Lifestyle
How Karis Dadson’s Icy Stare at Pig Shows Conquered TikTok

As she prepared to enter the pig ring on a recent weekend morning, Karis Dadson shifted her focus toward a judge who stood on a thick mat of sawdust shavings about 30 feet away.
That focus took the form of an icy stare that has captivated the hundreds of thousands of people who follow Karis, 14, and her family on social media. It was the same stare that has been celebrated by her fans — many of them young women — as empowering, “tuff” and the “meanest mug” in the game. The same stare that has been a source of inspiration to those who dream of emulating her while shopping for groceries, walking their dogs or confronting an annoying neighbor.
The same stare that has prompted such questions as: Who ticked her off? Does she feed her victims to the pigs? Can someone explain this to me?
And it was the same stare that was center stage last month at the Western Bonanza Junior Livestock Show, a three-day potpourri of denim, cowboy boots and expertly manicured animals — swine, sheep, goats and cattle — at the Paso Robles Event Center on the central coast of California. “The stare is iconic,” said Madelynn Gardner, 15, who ran up against Karis and her twin brother, Krew, in several contests over the weekend. “It’s a little intimidating.”
And it is purposeful. You just need to know a bit about livestock shows to understand it.
A field of more than 50 boys and girls, along with their pigs, had been cut to 16 for an age-group final in “swine showmanship,” a specialty for Karis. In showmanship, the exhibitors, as the handlers are known, are evaluated at least as stringently as their pigs are. Judges call out instructions and base their decisions on a host of factors, including how effectively the exhibitors present their pigs, the pigs’ responsiveness to their commands and the pace at which the pigs move. (Optimal pace? Between a jaunt and a trot.)
Karis, who stands 5 feet tall, wore a dark top with leopard-print sleeves, bluejeans and a Navajo pearl necklace, with her blonde hair in a bun. She was accompanied by Johnny Ringo, a 9-month-old, 270-pound crossbred barrow pig she had scrubbed to an immaculate shine.
By tapping him with a pair of small, thin whips that bore a resemblance to conducting batons, Karis guided Johnny Ringo through the ring while steering clear of four-legged traffic. As friends and family members watched from metal bleachers, Karis’s mother, Karalyn, crouched outside the ring with her Canon EOS R10.
“I always tell my kids that you have to try the be the least amount of annoying,” Mrs. Dadson said. “If the judges can’t find something annoying, you might stay up there.”
Through social media, the Dadsons, who raise and sell pigs, have brought livestock shows — and, more specifically, the niche world of show pigs — to the masses. A palate cleanser for doomscrollers, the videos, many of which have surpassed 10 million views, are a smorgasbord of farm-themed infotainment: tutorials, explainers, show recaps and, of course, crowd-pleasing stares. Karis, in particular, has emerged as a surprising symbol of female focus and determination — not that she meant for any of that to happen.
More than 100,000 young people participate annually in pig shows across the country, according to Clay Zwilling, the chief executive of the National Swine Registry. But there is only one pair of Dadson twins, who, Mr. Zwilling said, offer a “positive example of the show livestock industry” to many who never would have known it existed.
Karis and Krew have handled newfound celebrity in their own ways. While Krew says he likes the attention, Karis seems bewildered by it all. She sometimes wonders: How did she and her brother wind up on Will Smith’s Instagram feed? Why are so many other kids asking for selfies? Is she really a 21st-century queen and boss who, according to the internet, both serves and slays?
“It’s weird,” she said. “To me, I’m just another person showing a pig.”
Sharing Their Life
One of the semi-apocryphal stories about the Dadson twins is that they were born during a livestock show. The official version is that Mrs. Dadson went into labor while her husband, Kyle, was showing pigs at a nearby county fair. She had nearly told him he should stay home, but there was no chance it would play out that way.
It worked out in the end. After Mrs. Dadson called him, he beat her to the hospital, she said. Karis was born three minutes before Krew and has acted like his older sister ever since.
The Dadsons now live on a quiet street in Paso Robles, where they share their property with 12 show pigs, six sows, six piglets, two show sheep, four dogs, two ducks and four barn cats that work security.
“They’re supposed to eat the mice,” said Mr. Dadson, 46, an agriculture teacher at the nearby Atascadero High School, where Karis and Krew are freshmen.
