Prototype Issue
Design, Dating and Disillusionment: If Only She Had Told Me She Could Work Me Like a Ball-Peen Hammer!
By Heather Murphy
(page 1 of 3)The Setups
Take one girl and one guy, throw in a digital tape recorder and a buttinsky photographer, a little alcohol and some secrets and you got alchemy! But will it be firecracker sizzle or wet blanket fizzle?
Lizzie Cano and Anthony Sturmas are both fashion designers. They’re fed up with fake, money-obsessed people. He wants a woman who knows what she wants—and that Lizzie most certainly does—but given his fear of “baggage” can he come to terms with the fact that this mother of twins ties men up for a living?
Tattooed Anthony does not look like the type to get all panicky about a little date, but his butterflies go hyperactive on the way to the restaurant. He’s never been on a blind date before and despite the I’m-a-wild-graffiti-artist-appearance of his MySpace page, he is not a fan of the unknown.
Nor has Lizzie has ever been on a blind date before and is also extremely nervous.
The Location
Pastina in Westwood. The place was nicer than Anthony expected it to be. Sinatra crooned over the simple yet elegant room as people who looked like they probably make six figures nibbled at gorgeous plates of pasta.
Lizzie Cano
“I like to dominate men and train them to the way I see fit—being a mommy and all.”
The petite 26-year-old is not your typical fashion design student. When she is not studying, she is taking care of her twins or working as a dominatrix call girl.
She is fed up with men who “don’t understand when a single mother has children that it’s their No. 1 priority,” and guys who pretend to be more successful than they are. An LA native of Peruvian-Mexican-Japanese descent, she is most often drawn to Latinos.
Surprisingly, her most recent ex did not get jealous when she got out her whip and went to work. “He actually encouraged it,” she said, clarifying that she wears “tight leather stuff or little schoolgirl outfits—but [the clients] never take off my clothes.”
Anthony Sturmas
‘When she told me she had two kids—I didn’t really know what to say. I didn’t make it obvious, but that just killed it— like a punch in the stomach.’— Anthony
“I want a woman who knows what she wants and gets it.”
When this busy 38-year-old stopped body-building to make time for his fashion line and art gallery, he noticed that without the bulging muscles, the ladies weren’t so interested. “Women can be so judgmental,” he said. Now that his company is doing well and he is making big bucks and hanging with the stars, the tide has turned again. “I am the same person I was before, but women are more attracted to me because of the power and stability,” he said. “They think they can be a housewife.”
But this LA native of Spanish-Italian-Lithuanian descent is looking for a woman with ambition. Ideally one who is also “slender and exotic, without any baggage, but that’s impossible to find here in LA.”
Or is it? That depends on one’s definition of baggage.
The Date
Anthony’s expectations were low in view of his having been set up by a magazine that’s hadn’t yet published its first issue. If nothing else, he figured, he’d get some good food out of this. Lizzie walked through the door a few minutes later; except he couldn’t be sure it was Lizzie because he has been told nothing about her, not even her name. He hoped it was her though, ’cause in her sexy knee-high boots and faux-fur-collar jacket she was definitely the hottest (and youngest) thing in the room.
A man with the bullshit-obliterating look of a character on The Sopranos led Anthony and Lizzie to their table. Anthony immediately ordered a Long Island iced tea and Lizzie chose a glass of white wine. They then dove into the menu. Long menus are good when you don’t know what to say to each other—you can spend a full 30 minutes debating the merits of ordering fettuccine with porcini mushrooms versus spaghetti with flambéed shrimp—which is what Anthony and Lizzie did.
Anthony: When I first saw her I was like, “Oh, OK, nice. This would be someone that I would go out with.” She wasn’t the Playmate type, just a nice, attractive female.
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