The unbelievably true story of Talk Nerdy To Me®

It’s an honor to retell it now knowing I am autistic and have the beautiful, beautiful gift of synesthesia.

I started Talk Nerdy To Me® (originally called Talk Nerdy To Me, Lover) as a result of a broken heart.

I was cheated on … with a number of women in the high two digits.

Of course, I didn’t want to admit that at first, but after I went out on over 103 dates in 9 months, one of the writers of TNTML called me out saying the one thing you’re missing in your post is the fact that you threw yourself into work because you were so heartbroken.

Knowing she was right, and feeling this INCREDIBLE force going “no no no, I can’t write about that” - I put on my big girl panties and wrote about it.

In 2007, I was hired as a producer for a charity event in NYC.

See, back before Uber and Lyft, you had to use something called a Super Shuttle to get you to the airport (if you didn’t have a roommate or partner). Super Shuttle was the equivalent of an Uber ride share, only everyone lives far away from each other, and did I mention there’s bench seats?

Thank you for the sympathy I felt in that moment. It was a tragic time for en route airport travel.

I was flying in the middle of the day, so the Super Shuttle was mostly empty except for this one guy.

Spikey hair, unconfirmed Affliction Jeans … he begins to hit on me by saying “can I read your mind?”

“Sure,” I said. Unimpressed.

To CALL this guy a tool would be AN INSULT TO HAMMERS that actually serve a purpose.

He then “reads my mind” (which I later found out was him using a small pencil in his toe).

Impressed (at the time) I gave him my number.

He then friended me on Myspace and Facebook (overkill on the contact methods, bro) as we went about our ways.

Two years go by with an occasional like here, or poke there.

All done in private messages … no wall posts since it wasn’t serious.

Then he posts a “Friend Update” that he was going to be on this (at the time) HUGE talk show.

I congratulated him on his success as our messages became a thread that then turned into a series of late night phone calls.

He then offered to fly out to Florida (where I was living at the time).

“I’d like to come see you.”

I took this grand gesture as a “WOW! He really really likes me! WHO DOES THAT?!”

He wasn't commercially speaking the most attractive person in this world, but I remember picking him up one time at the airport and he literally took my breath away. It was just this feeling of - wow. He had it. Whatever that "it" is. 

We spent a week together in Florida. Doing things 20 somethings do … which mostly involved nudity and not leaving the hotel room.

I was commercial modeling at the time, and a few days after he left, I had a shoot. I made sure to update my profile caption publicly providing reassurance on the fun I had the week before.

At the time, I had been wanting to go back to LA (as I had been commercial modeling in Florida for about 7 months), so I used him as the best excuse to head back home. I asked him if I could crash at his place for a bit while I got back on my feet looking for an apartment with a girlfriend of mine, and he had no problem with it.

Of course as any woman knows, that was just a rouse to get my foot in the door.

I was only 25% serious about wanting to get a place with my friend.

I just really wanted to be around this human being, and I can't help but go after everything that I want in life.

We moved in together (again, a bit under false pretenses. my b), and I'm not even kidding you, I was the happiest I had ever been in my entire life (up until that point).

He gave me this escape from what I thought I knew about life to something that I constantly wanted to question. I wanted more!

We talked at great lengths about the universe, and what consciousness is ... amazing.

As an undiagnosed autistic woman at the time, my special interests include psychology and body language … so our conversations were riveting.

He would run all of these tests on me, asking when I touched my hair, what was I thinking?

I could tell he was taking an inventory of my emotions and my response to stimulants, but I just didn't care.

I found the fact that he could figure me out super sexy; it certainly kept me honest knowing that I couldn't tell a lie.

I asked him all of the time if we were boyfriend/ girlfriend - but he kept insisting that he didn't want to label what we had.

*cough cough BULLSHIT* He didn't even position it that way, it was just more of a "let's see how things go" type scenario.

I am a label whore.

I kept saying over and over that I didn't want to keep introducing him to my friends as just a friend - I wanted a relationship.

I said I can't even look at another guy - let's make a go at this.

He brushed it off ... and brushed it off ... til eventually I gave up asking.

I had won a settlement in a lawsuit a few months earlier, (in 2007 I lost everything I owned in a massive cockroach infestation. Yes, sad but true. Luckily, I left with my health and a few extra pennies to rub together) meaning I didn't have to go immediately into a job search.

I have had comically bad luck renting apartments.

