Lifestyle
L.A. Affairs: He hadn't dated since 1989. Did a relationship with him stand a chance?
“I don’t want to go.”
“I get it.”
I was on the phone with my emotional support friend Jill, who was trying to pump me up to meet someone new despite her awareness of my latest soul-crushing connections. “You have had a challenging run lately, but you never know when it might turn around,” she said.
The idealist in me wanted to believe Jill could be right, but the realist in me wasn’t convinced. Despite delving into the app dating world in my early 50s with zero expectations and vowing not to be attached to any specific outcomes, I had grown weary from the process. But I was wearing heels and makeup and I’d blown out my hair in an effort that had felt Herculean ever since COVID. It would have been a shame for it all to go to waste.
I was meeting a date at Hugo’s in West Hollywood at 5:30 p.m. I left late because I was procrastinating, and then, thanks to L.A. traffic, got there at 5:45 p.m.
When I finally arrived after texting to let him know of my delay, I rushed up, trying to pull myself together. “I am so sorry.”
“Hi, you made it.” He got up for a quick hug and then walked behind me as I tried to figure out what was happening. He pulled my chair out for me. I acted as though this was an everyday occurrence. It definitely was not.
I had quickly learned to be prepared for dates to look worse than their worst profile picture; he looked even better than his best picture. The cynic in me was still on high alert for the red flags that were inevitably coming, but he was warm, with an easygoing demeanor, and very comfortable in his own skin. It turns out he was a very sought-after golf instructor who luckily didn’t care that I had never played.
“I like that you just reached over and ate one of my potatoes.” He was smiling and seemed genuinely pleased that I had done so. I hadn’t even realized I had scarfed down one of his potatoes, let alone without asking.
“I never do that. I must feel comfortable,” I said. Someone eating off my plate definitely annoyed me in most situations, but this felt different. I’m pretty sure I would have given him all of my potatoes had he maneuvered his fork in my direction. After he went to put money in the parking meter and actually came back, I was relieved. He later told me he was relieved I was still there when he returned.
“Am I talking too much?” I asked. I sometimes did that when I had nervous energy. “Not at all. I like learning about you,” he said.
He told me he had been in an almost 25-year marriage and, other than a few recent Bumble dates, he hadn’t dated since 1989. When he said he had no idea what he was doing, I told him I had been dating a lot recently and he was doing better than 99.9% of the men out there. I told him I hadn’t been in a relationship in almost 20 years, having prioritized my career for many years.
I was used to being interrogated about never having been married, but he didn’t seem to judge my choices. I told him about some of the most egregious dating offenses I had endured: he who suggested that we dine and dash and didn’t seem to be kidding, he who asked for business contacts after I declined a second date, he who took home my leftovers on the first date, he who contorted his body to go in for a kiss as I very pointedly went in for a hug. I could’ve continued late into the night.
He laughed and told me about his more run-of-the-mill dates, with whom he just hadn’t felt any romantic connection. One had cats, which would have been problematic since he was highly allergic. One might have been a hoarder.
It was quickly evident that we shared a similar sense of humor and prioritized the same attributes, such as honesty, kindness and a propensity for always trying to do the right thing. I also was pleasantly surprised that he ordered an iced tea; I had stopped drinking alcohol a month before.
He told me he went on Bumble on a whim because it scared him, which I admired. It was endearing that he had stepped outside his comfort zone, especially after not having dated since he was 21. After talking for more than three hours, he walked me to my car.
He gave me a quick hug, opened my car door and said, “Talk to you soon” — and then quickly walked away after patting me on the shoulder. It was the best first date I’d ever had, but the “Talk to you soon” really threw me. Was this a blow-off?
Later, while I was obsessively pondering whether I would ever hear from him again, he texted to make sure I got home safely. “I failed to tell you how great you looked tonight. I hope you can forgive me. I’m falling on my sword.” This could have felt cheesy, and yet I melted, a testament to his genuineness.
The next day I went on a horrible first coffee date that had been previously scheduled. It lasted 40 minutes, about 37 minutes too long. When I got to my car, I found Mr. Perfect First Date had texted again. “I’m sure there’s some stupid rule about texting you today, but I wanted you to know I had a really good time last night,” he wrote.
“In that case, should I have waited at least five hours to text you back?” I replied.
“Ha, yes, and I shouldn’t be sending you this response right now.”
“Should we agree that we don’t have to play by any rules?” I asked.
I was so tired from all the complicated dating noise that seemed to persist even at my age, so I was relieved he wasn’t playing games.
“Yes, please, “ he replied.
“Perfect, we just solved all the world’s problems.”
I didn’t hear from him for a couple of hours and then: “The next challenge is me asking you out again. Forward of me I know.”
“Let me think about it,” I teased. I let about a minute pass. “Kidding, yes, that would be lovely.”
“Phew, I was worried.”
We still don’t play by any rules. And I still don’t know anything about golf.