Dozens of vinyl banners from livestock shows line the interior walls of the barn in their backyard where several of their pigs are housed. The twins have been showing pigs since they were 4. One of their first public appearances was at the California Pork Spectacular.
Mrs. Dadson, 38, had modest goals when she started sharing videos of her children competing. She had always enjoyed watching showmanship content online, she said, and wanted to contribute. She also was proud of her children. Best case scenario? Perhaps the posts would help the family sell some pigs.
So she was floored when her TikTok of Karis (staring, of course) at the 2022 Arizona National Livestock Show eclipsed one million views. Mrs. Dadson thought it would be a one-off. But then it happened again and again and again.
The overwhelming response to the videos was encapsulated in a comment from a TikTok user, which read: “Do I watch livestock shows? No. Did I know who this diva was the second she came on the screen? ABSOLUTELYYYY.” The comment alone received more than 20,000 likes.
The Dadsons have reached their largest audience via TikTok, where they have about 420,000 followers. But given TikTok’s uncertain future, Mrs. Dadson is glad the family has a presence on several other platforms, including Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.
For the record, all that staring is not a gimmick. Austin Thompson, one of the judges at the Western Bonanza, described making eye contact with judges as an “unwritten rule” in showmanship. It is a sign that the exhibitors are paying attention to the judge’s cues. And if it conveys confidence, that helps, too.
“I like the kids who come out of the gate with that kind of intensity,” Mr. Thompson said. “It just shows a little more care: They’re here to win and to do something.”
Karis said she had practiced until staring became second nature.
“I’m not thinking about the way that I look,” she said. “I’m thinking about how I’m moving around the ring.”
“I think it’s a little goofy,” Krew said.
‘We Are Pork Producers’
At the Western Bonanza, Karis was a cyclone of energy, bouncing between barns — she was also showing sheep — even though her path was interrupted every few feet so that she could give someone a hug.
“These are all my best friends,” said Karis, who checked her iPhone. “I’m already at 9,000 steps.”
Here, no one treated her like a social media star. Instead, she was just Karis, a teenager who likes to cook, spend time with her animals and gab on the phone with her friends.
At one point, her mother urged her to grab lunch.
“And not just Starbucks,” Mrs. Dadson said. “You need some protein.”
Karis resurfaced a few minutes later — with an ice cream cone. Her mother groaned.
“The line was too long!” Karis said.
It was also lunchtime for her pigs. James Backman, a show pig breeder from Denair, Calif., who works with several families like the Dadsons, was studying the animals to see how much additional feed each needed to bulk up before the next morning’s contests. The scene was vaguely reminiscent of boxers who cut weight before their bouts, except in reverse.
It served as a reminder that luminaries like Johnny Ringo are livestock, not pets. In the old days, farmers would get together to decide which of their pigs were best for breeding. Now, there are competitions, but the fundamental purpose is much the same. Some show pigs go back to breeders. Others are harvested for meat.
“My dad used to say that you’re producing a product that’s going to land on somebody’s dining room table,” Myrna Wicks, the Dadson twins’ maternal grandmother, said. “And it better be the best product you can put on that table.”
At the Western Bonanza, that message was reinforced when Karis grabbed a pulled pork sandwich from a friend’s nearby spread. Breakfast burritos at a food truck next to the pig barn came with a choice of bacon or chorizo.
Still, emotional attachments form on occasion (think: Wilbur from “Charlotte’s Web”). “There was one pig that Krew was like, ‘Do we have to get rid of him?’” Mrs. Dadson said. “His name was Dwayne.”
Krew gets it, though, and drove the point home when his family appeared on a recent episode of “The Pork Podcast.” The host had asked the Dadsons about their interactions with livestock show neophytes.
“Me, personally, I think the weirdest question I’ve seen on the comments section is, ‘Do you eat pork?’” Krew said. “And to answer that: Yes, we eat pork. We are pork producers, and we eat pork.”
While the Dadsons have earned enough money from social media to “pay for more pigs,” Mrs. Dadson said, the videos do not produce a steady stream of revenue. They enjoy other perks: free swag, for example, from animal feed companies like Hueber and Lindner, and from Andis, which manufactures clippers.
