Don't Mince Words

My first 90 days in Santa Barbara are complete and I can say, I’ve survived.  If my blog is going to continue with nonfiction observations and intermittent dating stories, I may not have much material to work with.  Or I need to step up my game.

Like most relationships, I go in with no expectations so I can be pleasantly surprised.  SB Man and I had a nice time getting to know each other after I moved here.  I was probably still detoxing off the LA dating scene and smitten with his communication skills and planning.  Great guy, but not a good match for the long haul.  And that’s what dating is about.

I got to experience my first MeetUp stalker shortly after I arrived in Santa Barbara.  He told me redheads were like unicorns here and then proceeded to tell me he read my whole blog, from 2003 to present, and wanted to meet me about a project.  We had coffee and he pitched partnering on a writing idea.  In the next sentence he admitted he was ADD and couldn’t focus.  At some point after that he told me he was good at oral sex and would like to hang out.  Santa Barbara was starting to feel more like LA again.

In an effort to put myself out there and try to meet new people, I finally attended a MeetUp event.  The organizer took my card and asked me out.  By the next morning, he’d read my blog and he wanted to meet sooner.  Apparently, I’m intelligent and funny. He opened the date with “We have to be friends, is that ok?” and went on to explain that  he realized I hadn’t had a long-term relationship in a long time. (He’s been married twice). He wouldn’t give me a pass based on the fact that I lived in LA for the last seven years.  I told him he was scared of me which is usually the case when they read my blog.  We’ve met a couple times since and he told me he liked me because I have a “nice bladder.”  While I’m not relationship material, my beer drinking skills give me a whole new layer of attractiveness.

And there you have it:  the good, the odd, and the weak.  So far, dating in Santa Barbara is turning out to be on par with LA.  My friends beg me to leave this state, but how can I?  It’s a wealth of material.

I was recently told that I was living my own romantic comedy.  Dot com-crash-to-Wall Street girl leaves New York for Los Angeles for personal growth.  Discovers the emotionally unevolved, focuses on health, gets laid off more, and then moves to a small town where she has a job and a sensible romantic life.

This is finally my fucking movie.  Finally.

Living in New York was truly one of the greatest experiences of my life.  I connected with a lot of smart and wonderful people.  But I also saw the evils.  I lived in fear for nearly nine months after I turned a dirty cop in to internal affairs.  After 9/11, I figured if I was going to get whacked by the mob, it would be a better death than burning in a building.  Needless to say, it all worked out and I happily left corporate slavery and chose LA as my backup plan when San Francisco was still in flames from the dot com bomb.

As I continue to look forward, it’s easy to reflect with the benefit of hindsight.  And I am one of those people who wouldn’t change anything in my life because even the bad stuff shapes the future path.  All those awful Los Angeles dates served some purpose (I know what I don’t want).  My odd projects, contracts and jobs all taught me that no workplace is perfect (I know what I don’t want).  Working is a fool’s errand.  You just have to try to pick your fools wisely.

The same holds true with dating.  When I was in the beginning interview stages in Santa Barbara, I went to the online personals to get a sense of the mid-40s dating scene in Santa Barbara.  Call it socio-romantic ethnography.  My random how-much-does-it-suck inquiry revealed dating there wasn’t much different than anywhere else:  crazy ex’s, drama, kids, liars, and the chemically altered.  And from that honest baseline, I developed a friendship with SB Man through a very, very long interview process.

But that’s not all.

My girlfriends in Los Angeles squealed when I told them that I saw SB Man four times in one week after I moved.  “It takes about six weeks to rack up that kind of time with one man in LA.  No one wants to make that kind of time commitment for fear of looking….available,” one admitted.

In New York, you knew your life was good when the trifecta of job-apartment-love was in balance.  Here, I know that my patience and perseverance prevailed.  I just don’t know how the movie is going to end.

