I’ve been watching the Stephen Merchant comedy Hello Ladies, mostly for research purposes. It’s an interesting and horribly insightful look at dating in L.A. He’s a comedian and Ricky Gervais’s writing partner, and he’s also 6’7″ and single, so he wrote a TV series based on his failed love life. It feels painfully personal, which is part of why it works. You can tell he is laughing at himself even while exposing all the awkwardness.

At first, I just cringed at his awkward attempts to pick up women. He’s gangly, and the camera captures the difference in height between him and every woman he dates. He never quite knows how to stand or even how to interact, but he also thinks he’s the shit. He tries to live the Hollywood life, but he doesn’t actually get flirting. That mix of insecurity and swagger makes him almost unbearable, but also hard to look away from. He keeps swinging between pathetic and delusional

He, like a lot of men in L.A., has this unrealistic vision of dating only really hot women. By this I mean models and actresses in their 20s, even though he’s in his late thirties. He’s in love with a model on a billboard on Sunset Blvd, and he desperately tries to meet her. He won’t settle for less, even when something real is right in front of him. That fantasy-driven approach is very L.A., where image can start to matter more than actual chemistry.

I really want to sympathize with him, because he’s misguided and wants to find love. But then he dumps a normal, pretty girl for the chance to be with an actress he barely knows, and that made me crazy. This makes for great TV, and he even gives tips about texting and sounding smooth. It was awesome, but of course it later backfired on him. The show keeps reminding us how ridiculous those games can be, even when they are dressed up as strategy.