I was learning as much as I could about the social space (which was initially called web 2.0 - this is HOW EARLY all of this was) while at the time feeling completely consumed with this head to toe love that I felt. He was pretty savvy when it came to business, so he and I would sit there and really get off on talking about business and how I can help his career etc.

I can't be with a guy that doesn't LOVE what he does.

I knew the web, the social space, and can edit videos, so I offered to help him as much as possible.

After just a few days, he came back from the pool one day and said that we were going to have some visitors.

Visitors?

I’m not the biggest fan of sharing space, but since I am literally sharing his space, I knew I had to deal.

Alrite, I can deal ... a little weird I thought since it was a one bedroom apartment, and not exactly a spacious one.

(“We” lived at Sunset and Vine. Douche town USA.)

Where are they going to sleep? I asked logically.

The living room, he piped up!

He got out this queen sized air mattress, and low and behold later that evening, there were two girls that started to live in the living room.

He had told me that they were in town for a few weeks from England, and had been kicked out of their hotel room.

He felt bad for them and wanted to take them in.

Did I mention that these women also happened to be very very attractive?

After the first night that we all went out and kicked it, I realized how cool they were and how much of an added bonus it was to be around them.

Yes, it sucked that the only bathroom was in the bedroom I was sleeping in, but I got used to it pretty quickly.

I asked them all about their life on the other side of the pond, and we bonded and gabbed like any three women living in a one bedroom apartment would.

The mentalist loved touting to his friends that he had all of these chicks living in his apartment.

He got off on having a harem of sorts.

Mind you, for me, if this was his little version of the Playboy Mansion, at least I got to be his number one - I slept in his bed.

This guy wasn't romantic - at all. He wasn't even particularly nice to me, yet I always brushed it off because at that point I couldn't help the fact that I was in love. (This part is so embarrassing to write - I cannot believe I let someone treat me that way.)

He would tease me for dancing like Elaine from Seinfeld, or by sitting on Mashable morning, noon, and night.

He used to just say, why don't you marry Pete Cashmore - you're on that damn thing so much.

You and your social media!!!!!

He teased me relentlessly, but I would always smile and just sort of brush it off.

Having grown up with an older brother made me process it as a term of endearment.

The sex with him was unlike anything I had had up until that point.

So much so, that one night I broke the middle beam in his bed.

Do you know HOW DIFFICULT IT IS TO BREAK THE MIDDLE BEAM?!

I was at a stage in my life that was quite confusing. I was more than a decade away from being diagnosed as being autistic, I was considered an adult but didn’t really feel like it. I didn’t have a direction in my career, or a clue to what I wanted to do. All I knew was whatever I was experiencing I wanted more of. More of this feeling of bliss. More of this escapism with a literal escape artist.

The escape part wound up being the only “real” thing about him.

See, the day I moved in he called me and said he had a conflict with the timing of my flight. There was an event he had been invited to.

He said, well, if it does x for my career immediately, I am absolutely going to go, but otherwise, I am picking you up from the airport.

He told me the entire situation, and I said go for it!

Another woman had invited him to this big "networking" party ... (which is virgin LA speak for regular ol’ event that with some flyer that has a Times New Roman title font declaring “industry people invite-only”).

The airport was the airport - and I could always grab a Super Shuttle … as long as I knew an address I could figure out the rest.

I remember those words coming out of my mouth, I remember texting them to him as well - but when it came to the actual execution, I stood in the airport at LAX for 10 minutes looking for him.

It hadn’t actually occurred to me that he wouldn’t be there.

Leaning into the whole magician thing, I half expected him to pop out of a back seat, pop out of the luggage claim, good lord, just pop out of a hat or something.

He had told me where he left a key for his place, and now accepting the very real version of my reality, I grabbed a cab to head over to his apartment.

A few hours later, he walked in from the “networking event” and I quickly let all common sense drain from my body.

He was here, in the flesh, this wasn’t a trick.

The first time you have “really good sex” as a woman is a fundamental game changer.

Suddenly all of the “oh oh ohhhsss” that have been portrayed in the media start to make sense.

My toes curled, my hands were in my hair, if his dick was deli meat I was Meg Ryan.

I was very physically compatible with this man … which to me, made up for everything else.

As long as we were having sex … and a lot of it … he wouldn’t need to be going anywhere else, right?

The following Friday (after the networking event), he received another invite from the same woman.

He didn’t call it a “date” to my face, but I sure as shit could see something floating.

He told me he was “using her for her contacts.”

WOW

At least there was a smidge of honesty.