Given their visibility, the Dadsons sometimes feel like piñatas for animal-welfare advocates. Mr. Dadson said he had stopped reading the comments on their social media posts. Mrs. Dadson mines them for material so that she can correct misconceptions.
“It’s constant,” Mrs. Dadson said. “They don’t understand how well we take care of them. We like to think that they got to live out their best lives.”
The Dadsons can often be found wearing baseball caps with branding for All N, a hydration supplement. Their pigs apparently swear by it.
“Makes their skin pop,” Mrs. Dadson said.
‘She Commands Attention’
The pigs were not the only stylish ones in Paso Robles. The girls favored flared, boot-cut jeans by 7 for All Mankind with the No. 7 embroidered on the back pockets. Many of the boys wore jeans, button-down shirts and quarter-zips by Cinch.
“You put all this effort into their outfits,” Mrs. Dadson said, “and then they get ruined so fast. Pig poop all over them. But we try to keep them looking presentable most of the day.”
Despite the scatological obstacles, the fashion world has been calling. Karis recently made her modeling debut, appearing in the first issue of Domina Journal, a biannual art and fashion magazine that describes itself as a “testament to the perseverance of the artistic feminine spirit.”
Last summer, staff members from the magazine spent a few days at the family farm and at the California Mid-State Fair, where Jay Barrett, Domina’s editor in chief and fashion director, said Karis managed to stand out amid “cowboys in 10-gallon hats, rows of livestock and the biggest American flags I’ve ever seen.”
“She commands attention,” Ms. Barrett added in an email. “A look seasoned industry models strive for, at just 14, she’s got it. She’s exactly what we were looking for: defining female power, in an unexpected way.”
Karis said the photo shoot was fun. She also got a kick out of the people who dressed as her for Halloween. (One woman cast her husband in a supporting role as the pig.) But she knew her life had changed last summer when she was recognized at a series of livestock shows in the Midwest.
“It’s just different,” Karis said. “It’s not like I’m mad about it, but it’s new. I’m getting used to it.”
‘All These Kids Are Good’
In many ways, the Dadsons seem like accidental evangelists for the livestock life and the lessons they say it imparts to young people. Karis and Krew care for their pigs before and after school, feeding them, washing them and training them. They typically compete at one show a month.
In the process, Mr. Dadson said, the twins have learned how to create budgets and manage their time. Karis, who wants to work in agriculture when she grows up, said she was proud to be a part of her community.
“You could go up to any group in the pig barn,” she said, “and they would give you a three-course meal.”
Mr. Thompson, the judge at the Western Bonanza, recalled his own childhood raising show pigs. While the chance to compete often felt like a reward, each show produced only a handful of champions.
“It teaches you how to lose more than to win,” Mr. Thompson said. “You can work harder than anybody, and still not win. But you have to work to give yourself a chance.”
Win or lose, exhibitors invariably shake hands with the judge, though their disappointment sometimes manifests itself in the form of slouched shoulders and hangdog expressions.
For the longest time, Mrs. Dadson said, Karis looked up to her friend Maddy Lindley. Karis never thought she would compete at Maddy’s level, and when she did, her confidence soared. But Karis’s unusual level of public exposure has created unrealistic expectations.
“There are people who assume, ‘Oh, Karis should win every time,’” Mrs. Dadson said. “No, all these kids are good. You just don’t see their videos.”
At the Western Bonanza, the Dadsons advanced to the final in four contests. Karis won the showmanship crown in one and finished as the runner-up, or “reserve champion,” in another.
Whenever Karis left the ring and spotted her family, she abandoned the game face that has made her famous and adopted an expression that, as a show pig exhibitor, would most likely get her nowhere on social media: She smiled.

Lifestyle
Kristi Noem’s Rolex at El Salvador Prison Draws Attention

What do you wear on a visit to one of the world’s most notorious prisons?
If you’re Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary who visited El Salvador’s massive Terrorism Confinement Center on Wednesday, the answer was a white long-sleeve top, gray slacks and a baseball cap emblazoned with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement logo.
Oh, and a gold Rolex Cosmograph Daytona that sells for about $50,000.
Ms. Noem traveled to the prison, known as Cecot, where the Trump administration this month sent hundreds of Venezuelan deportees. Earlier this week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit denied the government’s attempts to restart the deportations, which a federal judge had blocked earlier in March. On Friday, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to allow it to resume the deportations.