When you are a young boy, from what I hear, you hate to be called cute.  Puppies are cute.  You want to be hot, which is more desirable.  Well, as a girl/woman, there’s something worse than cute.  We hate to hear the phrase, “You are so ____.  I can’t believe you aren’t married.”

I had my first date of the new year on Saturday.  Yeah, I know I’ve given up on dating in Los Angeles, but once in a while they’ll find me and ask me out.  I had nothing to lose and, at the end of the day, a girl’s gotta drink.  When David agreed to meet me at a bar four blocks from my house, it was a no brainer.

He was your typical cougar hunter:  35 and petite.  I generally like my men to have thighs bigger than mine, but this is L.A. where emaciated metrosexuals are in the majority.  I learned quickly that making small talk with an Israeli was going to be hard.  I felt like I needed a translator.  He’d been out here for nine years but still managed to keep a thick accent.

I did hear loud and clear one of his questions.  “You are so cute.  I don’t understand why you aren’t taken.”  I kept my composure mainly because I’ve been asked this a bazillion times.

“You’ve lived here nine years, so I think you can answer that question easily.  It is hard to date here, right?  It is hard to meet genuine people, right?  It is rare to meet anyone with an advanced degree.  And it is very hard to meet anyone that truly wants a long-term committed relationship.  That’s why I prefer to be single and focus on my career than be a traitor to my own standards,” I responded.

The date ended shortly thereafter, both of us tired from struggling to find conversation points and any common ground.  We hugged out, I thanked him for my beers, and I walked home to my dog – my real committed relationship

My friends keep me in check.  They also tease me about some of my more memorable dating and relationship decisions.

A friend in New York recently called me laughing from a bar.  “Oh my God, Marna.  Magic Hat has a new hefeweizen out called “Circus Boy.”  What ever happened to that fucking tool?” he asked.

Pete remembers a six-month relationship I had because it was cluttered with mutual drama and ended with the guy leaving to join Ringling Brothers’ circus band.  He was nicknamed “Circus Boy” by my friends and inducted into Marna’s Hall of Fame.  Circus Boy taught me to never date career musicians, especially when they say, “but music is my mistress.”

I was once at a Dr. Pat Allen relationship seminar (Mars/Venus type stuff) where she truly explained M/F dynamics in relationships.  When she had Q&A, I asked her what she thought of left-handed musicians.  I’ll never forget her response, “If you want a thinking and rational man and you are in the feminine role, don’t date a left-handed musician.”  As a result of that advice, career musicians are on my banned dating list.

So, to answer Pete’s question, I don’t know what happened to Circus Boy.  Last I heard, he was quitting the circus, getting married, and settling in Las Vegas.  Eight years later, I can safely say I’d rather have a six-pack of Circus Boy than see Circus Boy, but my friends and I thank him for the memories.

In my next life, I want to come back as a gay addict.  The habit is TBD.  All I know is these 12-step meetings are one-part sobriety maintenance and three-parts hookup.  The gays in West Hollywood don’t need to online date.  When they have free time, they go to a “meeting.”

My Main Gay is constantly in and out of relationships.  I sit on the sidelines feeling tragically single and heterosexual as I hear about his exploits. Today we met for lunch and I got the ga-ga eyes and “oh, this one is for real” speech.

“This isn’t fair.  Is this another friends-of-bill hookup?” I whined.

“Yes, we met at a meeting.  We are so in love,” he proclaimed.  “He’s mine.”

I can’t even meet a straight man at the grocery store and Main Gay is seeking my advice on Valentine’s Day.  Fanfuckingtastic.   He’s thinking about a long, romantic weekend up in Santa Barbara.  I told him I wasn’t the girl to ask Valentine’s day advice from – it has probably been more than 15 years since a man planned more than a simple card and chocolates for me.

“Aw, my hag needs a real man,” he said.

Right.  We’ve seen how well that’s worked out for me in southern California.  I think it is easier to just plan on being gay in my next life – with a severe addiction to beer.