I didn’t know at the time that I had a yet to be diagnosed sensory processing disorder, so as much as I like to go out, a lot of times I just physically cannot.

I sat on his white Italian leather couch reading Malcolm Gladwell’s book “Outliers.”

While I was reading, there was a knock on the door.

I saw the outline of a woman, as I just sat a few feet away pretending not to notice or care (the mentalist was not far behind).

I then got up to open the door and saw her holding a tray of brownies with a gift bag slung around her arm.

Not like a store bought plastic/ foil tray … she brought a pyrex … if it could talk it would say “I spent money on this tray and cooked this in my own kitchen.”

I don’t remember greeting her, I just remember looking at her walking into “our” apartment like she owned the place.

I knew this wasn’t the first time she had been in his apartment because she knew exactly where the bathroom was and there were two doors she could have chosen from. (The other led to the washer and dryer in the closet.)

She emerged from the bathroom super giddy to gift me with these brownies … as if she were the host and I was the one honored to be in her presence.

I can still hear the shrill in her voice and she excitedly said, “I heard you were here!! I am SOOOOO excited to meet his houseguests!!!!!!!! Are you guys having fun? I can't believe there are 4 of you living in this one bedroom! Super cozy! Are you all getting along?”

Words escaped me, as I smiled and nodded thinking I fuck the dude that you're going out on this “date” with, please don't liquor him up too much ... his whiskey dick is meh.

The mentalist then walked into the apartment.

He was standing by the door asking if she was ready to leave.

Unsure of the “tone” of the environment, he barely wanted to walk into his own space.

From the kitchen (forcing him to come inside) she shouted, “OH! I have a gift for you!!!”

Sitting in my same spot on the couch, closer to the mentalist in the doorway than the “host” in the kitchen, I performed my own disappearing act.

(Insert old timey voice) ::POOF: BEHOLD!!!

The woman so engrossed in what she is reading she is completely oblivious to what is happening around her!!

I grabbed my book and pretended to not be looking over.

He opens up the gift bag and is surprised that she gifted him a magic set from the 1800s.

Brownies and a gift? I thought still lost in my own disappearing act. Layin’ it on a bit thick, eh?

I found out later that night from the English girls that the event she took him to was a lingerie show.

Never one to back down from a challenge, I gave him his own show on the couch later that evening.

(The English girls had gone out. Obvi, I’m respectful.)

A couple more days go by, and he gets another call from the woman we now lovingly refer to as “Brownie Girl.”

She asked if she could pop on over to grab her dish.

I didn’t realize at the time that this was a classic move to create an additional “touch point” in seeing someone.

It was however the point that something felt “off” to me.

I grilled him RELENTLESSLY about this woman. His words and actions weren’t aligning … and I was rabid. I wasn’t jealous, I was just confused by what was happening.

Over and over he would say “how could I be sleeping with anyone else when I’m sleeping next to you?”

Fair point, I thought … only for a few hours before my mouth started to foam again. (This is an example of gaslighting, btw.)

I WAS RABID.

The English girls’ then went back to their side of the pond, as I was then informed that two new women were going to be living in the living room.

See, before I had flown back to LA permanently, I came out to visit a few times.

On one of those occasions, he was hit up by an “old friend of his” who was in San Diego. She invited us to come hang out with her.

Which of course, like a dog in heat, he wanted to go.

In puppy love myself, I agreed to go with.

I then met two women, from Minnesota, and could feel that something was “off.”

I just didn’t know what that “off” feeling meant.

Personality wise, you could tell these women were very sweet. Fresh farm eggs … yet to be cracked, and still had sprinkles of shit on them.

I would ask them about aspects of their lives (this is in the “getting to know you” section) and both would stare blankly at my vocabulary choices going “I have no idea what you just said.”

Women get a bad enough rep in the media, so while I don’t mean to put these women down … I just can’t begin to tell you how exhausting it was being around two people who are fluent in English, but don’t know how to speak it.

When he told me that THESE were the two women moving in, I felt an immediate dread.

I can handle hot, but I can’t handle stupid.

The English girls’ and I got along so well … while this whole thing seemed very odd, again, I was cool because I was the one sleeping next to him.

I channeled my lack of desire for communication with the new housemates into the mentalist’s career.

Having a knack at guessing contact information, I told him that he should leverage his press to more opportunities.

“I want to be a motivational speaker,” he said.

Yes and-ing myself into a work escape, I then asked for any footage he had to see what I could splice together into some form of a reel.