At Cecot, as Ms. Noem filmed a video in front of a row of prisoners that were crowded tightly into bunks behind bars, her flashy watch bulged from her wrist, standing out in an austere scene.
The display led to a great deal of criticism on social media from people who questioned the taste of wearing such a pricey watch for the visit. Cecot, which opened in 2023 and was designed to hold as many as 40,000 prisoners, was a signature initiative of Nayib Bukele, the El Salvadoran president who has gained an international reputation for dealing with his country’s gang problem through mass incarceration — a campaign that has been criticized by multiple human rights groups.
In a statement about the watch, Tricia McLaughlin, homeland security’s assistant secretary for public affairs, wrote that Ms. Noem used the proceeds of her books “to purchase an item she could wear and one day pass down to her children.” Ms. McLaughlin did not address the decision to wear that potential heirloom to Cecot.
It is perhaps not a surprise that Ms. Noem, formerly the governor of South Dakota, owns a Rolex — the Swiss brand has been a watch of choice for politicians for decades. Former president Joseph R. Biden Jr., a known watch enthusiast, wore a Rolex Datejust to his inauguration — a choice that led to some criticism from the right. Presidents Trump, Ford and Reagan all wore Rolexes. And even the former Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev made a concession to the fruits of private industry when he wore a gold Datejust.
According to the watch journalist Brynn Wallner, the founder of Dimepiece, a site for female watch enthusiasts, the Daytona is among the most sought-after Rolexes. First produced in 1963, the watch shot to popularity when Paul Newman started wearing one. Today, the watch is hard to get — buyers typically have to sit on a yearslong wait list to buy it from an official dealer — and as a result, many resort to paying inflated prices on the secondary market.
“If you’re buying it, you’re flaunting the fact that you can even get one,” Ms. Wallner said. “And you probably pay a little more for it than you had to. It’s a flex piece. It’s a signifier of wealth. It’s not subtle at all.”
Paul Altieri, the founder and chief executive of Bob’s Watches, an online marketplace for the resale and trade of watches, agreed.
“Rolex intentionally keeps supplies limited to maintain exclusivity,” he said. “Most customers won’t be offered one unless they have a longstanding relationship with the dealer or are high-priority clients.”
That Ms. Noem’s watch was quickly identified was to be expected. “Watchspotting,” the internet sport of identifying the watches of public figures, has flourished in recent years.
At the Super Bowl in February, enthusiasts immediately identified a Jacob & Co. Caviar Tourbillon on Tom Brady’s wrist, which retails for more than $700,000. Jay-Z was even more extreme at last month’s Grammy Awards, wearing a Patek Philippe Minute Repeater Perpetual Calendarwatch, which retails for more than $2 million. Mr. Trump is often spotted wearing luxury watches beyond just Rolexes, and also has his own line of signature watches that cost as much as $100,000 each.
Watchspotters often pay close attention to any glimpses they can get of watches during awards shows and galas, and they quickly report what they find online.
Now, thanks to Ms. Noem, they have expanded their purview to prisons.
Lifestyle
L.A. Affairs: Our home survived the Palisades fire. Our love almost did not

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about a quote widely attributed to Tennessee Williams: “We live in a perpetually burning building, and what we must save from it, all the time, is love.”
When the Palisades fire broke out in January, forcing my teenage daughter and me to evacuate from our quaint canyon home while my husband was at work on the other side of town, I did my best to gather our most essential items before heading for safety. Drenched in a cold and sudden sweat, I grabbed our family’s passports, a baby album, my vintage Levi’s — tossing them all into a large silver suitcase.
As my girl and I crawled out of Santa Monica, inching our way through a clogged artery of cars, I felt as though I were in a dream: Neighbors lined the streets, loading up the trunks of their cars while a massive plume of black smoke hunted us in our rearview mirror. Between chatting nervously with my daughter and navigating the roads, it occurred to me that I’d forgotten my grandmother’s brass heart-shaped locket. I’d forgotten the framed photo of my husband and me from our honeymoon to Maui decades earlier. While my daughter tried to calm our two panting pups in the back seat, I worried: What else had I forgotten to save?
No one knew at the time that what began as a local wildfire would quickly come to decimate our city; a beloved small town within the larger landscape of L.A. And I had no idea that my own life — specifically my marriage and the little family we’d created — was itself about to be scorched.