The author is new to writing after more than 20 years as a creative executive in the entertainment industry. She lives in Los Angeles with Mr. Perfect First Date. She’s on Instagram: @jobethplatt
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.
Students walk on the Stanford University campus on March 14, 2019, in Stanford, Calif.
Ben Margot/AP
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Ben Margot/AP
When Theo Baker arrived at Stanford University a few years ago, he joined the student newspaper, following the path of his journalist parents, Peter Baker, a White House correspondent for The New York Times, and Susan Glasser, a writer for The New Yorker.
Through his reporting as a student journalist, he eventually broke a story about manipulated data in Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne’s neuroscience research that helped lead to the university president’s resignation.
Theo Baker’s book, How to Rule the World: An Education in Power at Stanford University was released May 19. In it, Baker describes Stanford as a place where proximity to Silicon Valley gives rise to a parallel system of influence, recruitment and money, with investors looking to identify promising students almost as soon as they arrive on campus.
He told Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep there was “a sort of Stanford inside Stanford,” where elite students are drawn into an “alternate reality” of excess and access to cut corners.
In the interview, he discusses how Stanford is not just a university but also a pipeline where status and power can matter as much as ideas.
We reached out to Stanford University for comment and have not heard back.
Listen to the interview by clicking play on the blue box above.
The scoreboard shows the results of the women’s singles final match between Iga Swiatek of Poland and Amanda Anisimova of the U.S. at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London, Saturday, July 12, 2025.
Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP
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Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP
Fifteen points in tennis? Nice. Thirty, 40 — even better. Advantage — that sounds good. “Love” — that also must be great, right? Well, not quite.
As the French Open rolls on and Serena Williams has announced her return to the sport, maybe you’ve been paying a little more attention to tennis. The sport’s scoring system is notably distinct, and can sometimes be hard to grasp for newcomers. But even tennis aficionados might not know why, or how, “love” became the unmistakable callout for zero points. For this installment of NPR’s Word of the Week, we’re exploring how a word that signifies trailing behind got such a sweet name.
“Love” comes from the heart — or an egg?
It’s hard to pinpoint when the first tennis ball went over the net. Tennis is a derivative of lots of other sports, such as “jeu de paume,” a handball game played in France, said JT Buzanga, the collections manager at the International Tennis Hall of Fame museum.
But tennis became a patented, official sport in 1874, said Steve Flink, a journalist whose tennis coverage got him inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. It has retained its unique, mysterious scoring system ever since.
“By and large, the original system has held up almost entirely,” Flink said.
The use of “love” goes back to the late 18th century, said Jesse Sheidlower, a lexicographer. But it was used earlier than that in card games such as whist and bridge. Before the term made its way to tennis, the sport favored plain old “nothing,” or “nil,” he said.
Why love in the first place, though? Historians don’t really know for sure, but there are a few theories.
The French could have something to do with it. Some historians believe “love” derives from “l’oeuf,” which means “the egg” in French. Because eggs are shaped like zeros, terms such as “goose egg” and “duck’s egg” have been used in other contexts to mean zero, Sheidlower said.
It’s also possible English speakers mispronounced l’oeuf as “love.” But Sheidlower isn’t convinced that’s the answer.
“It’s the French equivalent of an English expression. But since that expression doesn’t appear in French, the French word wouldn’t have been used,” he said.
To be sure, France has had a lot of influence on tennis culture, Buzanga said. For example, “deuce” or a game tied at 40 points, comes from the French word for “two”: “deux.” But he prefers another prominent theory: that “love” comes from the idiom “for the love of the game.” Even if a player hasn’t scored, it doesn’t matter, because their heart is in it. It’s the theory Sheidlower said is the most plausible, because the idiom was used by the English before tennis was popularized.
Another variation of the “love of the game” theory is that the word could have come from the Dutch “lof,” or “honor” — or the Latin “amare,” meaning “to love,” Flink said.
But if tennis’ “love” doesn’t come from a French word, the theory at least has a French sensibility.
“I think the ‘for the love of the game’ is kind of romantic,” Buzanga said.
“Love” probably isn’t going anywhere
Tennis used to be a sport of leisure. The style of play has changed a lot over the years; players are more athletic and competitive, for instance, Flink said. But the rules of the sport are more steadfast, he said.
“There’s this incredible, enduring respect for tradition in tennis,” he said. “Changes are not made easily.”
There has been one major change in modern history: the tie-break. Matches can go on and on because players have to score two consecutive points to break a deuce, or by two games to break a tied set. But the onset of television meant matches would have to get shorter if the sport wanted to capture a larger audience, Flink said.
Change even came for “love.” An alternative sprouted up in the 1970s, and is still used today: “bagel,” named for its zero shape, Sheidlower said. Novices may say “zero,” and insiders will understand what they mean, but they “will needle them about it,” Flink said.
But “love” still prevails.
“People kind of like it,” Flink said. “It’s different. Why say zero when you can say love?”
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