I sat for hours on his plastic Guns N’ Roses bar stool, at his equally bright uncomfortable apartment that was minute by minute becoming more stifling.

At one point, during a day of tough editing, he got a call from Brownie Girl.

He said that he was going to talk to her, and end things since she clearly wasn't getting a hint.

He grabbed the dish of hers from the top of the fridge, (which he hadn’t let her “pop by and grab”) and said he would brb.

In that moment, I had this feeling come over me … like pit of my stomach … just … KNEW something was wrong.

I got up from editing (again, something I would NEVER do when I am working), grabbed my car keys, went into the parking garage, and got in my car.

I didn't really know where I was going to go, or what I was going to do when I got there ... I just needed to not be there when he got back.

I wound up going down the street to a Starbucks, as I just sat there in this weird haze.

He kept telling me this was just a fan, a girl with a silly crush - but the way she was acting didn't make sense.

She had to be receiving some sort of validation from him in some regard to keep it up.

He's a charming dude and all, but most women would absolutely give up at this point. She was RELENTLESS - I kept asking why?

1 and 1 were not equaling 2. I'm a nerd, this will bother me until I can come to a logical conclusion.

I then got a text reading "LOL where are you?"

Anytime he knew he “did something wrong,” or wasn't being genuine - he would put a LOL in front of it.

I said I was down the street and would be back soon. I was gone for only about 15 more minutes, before heading back to the apartment.

He was leaving that night to go back on tour, so I went in to lay on his bed and help him pack. Unsure of what to do with myself.

It was weird, I felt like shit, but the second I walked into the bedroom it was this moment of - oh look what I have over here, videos of some of my old performances ... let's watch!

I’m the woman that’s been sleeping in your bed … that knows shit is starting to float … but doesn’t quite know how or what to do about it yet.

The next morning, he went off on his tour.

Without the mentalist around, one of the living room dwellers felt confident enough to say something I wasn’t capable of asking:

“How did I know the mentalist was being faithful?”

What do you mean, I asked? He’d tell me if he was having sex with someone else. He has to be available to fans - it’s part of his job.

Smelling the shit that spewed from my own mouth, the fresh off the farm female pressed further asking “if I was sure?”

“Of course,” I said dismissing the ridiculousness of her statement.

A week or so went by (the mentalist was gone sometimes for weeks at a time), and the now not so farm fresh females proudly announced that they were cast in a music video.

A rite of passage for all women coming to LA. The first job you will be excited about having will be a music video for some band you have never heard of … for some song you most likely won’t like … but will have to hear for 18 hours straight … and then you will proudly show off said video because you’re in it.

I MADE IT!!!

“You will never believe who was at the shoot,” they said.

“Who?” I asked.

BROWNIE GIRL!!! They said in unison.

See, they had never met Brownie Girl face to face, but the mentalist still kept in touch with her (despite telling me otherwise).

Brownie Girl cross referenced the first names of the girls with the mentalist’s Facebook friends and connected the dots on who they were based on their “WE’RE IN LA!!!” selfies and captions.

She saw them at the shoot and bee-lined for them.

(I’m also not unconvinced that maybe the girls posted something in social media beforehand and she just showed up? LA circles are small but not that small … and a LOT of music videos are shot on a daily basis.)

Brownie Girl played coy at first … not mentioning she digitally stalked them, but rather using every opportunity she had to mention the mind reader she was dating and how in love she was with him.

They connected the dots when she said how proud she was to bake him his favorite brownies, and how she gifted him a magic set (all details I had shared in our one maybe two “bonding moments” out of the hilariousness of someone actually baking in Los Angeles).

Not knowing what to do, the girls stayed quiet about her attendance.

See, if they told me, it could jeopardize their free living in a just shy of $2600 per month apartment.

A few days later, they received a FB friend request, and since we were in a one bedroom apartment together … they could no longer hide their shocked faces … or the truth.

In shock, they gasped.

She sent them both the same message that included long clips of texts he had sent (screenshot) confirming they were in some sort of relationship.

She followed up with “can you guys help me understand why he is pulling back now? I don’t know how to tell him this but I’m pregnant.”

This story is so unbelievable.

Next, is a cameo from Maury Povich … followed by a confrontation … a Ford Fiesta gifted from Ford … a penthouse suite … and ultimately the domain and choice I made that changed my entire life. I ultimately got what I wanted … it just didn’t look like what I thought I wanted at the time.

Funny how things work out like that sometimes. ;)

Here are some of the original comments from 2011 …