When you choose to live in Los Angeles, you do so with the understanding that, at some point, you may be required to brace yourself for all manner of natural disasters. Earthquakes are the one that have always scared me the most. As a little girl living with my mother in Ohio as my father resided in L.A., I used to pray at bedtime that he’d make it through the night. When, at 18, I finally made my way out West for good, I began reciting the same prayer for myself.
Fires weren’t so much on my radar, but as it happens, they have the ability to shift the earth beneath one’s feet just as drastically. After days of uncertainty, staring at the Firewatch app as miles of hillside and countless numbers of homes were reduced to ash, we let out a collective sigh as we learned that our house remained standing. And yet with the entire contents of our home ravaged by toxic soot and smoke, we, along with thousands of others, were displaced, forced to find temporary housing.
Five weeks passed in a fever-dream of Airbnbs and air mattresses until, finally, we were able to secure a short-term lease on a place of our own. It was a minor miracle in the current L.A. market of limited availability and price gouging. Standing in the barren living room of an unfurnished Hollywood rental, my husband and I should have collapsed in relief. Instead, we did what any exhausted couple of 20-plus years might do: We fought.
“I need a break,” he said, jaw clenched.
“What do you mean?” I shot back. But after months of couples therapy, I knew exactly what he meant. He needed a break from us, or, rather, from me. Our dogs barked incessantly.
I dropped my head into my hands and squeezed hard — a futile attempt to contain the chaos in my brain. Tears forced their way through closed lids, streaming hot down my cheeks. As a little girl growing up in the ’80s, one of my favorite movies was “Firestarter,” starring an 8-year-old Drew Barrymore. When enraged or overwhelmed, Barrymore’s character would start fires with her mind. I remember fearing back then that I, too, might have this power, so profound was my pain.
Now, despite decades of my own inner work, despite years of actively trying to not be ruled by the wounds of my past, I couldn’t help but to detonate at the threat of my husband leaving me.
But having a child means that even during times of disaster, natural or self-made, we must carry on. As the days passed, I attempted to blend our old life with our new one by scattering our few family photos around the apartment, helping my daughter navigate a new bus route, dealing with insurance adjusters. Yet as my husband grew increasingly more distant, I sank into a state of despair.
Loss suddenly seemed everywhere. Beyond the many dear friends who lost their homes in the Palisades and Altadena fires, beyond the decimation to our once gorgeous coastline between Santa Monica and Malibu, I thought of my daughter who would soon be off to college, of my ailing father, of my marriage. Unable to eat or sleep, I sought out help. I met with my trusted longtime therapist, emailed my spiritual teacher, road-tripped down to Orange County to visit my best friend. I also met with a grief therapist with whom I’d worked a decade earlier.
“You have some very real, very major things happening. But this isn’t just about now. What does this feeling remind you of, Evan?” she asked, her voice soft and supportive as she leaned in toward the screen separating us.
Suddenly I was no longer idling in my parked car, phone propped up on my steering wheel. I was 9 years old again, unaccompanied on an airplane somewhere above the continental U.S., being hurled between two contentiously divorced parents. As I talked through my present-day experience, I began to understand exactly what had happened between my husband and me on the day of our move; why I had lashed out so fiercely.
Famed psychologist Richard Schwartz, founder of Internal Family Systems therapy, posits that our minds are made up of different sub-personalities much like a family system. He labels some of these parts our exiles — the wounded selves that hold our deepest pain. When my husband questioned our marriage, my exiles, my most fragile, fearful parts felt wildly threatened. That is when my firefighters — our most reactive, protective parts (and no, the irony is not lost on me) — stormed in to shield them unfortunately in the only way they knew how: through rage.
They weren’t trying to destroy my marriage; they were just trying to keep me from once again experiencing the anguish of being launched into the world, alone and afraid.
Every day for over a week, I knelt before a makeshift altar in my bedroom, anchored myself to my breath and performed a most Herculean feat: twice daily, hour-long meditations. Rather than resist my sadness, I allowed myself to feel it fully — even when this meant soaking my T-shirt in tears, even when it felt as though the tears would never stop.
“I can handle my life” became my new mantra.
