I sat on my bed, my laptop sat next to me. It was just before eleven on a Friday night, and to kill time before going out, I was sifting through stories on www.tuckermax.com. Let me assure you, this is not my usual way of killing time. In fact, I had only heard of Tucker Max earlier that day, when a friend insisted I buy the book.

“It’s 13 dollars, Liv, just buy it,” he said.

“It’s not the money,” I replied. “It’s the principle. I wouldn’t spend one dollar on that crap.”

Sticking to my principle had not killed my interest, however, and I had no qualms about reading the stories online for free.

After reading a couple stories, I was glad I hadn’t wasted the 13.99. I didn’t find them particularly entertaining and the man himself wasn’t particularly attractive. So what was the appeal?

Tucker Max’s email address was listed on his website, and instead of wasting time reading other stories, I figured I’d just ask him myself.

A friend I was talking to thought I was crazy. “What, you actually think he’s going to respond to you?!” Fuck it, I thought, what’s the worst that could happen?

At 11:01 PM, I wrote:

Dear Mr. Max,

I have been asked to write a female response to Neil Strauss’ The Game, and after taking a look at your blog, I thought it might be helpful to speak with you. Are you free for a drink sometime?

Olivia Katrandjian

In an attempt to sound professional, I entitled the email “Interview Inquiry,” but this did not stop him from being quite the opposite. And in record time, I might add – less than one minute later, I received a response:

I am always free for drinks with a hot girl.

Ew. The bottom of his email was signed with a quotation:

“…highly entertaining and thoroughly reprehensible…”
-NY Times describing TuckerMax.com

I figured I’d have to play along if I wanted to get anywhere, so at 11:14 PM, I responded:

How perfectly quaint. How’s tomorrow evening?

I came home the next morning to find that he had responded at 2 AM:

Where do you live?

What was the allegedly insane partier, Mr. Tucker Max, doing home on a Friday night? And writing to me, no less?

Maybe he had an assistant responding to emails for him. How perfectly quaint.

I had read somewhere that he lives in the Flatiron District of Manhattan, and operating on the assumption that everyone who is anyone lives in New York, doing further research on his whereabouts had not even crossed my mind.

At 10:09 AM, I replied simply: Manhattan.

My little brother called me and I filled him in on the situation, thinking he might be amused. Now generally speaking, my little brother is pretty unprotective of me, at least in comparison to my older brother, but - “WHAAAT?!?!” I guess he had heard of Mr. Max. “Chill Philly, I just want to do an interview, and it prolly won’t even happen.” “Fine. FINE! BUT IT ENDS AT DINNER LIV!! IT ENDDDDDDS AT DINNER!!!!”

My inbox beeped with new mail and I hung up the phone:

I live in LA.

Looks like my brother wasn’t going to have to worry after all. 20 minutes later, I sent a response:

Oh damn, I read somewhere you live in the Flatiron District. Will you be in New York anytime soon?

Half an hour later, he responded:

Nope.

You still haven’t sent pics.

I did a double take.  What? – did he– was I– what?!

I closed my laptop and went out. When I returned several hours later, I responded:

Would you be up for a phone interview sometime next week? Or an online interview?

As for the pictures, I’ll leave that up to your imagination…

Not a minute later, he laid down the line:

Then that’s where our interview will stay, in the imagination.

I expressed my surprise, replying immediately with exactly what was on my mind:

You have got to be kidding me.

It didn’t take him a minute to express his surprise as well:

You want something from me, without offering anything to me, and
you’re being a bitch about it? That’s a good way to get it. Let’s see
how that works out for you.

Bitch? I’m a bitch?! I mean I am, but he doesn’t know that.

So much for the interview. But let’s be real here, I already got everything I needed.