I caught my brother and his fiancé up to speed on my dating life over lunch last week and emphasized, "Can you please not tell our parents about this?"
"There is NO WAY I would tell Mom and Dad," my brother said, "mostly because I don't want to have to deal with all the questions they would ask."
So let me explain again, because I have new readers, how Crazy Chinatown Man made it through my dating filter after admitting to being on an antipsychotic during our first date THAT HE DOESN'T REMEMBER and then binge-drinking and drugging his way through our next six, 15 months later.
There is a method to the madness. I AM looking for something serious, and a man needs to have a few key values for that to happen.
1) Community. And by community, I don't mean White thirty-somethings who live in Seattle and get together for vegan, gluten-free potlucks. I have always been attracted to men who navigate cultural and socioeconomic differences with ease. Can he speak another language? Does he have friends from different backgrounds? If I were to take him to my workplace, would he notice that most of my coworkers are women of color who had their first child before graduating high school, or would he notice that most of my coworkers are intelligent, passionate, kind, and fucking rockstars?
2) Social justice. There is nothing that makes me want to exit a date more than when I tell a man what I do for a living and his response is, "Wow, that's really admirable." Caring and advocating for the most vulnerable people in our society should be normal, and if he thinks that is something that deserves extra respect or admiration, we will never connect.
3) Fun. This is, clearly, a recurring theme in my blog. But life is stressful, yo! Last week, I had to walk into a room and tell a 12 year old boy and his father that the mass on the child's shoulder is bone cancer and, P.S., he doesn't have health insurance and needs some. The three of us cried in the room together and then I sobbed alone at my desk for a good ten minutes more before needing to move on to another patient. That night I went home, got stoned, drank 2 glasses of wine, and popped some Xanax. Life can be so sad! People lose jobs, lose parents, get sick, have accidents... I need a partner who can have a good time and weather those moments with me.
There are some things that are notably absent from my dating criteria:
Education level, salary, career, religion, ability to be monogamous, past marital status, parental status. Criminal records. Drug use. While I spend every summer weekend in the mountains, outdoorsy isn't part of my criteria. Neither is travel experience, although I have lived abroad several times. It's not that I don't pay attention to these or that they don't matter, but they don't make or break my ability to love someone, and none are dealbreakers.
Crazy Chinatown Man made the cut, as did three men who I fell in love with over the years and a few others along the way. Know anyone else, Seattle? I'm headed out on my 70th first date next week, might as well make it 71.
"There is NO WAY I would tell Mom and Dad," my brother said, "mostly because I don't want to have to deal with all the questions they would ask."
So let me explain again, because I have new readers, how Crazy Chinatown Man made it through my dating filter after admitting to being on an antipsychotic during our first date THAT HE DOESN'T REMEMBER and then binge-drinking and drugging his way through our next six, 15 months later.
There is a method to the madness. I AM looking for something serious, and a man needs to have a few key values for that to happen.
1) Community. And by community, I don't mean White thirty-somethings who live in Seattle and get together for vegan, gluten-free potlucks. I have always been attracted to men who navigate cultural and socioeconomic differences with ease. Can he speak another language? Does he have friends from different backgrounds? If I were to take him to my workplace, would he notice that most of my coworkers are women of color who had their first child before graduating high school, or would he notice that most of my coworkers are intelligent, passionate, kind, and fucking rockstars?
2) Social justice. There is nothing that makes me want to exit a date more than when I tell a man what I do for a living and his response is, "Wow, that's really admirable." Caring and advocating for the most vulnerable people in our society should be normal, and if he thinks that is something that deserves extra respect or admiration, we will never connect.
3) Fun. This is, clearly, a recurring theme in my blog. But life is stressful, yo! Last week, I had to walk into a room and tell a 12 year old boy and his father that the mass on the child's shoulder is bone cancer and, P.S., he doesn't have health insurance and needs some. The three of us cried in the room together and then I sobbed alone at my desk for a good ten minutes more before needing to move on to another patient. That night I went home, got stoned, drank 2 glasses of wine, and popped some Xanax. Life can be so sad! People lose jobs, lose parents, get sick, have accidents... I need a partner who can have a good time and weather those moments with me.
There are some things that are notably absent from my dating criteria:
Education level, salary, career, religion, ability to be monogamous, past marital status, parental status. Criminal records. Drug use. While I spend every summer weekend in the mountains, outdoorsy isn't part of my criteria. Neither is travel experience, although I have lived abroad several times. It's not that I don't pay attention to these or that they don't matter, but they don't make or break my ability to love someone, and none are dealbreakers.
Crazy Chinatown Man made the cut, as did three men who I fell in love with over the years and a few others along the way. Know anyone else, Seattle? I'm headed out on my 70th first date next week, might as well make it 71.
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