As I began to experience the sort of clarity and calm that only meditation can bring, I had a powerful insight: I recently trained to work as a doula, supporting women through labor, reminding them that the most unfathomable pain — in life as in birth — comes just before the new version of themselves can be born.
I considered how, for days on end, I’d cried in the shower, doubled over in heartache. I can’t survive this, I’d sobbed to my best friend. You will, she insisted.
I pleaded to the universe to spare me of my suffering, to reverse time, to let me be anywhere but here.
Just like birthing mamas do in the throes of labor.
But as I was recently reminded, our agony isn’t the end of the story. It’s the threshold. And when once we emerge on the other side — and we always do no matter how unlikely our survival may seem — we emerge transformed.
After eight interminable days, it struck me: My husband was suffering just as deeply as I was.
Sitting across from him at a tiny, borrowed wooden table, I chose to tell him: “I understand now. I hear you. I’m sorry.” Suddenly, he softened. My ability to empathize enabled him to see a door where once he’d believed none had existed.
In the end, had I saved love? It’s such an amorphous, ever-evolving entity; I’m not really sure. Though I certainly hope so.
But what I do know now is that this fire hadn’t come to destroy me; it came to show me what was indestructible. It came to show me that I could, indeed, handle my life.
The author is a writer, yoga teacher and doula in L.A. She is at work on a memoir. She’s on Instagram: @evanecooper
L.A. Affairs chronicles the search for romantic love in all its glorious expressions in the L.A. area, and we want to hear your true story. We pay $400 for a published essay. Email LAAffairs@latimes.com. You can find submission guidelines here. You can find past columns here.
Lifestyle
Ode to a Gen-Z Situationship

I met Jacob at an overcrowded Abba-themed dance night. He was wearing a faux-fur head wrap. He seemed so young. I was 33. Still, I thought he was cute. When we locked eyes on the smoking patio, I thought the feeling was mutual.
We got to chatting. Jacob said he worked “in music,” which I took to mean he sometimes played the guitar. He asked what I did, and I brushed off the question. I didn’t feel like talking about work.
A week earlier, my ex had moved out of our apartment. After six years together, he said, “Anna, I don’t think this is working.” And just like that, we were over. There were plenty of reasons. We argued too much, had different timelines for children. And then there was the sex — or lack thereof.
Couples therapy helped with the arguing but not the intimacy. When he finally handed me his key, I sat in my half-empty apartment and cried.
Now, with Jacob, I thought about how most of my friends were starting families and buying houses. And here I was at Abba Night, drinking a vodka soda.
He asked for my number. I gave it to him, not expecting much.
The next day, he asked if I wanted to get a drink. We met for margaritas. I was early. I realized that I barely remembered his face. All I knew was that he seemed young. As I waited at the bar, I wondered just how young. Finally, he appeared, looking like he was dressed for Coachella — baggy cargo pants and chunky, layered necklaces. I could barely meet his gaze.
He was 24, almost a decade younger. I was embarrassed, but Jacob shrugged.
“Age doesn’t matter,” he said.
Which of course, wasn’t true.
He told me he was a rapper and that his tracks had done well on Spotify. I was surprised. Impressed, even. He said a manager was interested, but he’d have to fork over a huge chunk of his profits.
I started to give him advice — as a TV writer, I had experience with predatory contracts. Then I stopped myself. Did I sound like his mother? We talked more. We didn’t have much in common, but I wasn’t ready to give up. When we finished our margaritas, I suggested a second bar.
The next place was swanky. The bartender gave me a funny look. Was he judging me? Maybe nine-and-a-half years wasn’t that much, but I’d never been on this side of an age gap. In my early 20s, I had dated a handful of older men. At the time, I found their age alluring, but hindsight had made me skeptical of their attraction. I once heard that adult brains aren’t fully developed until the age of 25. Was my young self simply easier to manipulate?
Sitting with Jacob, I wondered if now I was the creepy older man. I ordered myself an orange wine and he blinked. “What’s that?” he asked.
I explained it had something to do with the grape skins. He nodded blankly, then he asked what I was working on. I told him about my horror script about a girl who loses her mind in the woods. He listened, eyes wide. He told me it sounded “like a real movie.” I knew he meant it as a compliment.
