone since her, because I hadn’t found anyone who was worth dating.
“Excuse me for wanting to sleep with people who I actually care about,” I rolled my eyes, taking my bowl back to the couch and hoping that Taylor would disappear.
“Oh my god, Zac. There are hundreds of girls at each show who would do you in a second and you used to take some of them up on it. I don’t know when you got so high and mighty but-“
“I just had a taste of something better and it made me realize that the way I used to treat sex is not how I want to treat it any longer.”
“Then go find someone who you can have a sappy relationship with and get laid already. You’re way too fucking uptight lately,” Taylor said, and it was then I realized that Taylor had taken the box of Eggos from my freezer.
“I’m trying but it’s really hard.”
“That’s what she said,” Taylor practically giggled before sobering, “But seriously, you’re not really trying. Sitting around in your apartment by yourself watching Comedy Central is not going to get you a girlfriend.” He opened the door and started to step into the hallway that would lead him down to his own apartment.
“You owe me waffles!” I yelled at him as he closed the door hard behind him. I wanted to be mad at Taylor, but I knew he was right.
Ever since Layne had left me, I hadn’t made a true effort to meet someone. The only girls I saw on a regular basis were fans and I had tried dating them before. Let’s just say that it hadn’t gone well and several items had gone missing from my apartment, including two pairs of boxers and my deodorant. Fans, as good as their intentions might have been, were not the kind of girls I wanted to date, because they only wanted me because of the Zac Hanson who was on the stage in front of them. They thought they knew me, who I was and what I felt and wanted, but they had no idea. In front of the fans I’d always been a little kooky and I always tried hard to be in a good mood. But the truth of the matter was, I wasn’t always happy. There were days when being on stage was the absolute last place in the world I wanted to be. All I had ever wanted was someone who liked me for who I was, but when you’re well-known in the public eye, that’s damned hard to find.
And so, as always, instead of doing something to better my predicament, I instead settled in on the couch with my now mostly soggy cereal and flipped through my DVRed recordings until I found an episode of Comedy Central Presents I miraculously had never seen before. I hadn’t eaten more than three bites when a loud and familiar knock sounded on my door.
“It’s open!” I shouted out with a mouthful of food and Matt let himself inside.
“What’s up, loser?” he asked, dropping a bag of donuts on the coffee table in front of me before making himself comfortable on the other end of the couch.
“Nothing,” I shrugged, “Already had a wonderful visit and chat with my wise and crab-infested older brother.”
“Which one?” he asked, snatching the bag into his lap and perusing the contents while putting his feet up on the table.
“Taylor. He made sure to tell me yet again how badly I need to get laid but this time added that I’m not trying very hard to find someone.”
“Well, he has a point there,” Matt said.
“Where am I supposed to meet someone? At a show? At a bar? That’s just not me.”
“Where else are you going to do it? That’s what everyone else does; meet someone in the places they go all the time.”
“The only people I see regularly are my family and you.”
“You poor bastard,” Matt laughed.
“Exactly, so unless I date you, I don’t know what to do.”
“Well, your choice of breakfast cereal makes a little more sense now…” Matt joked, nodding towards my Fruit Loops, “I’m so touched that you decided to come out to me, but I only love you as a friend, Zac.” I kicked his legs, forcing his feet to drop to the foor, and made a face.
“I’m not gay.”
“You’re not straight either. You have to have some kind of sexual urges to have a sexuality.”
“I have… urges,” I said, staring down at my depleting breakfast, “I just don’t want to be like my brothers.”
“Then don’t be. But you need to do something, because honestly, it smells in here and you look like you wandered in from the street. Take a shower, clean up this shithole, and go try. You’ve been home from tour for over a month now and have you even unpacked?”
“A few things…”
“More than your toothbrush?”
“Get off my back. I can take care of myself.”
“That’s what she said,” Matt laughed, and I groaned. What was it with everyone today? And why was my love life suddenly so damned interesting? I was fine on my own. I had been fine before Layne, and I was just fine now.
“Don’t you have somewhere else to be? Someone else to harass?” I asked, taking a donut from the bag being outstretched towards me before he stood.
“I’ll only leave if you promise me that by the end of the day today, you will have made some kind of honest effort to meet a girl. And I’m not talking about finding a fan who wants to blow Zac Hanson behind the tour bus,” he said, saying my name in a high-pitched voice obviously intended to sound like a overenthusiastic fan.
“Fine,” I grumbled, shoving half the double chocolate donut in my mouth as he left.
Matt had been my friend for years now. Aside from my brothers, he knew me better than anyone in the world, and while I could have blown off his challenge, I knew that I needed to put myself out there. The fact of the matter was that I was scared. I was terrified of being hurt again and of dating girl after girl who wound up only liking me because of the famous side of me and not because of who I really was. I was messy and liked to watch TV. I didn’t sit around playing my drums all day, nor did I find such beauty in every moment that I felt constantly compelled to jot down song lyrics. I was just a human being and all I wanted was to find a girl who would like Zac Hanson: Very Normal Member of the Male Human Species and not Zac Hanson: Drummer of Hanson.
There were girls out there who could do that, I was sure, but it was the weeding out process that was exhausting. Hell, it was possible and likely probable that the girl for me wasn’t a fan at all. Maybe she wouldn’t even know that Hanson was still making music. A lot of people didn’t. But whether or not people knew about our current projects, most people did know who I was. Even if they didn’t recognize me immediately, once I told them my name, they knew who I was. And then all of the preconceived ideas about me came out and any chance I had of establishing who I really was went out the window.
So all I had to do was find someone who had no idea who I was or lie to them about my identity. Fantastic.
I finished the donut and brushed off the crumbs on my jeans, knowing that it was gross, but not caring. My eyes hadn’t been open for an hour yet and already I was in a bad mood brought on by the two conversations I’d had. Deciding to try to put it in the back of my mind, I turned my attention back to Maria Bamford on the TV and let myself laugh and lose myself in the show.
When the next commercial break started, I picked up the remote from the cushion beside me, ready to fast forward, but found myself watching the first commercial instead.
”See how it feels to be matched based on compatibility,” the commercial said. Compatibility. Not across-the-bar leering. Not someone I met by chance. Someone I was matched with because we were well-suited for each other. It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t my dream. But as I sat there and looked around my apartment, I realized something. I was lonely. I had been lonely for a long time. As much as I didn’t want to admit that Matt or, god forbid, Taylor was right, they were. I needed to find someone and I needed to try.
So, I got up from the couch, brushed the donut crumbs from my jeans and made my way over to my desk. Once my computer had booted up and Safari had loaded, I took a deep breath and let my fingers type the way to my destination: eHarmony.com.