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I used to have sexual fantasies about one of two fictional characters, Tom or Skyler. Skyler was kind of an asshole. He was callous, self-serving and aloof. I had imaginary sex with him as often as possible.

But sometimes Skyler was too abrasive. On these days, I'd fall into the arms of my sensitive boyfriend, Tom. Not only could I have pretend sex with Tom — gentle, compassionate pretend sex — but after we had sex, we could spoon in bed. Our bed. The bed we'd built together using bonded stacks of recycled blue jeans for a box-spring, and four refurbished half-kegs to lift it off the floor.

Tom's not what you'd call "in the picture" these days (decimated by one too many reality-check relationships). But I still indulge this nesting fantasy on a bimonthly basis via ReadyMade magazine.

ReadyMade is a home-design periodical produced in Berkeley, California. It features ideas for things you can build from scratch for your home — everything from custom couches to coatracks made from empty Tide bottles. Its aesthetic leans breezy West Coast semi-ironic

quirk; non-sequitur T-shirts and Pumas abound. And I fit squarely in its target demographic: twenty-something urbanite with apartment-vanity issues. But I'm also part of another market that

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I don't think ReadyMade even knows it has cornered: the single and lovelorn. Subconsciously or not, they've created a magazine that is essentially long-term-relationship porn.

The do-it-yourself home projects that fill the pages of ReadyMade don't appeal to me because I want a quirky, fun apartment. They appeal to me because I want a quirky, fun, live-in boyfriend. Today, I occasionally revisit Skyler at CockySk8rBoys.net, but more and more often I find Tom in ReadyMade, just waiting to build an awesome lamp out of old stereo amplifiers. There he is, grinning in my direction in his vintage short-sleeved T-shirt as he squats by the coffee table we constructed out of a tree branch and a piece of tinted Lucite. I find myself building hanging light fixtures from chopsticks and Chinese take-out boxes, anticipating the day I'll bring home someone like Tom who'll appraise my creation and deem me boyfriend material.




The imaginary significant others posed on ReadyMade's covers look like they're having as much fun as those ecstatic people in the old Newport Alive With Pleasure! ads. These aren't simply cute models of the girlie-magazine variety. If they were, ReadyMade would simply be Seventeen for older kids, one more publication filled with smiling, attractive people to sigh over. By putting its models in homes of their own — homes that look like your apartment — ReadyMade taps into the ten-years-older-than-seventeen synapse that yearns for a merciful end to the trauma of casual dating. The ReadyMade fantasy is, "They've moved in. You can stop worrying about it now."

As such, ReadyMade is the aspirational magazine for our time. Dating has never been easier — an efficient online dater can bang out four dinners with four different potential partners per week. But this same ease has made holding onto these partners difficult. Sustaining a relationship for more than three dates feels like a triumph, which makes actually ending up moving in with someone seem virtually impossible, but ReadyMade says it's not. You can do this, the magazine assures you. You can do it yourself.