Jacob was a gentle lover, if a bit nervous. He lingered in my living room for an hour before kissing me. I didn’t mind. He was a good kisser. And when he ran his fingers along my arm, the age gap disappeared. We were just two people on a fitted sheet, trying to feel less alone. For once, sex felt effortless.
On our second date, Jacob showed me his music. It was chaotic and loud. Even his voice — deep and full of swagger — felt unfamiliar. I didn’t understand it.
On our third date, lying naked in bed, I told Jacob I wasn’t looking for anything serious. I explained that I was emotionally unavailable because of my breakup. He said that was OK. Perfect, in fact. Because he wanted to focus on his music, not love. We agreed to keep things casual.
“Casual” meant seeing each other once a week. He always offered to pay, but usually I grabbed the check. I knew my TV writer salary exceeded his Spotify profits. He lived in a cramped studio apartment and slept on a futon. I had slept there once, but my back hurt so much from the flimsy cushions that I vowed never to do it again.
Two months in, we went clubbing with his friends in a sweaty basement bar where everyone seemed younger than me. I was dressed in high-waisted Zara jeans and a tank top I’d bought in 2017. The other women wore low-slung pants with tiny crop tops, oozing the kind of confidence you feel when you’re still on your parents’ health insurance.
One vented to me about her on-again-off-again boyfriend. I suggested couples therapy. She looked at me like I had told her to eat a shoe.
The next morning, I peered into my bathroom mirror, hyper-aware of the wrinkles on my forehead. I had turned 30 in the first year of Covid. Prepandemic, I didn’t remember ever having wrinkles. Post-pandemic, my face seemed centuries older.
After three months, I found myself falling for Jacob. On Valentine’s Day, I took him to my favorite sushi restaurant. Afterward, in bed, I told him how I felt. I said I didn’t need a serious relationship, but I wanted to take things to the next level. Maybe a weekend trip?
He grew quiet. “Maybe,” he said.
During our next date, Jacob dumped me. We had just ordered our entrees when he dropped the bomb, saying, “I think we should roll things back romantically.”
I didn’t get it. Was this about the weekend trip? He said it was everything. I never understood his jokes. We had different interests. And hadn’t we agreed to keep things casual? Didn’t I notice that when I told him I was falling for him, he never said it back?
The waiter returned with our entrees — salad for me, and a big bowl of mac and cheese for Jacob. Waiting for the bill, I wanted to cry, but I refused. It was one thing to date a 24-year-old in a faux-fur head wrap; it was quite another to get dumped by one.
That night, I couldn’t sleep. At 3 a.m., I opened Spotify and clicked Jacob’s first track. I listened over and over until the music no longer confused me. What had initially sounded chaotic now seemed urgent and driving.
I searched Spotify for similar artists. It was as if dating Jacob had opened my eyes to the fact that there was a new generation of people creating art, and it was worth trying to understand. Obvious, maybe, but I’d missed it.
Jacob and I had only dated a few months and barely scratched the surface of our emotions. We were, by all accounts, a “situationship.” And I had spent most of it focused on myself. Because I paid for things, I chose what we did, what we ate. And it wasn’t just that. He seemed endlessly impressed by my writing career. He made me feel like I had things figured out. But I hadn’t considered how it all made him feel. That maybe the constant focus on my life made him feel small and unmoored.
A month later, I willed myself onto the dating apps. When I met Jacob, I was reeling from heartbreak. But things had changed, and I had to admit that sex with anyone would now, inevitably, lead to feelings.
I soon matched with a guy named Lucas. He was 45, with eye wrinkles and gray hair in his beard. On our second date, he took me to a fancy restaurant and ordered the orange wine. He had just bought a house in Encino and redone the floors. After our fourth date, he suggested a weekend trip. Maybe Santa Barbara?
I liked Lucas, but what was I doing flinging myself so far across the age spectrum? Lucas wanted something serious. Was I ready for that? I told my therapist I was thinking of breaking it off. She asked why. I said, “Because he’s old!”
She laughed. “If you like him, that’s all that matters.”
I said yes to Santa Barbara.
A year after my breakup with Jacob, he texted me. He was now 25, meaning his brain had officially finished developing. When he asked if I would like to meet up, I was shocked. Did he finally realize that he couldn’t live without me? He clarified that he still didn’t want anything serious, but would I be interested in a no-strings hookup?
I politely declined. Lucas and I had plans.
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