Lately, several of my male friends have been in relationships that have ended. Unlike my female friends, who go through the grieving process...lots of chocolate, long walks around greenlake, and angry/sad girl time...then after a few months find someone new, my guy friends are dating again within weeks. Ready or not. I guess being in a city where there are lots of amazing single women, that isn't a shocker, but what is kind of weird and creepy is who they date. I don't even know how they do it, but many of these guys are going out with total doppelgangers of their ex-girlfriends...I mean like if you see them walking from behind, you could easy mistake their identities.
What is that? Is that their way of saying they miss their girlfriend? What are the benefits? Do they just have a very specific type or is it that guy's way of having a do over with a look alike with a clean slate...the same girl without the same baggage of every mistake already made in the relationship. I guess it just seems like a foreign concept to me. When I'm through, I'm through. If you put all my exes in a police line up, you would have a rainbow spectrum of all different heights, weights, nationalities, ethnicities, accents, and etc. Or is that weird, that I would want someone who doesn't remind me of the last failed relationship? I don't know.
Dating in Seattle is weird anyway. In Wisconsin (not that I'm trying to go back) if you are interested in somebody or they are interested in you, there is this thing called communication that happens. That's right, people who don't already know each other talk to one another and they don't have to be drunk off their asses to do it. Here there is a lot of staring. I'll be out and about with friends and see a guy and he will just stare at me, hard, but never say a thing. So then I'm wondering if I've had a wardrobe malfunction. Is my boob hanging out? Is there snot on my nose? Why are you staring at me like that? I want to just say to him, Dude, this would be much less awkward for both of us if you just say something like "Hi, My name is...". I won't bite. I won't propose. We can just chat like normal people. Or, like last weekend, I'll get walk by compliments, where the guy will literally kind of lob a compliment at me and keep moving, quickly. What is that?
What I am discovering is that there is this weird Northwest culture in which social awkwardness is the norm. I don't know how I didn't notice this during college. Maybe it's just different at that age because almost everyone you are meeting is going to school, there is immediate common ground for a conversation. Now, if I meet someone and they are friendly enough to chat, I am shocked if they are actually from Seattle. In fact, the majority of my tight friends are Seattle transplants from the Midwest or the east coast. I didn't plan it that way, but the longer I am here, the more it makes sense. The northwest has such a passive aggressive culture, that it is refreshing to be able to speak to someone who is direct.
Last night I went out salsa dancing with my friend whose spirit name would be Dancesallthetime and her Turkish friend with a very cool name that means diving into water or being immersed in water. It was good to move. The music was good and I actually danced with several really amazing dancers, which is rare in Seattle, but once again I was rarely asked to dance. Dancesallthetime of course knows everyone by now, so it was no surprise that she would be dancing all the time, but Water, who is much less into dancing than I am (and has much less rhythm) kept getting asked to dance. It was annoying to me...not that she got asked to dance a lot, but that I didn't. This didn't stop me. I danced all night, with people who asked me, with people I asked, with my friends, by myself...whatever, my dancing need was well met, but I feel like my dancing life mimics my dating life here.
I'm beginning to think that I am a scary woman. Actually, I had a guy at a party recently tell me that because I come off as very confident that it is kind of intimidating to talk to me. I kind of laughed at him. I mean I always find confidence attractive. I'm not really interested in dating anyone who doesn't have a good sense of self, so why would guys be looking for someone shy or with low self esteem? I always find shy people less approachable, like they're scared I'm going to attack them, but here in the weird northwest, maybe I'm in the minority.
Meanwhile in the past two days both dancesallthetime and my other friend Sporty C, who I went to happy hour with on Friday told me(independently one another)...in a very backhanded complimentary way... that I would be the perfect man. As such they think it will be very hard for me to find a man that is "as good as me". That was a very irritating diagnoses. If I'm that damn fabulous, men should be falling over themselves to get to me, right? But then around 3am this morning Water said something to me that made me feel better. She says that it is great that I am who I am and that in order to find the perfect person for me I need do little more than grow into myself. She says the perfect man for me is someone who will be drawn to me as is and appreciate all the attributes that make me who I am. No one ever says that. Sometimes I feel like everyone is trying to fix me...maybe if I do this or don't mention that...then some scared little man will have the temerity to ask me to dance...well that sucks. Maybe who I am and what I'm looking for limits my dating pool a bit, but I've always been more quality over quantity anyway and I'm tired of people trying to make me feel like I'm the weird one. I'm over it. I like who I am and who I am becoming. There have been and will be more men who will love me. And they won't be so frickin' weird. Seattle boys...get it together and grow a pair.
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