On a Saturday night during April of last year, I found myself at La Cita, a bar in downtown L.A., with my best friend Sam. We had just come from a Springfest concert at USC, where I was a master’s student, and we felt like continuing the night.

It ended with me meeting Gil, a former UCLA student with a mustache-and-goatee combo and a sarcastic sense of humor.

Over the summer, Gil and I kept texting and would meet up here and there. At one point, my other friend from school and I ended up at a bar by his house. I told him he should join us.

“What, like a three-way?” he responded jokingly.

That joke opened Pandora’s box, because the next thing I knew, he asked me if I ever had a three-way. I told him no, but I wanted to give it a try. I’m bisexual. He told me that we should arrange one.

He learned about an app called 3Fun, where couples can meet a “unicorn,” or a person willing to join a couple for some sexual fun. However, I noticed that the app was disproportionately outnumbered by couples than by single girls. So we realized we needed another strategy.

He knew I had my Hinge set to “girls” already, so he suggested I ask some of the women there if they wanted to have a three-way with us. I’m not exactly sure how we didn’t get banned from Hinge, but over the next couple months, in my free time, that is what I did. I went searching for possibilities.

In the winter, work was slow, so I had more time. I matched with a woman named Natalia. She was from another state but she was in Los Angeles, staying with her sister for the holidays. I asked her when she was available.

The only days she was free to meet up were days Gil was out of town, but one of her available days was New Year’s Eve.

I didn’t have any plans and I wanted to go out and party. So we did. We met at a bar to talk first, then we went to a club and danced all night. She was my New Year’s kiss and became one of my best friends. We started talking every day after that on text, direct messages on Instagram and TikTok. We told each other about everything going on in our lives and shared funny Reels. I even went to visit her in Texas for her birthday.

A few months later, I went into one of the worst depressions of my life. It usually hits at the beginning of every year. At the same time, Gil and I started drifting apart. I still had my Hinge open to girls, but I didn’t actively use the app.

One day in February, I got a direct message from Genesis, whom I matched with a couple months before but didn’t talk to for long. She told me she had just left a bad relationship and wanted to talk about it with someone. She didn’t have a lot of other friends to turn to.

I knew what that was like. Three years before, I had been in an abusive relationship in which my ex isolated me from my friends. After I got out of that five-year relationship, my best friend Sam started taking me to clubs, and that helped me to have fun and build more confidence. I thought the same effort could help Genesis.

I told her that we should go to Beso, a new club in Downey not far from where she lives. When I pulled up to her house, I had two blue BuzzBallz cocktails for us each. As we pre-gamed, we vented about men and how we felt so many of them were untrustworthy.

It felt nice to talk and relate to her.

Later, as we lined up to get into Beso, she was worried the drinks at the club would be expensive. But I told her not to worry. We wouldn’t be the ones paying for them.

Within two minutes of being at Beso, two guys bought us drinks. We did some laps around the dance floor and found a group of girls to join. (We still follow them on Instagram.) At the end of the night, some guys invited us to their barbershop to keep drinking, so we went. The next night, I woke up on Genesis’ couch. She became my partner in crime.

Genesis and I went out every weekend after that. We’d go to clubs like the Reserve and the Yost, and we’d always make new friends each time that we went out.

One time, we followed DJs home to their trap house and stayed there until the afternoon of the next day. Another time, we ended up stranded on Hollywood Boulevard with both of our phones dead. I felt like I finally met someone as wild as me.

At the same time I started hanging out with Genesis, I found Lindsay, whom I also met on Hinge. She introduced me to upscale parties and promoters so I could get into VIP sections. Together, Lindsay and I got into bottle service at Poppy, the nightclub on La Cienega Boulevard, to see rapper Mike Sherm, who follows her on Instagram.

Lindsay is a model, so I’d go to photo shoots with her. With Lindsay, I always felt like a bad bitch. In June, I went to see the Weeknd at the SoFi Stadium with Lindsay and Natalia.

What I love about Natalia, Genesis and Lindsay is that they always listen, give me advice and remind me I deserve someone who will put as much effort into a relationship as I do. I realized that the love I was searching for was actually with those girls who were there for me throughout the whole thing. I was looking for a third, but I ended up finding three best friends.

The author is an independent journalist in Los Angeles. She lives in Hacienda Heights. Her Substack is victoriaevalenzuela.substack.com.

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