The Single Guy

“Random guys in the elevator are like, ‘Whoarethesegirls?Weshouldgooutsometime.Canyoufixmeupwithyourroommate?Doesyourroommatehaveanyfriends?’”

No such luck; Nathan doesn’t play matchmaker. He respects his roommates’ privacy and asks the same in return. He also respects their careers and wants them to have the freedom to do their own thing. That’s the dream, remember? Getting to do the thing you love and be around other happy, fun, satisfied people doing the things they love. So, don’t hate him for trying to make that happen in a world where the girls look like they are in a photo spread and the guys sometimes do too.

He’s booked some good jobs this year, got a syndication deal for his celebrity portraits and is shooting anything he can: bands, homes, TV shoots, publicity head shots and event coverage. He spent “virtually every cent” of his life savings on his photography, and when he’s not shooting, he is, as he describes it, “Willy Loman pounding phones all day,” or “trying to build new relations, acting as my own rep.”

Indeed, despite the fact that he is currently on “a dating spree,” after a year-and-a-half-long relationship with a model (not a roommate), he says he has been going out less recently. And, when he does, he’s more discerning about where he goes.

“When I first moved here, I would go to the opening of an envelope.” Now Nathan sticks to places where they know his name, which brings us back to the Chateau lobby, where the wait staff smile and ask how he is when they see him. Or the after-party of a friend’s band’s concert at the Universal Amphitheater: “An open bar and a hundred of my friends.”

“Everyone feels more comfortable in their own environment. I don’t think I would take a date someplace I have never been before. There is a distinct advantage to taking a date to a place where you know everyone. It gives you a semblance of credibility.”

Still, Nathan, whose father made an honest and very good living selling electrical supplies to big-deal brightly lit places like sporting arenas and skyscrapers, admits he has worried about the future. It would be hard not to — many of the friends he grew up with back in Chicago could retire by now.

But it works both ways. “My brother-in-law said something really funny to me recently. ‘So, Scott,when are you gonna settle down and get married and have kids? Whyshouldyoubetheonlyonewhoishappy?’I think it’s a mixture. The grass is always greener.”

Nathan gets serious for a moment. “I look at [my old friends] and they’re living in mansions with their families and I am jealous of them. And me, I’m living in a pink stucco apartment building. They see pictures that I’ll send them of the sun rising at the Playboy Mansion and, yeah,they’re jealous of me. But I don’t think I would trade places with anyone, really. I have friends who married their first loves, and I look at them and they look 20 years older than me and they’re getting the shit kicked out of them at Goldman Sachs and emasculated by some ArtofWar,half-wit Ovitz disciple. Forwhat?A house and a newer Mercedes? I’d rather be set on fire.”