I just marked my two month anniversary in going from LA to SF. Although oddly enough, I am currently typing this from my hotel room in Venice Beach. This is my first time back in LA and it is feels quite strange. Why do I feel the need to type at this ungodly hour on a Sunday morning while I am on a pseudo vacation? Because, my friends, I was woken up by the sweet smell of sweat. Not my own and not anyone else in my bed, because I am alone here, but rather from a very recent memory. I have been on many more dates since my Loosen Up post. I have been to another Giants game, more museums, and more comedy clubs. I have been taken to my first rave and yelled at for live tweeting during a date. There is a much different breed of men up here. The conversations feel more honest and games are kept to a minimum. Perhaps I am just growing up but my days of nicknames for dates and sticking to “my rules” feel like a thing of the past. People feel far more real and complex. My eyes are rolling less and when a guy tells me he reads poetry, I believe him. Although I did get the most god awful message in my inbox on a dating site from a SF-er that said, and I quote: Your so dreamy & I’m a dreamer, so at this moment I’m dreaming about all the possibilities. I would say that it makes me want to throw up in my mouth but a comedian that I just saw on a recent date brought to light how truly disgusting and not cute that statement sounds. So yes, with generalization to a minimum the men here feel far more real to me than the men in LA.
I was in close proximity to a guy the other night that may have had his shirt removed and I smelled something most unusual that felt like a distant memory: sweat. Relax, it was nothing too scandalous. I still only have sore thighs from the hills and streets in my hood. Unfortunately, no sexercise has been had. But yes, I smelled the sweet intoxicating smell of sweat on a men. Nothing too much, nothing awful, just the hint of something that I wanted more of. In my 6 years of dating men in LA, if ever an odor arose it was overpowered by cologne or quickly washed off in the shower. Men in LA are pretty. Their eyebrows are waxed, their bodies are tan, and even my ex-boyfriend who looked eerily like a mini Heath Ledger was often mistaken for a girl.
There was a guy in my life right before I moved from LA that quickly became a confidant and pen pal. I knew I was moving, I felt like I couldn’t yet tell people, and friendships and partnerships were ending. I was going through a transition and this guy and I were exchanging 7 page emails on a daily basis and talking on the phone til the wee hours of the night. When we finally met, there was no spark (although he was convinced that I fell in love with him at two distinct moments on our coffee date.) Anyway, he was my therapist in these difficult weeks and one thing he said that resonated very deeply with me was, “Everything that you say you hate now, you will love in a few months. San Francisco will transform you.” At that point, I had the grinning suspicion that he may be right on that one. I think my rebelling was moving to LA and getting my MBA. I realized that while I did love both of those things I wanted to be closer to my roots. I come from a family of writers and I wanted to focus on that skill and be closer to my family in Santa Cruz and so I moved. Plus, my love affair with Los Angeles did not end well. The dream and fantasy had crumbled. I realized that some people in my life were simply actors (although not by profession) and that the Hollywood ending that I was hoping for was not going to happen.
So imagine my joy when I smelled something as real and as earthy as sweat on a man. My heart pounded and I snuggled up closer to it. I didn’t know that I loved it but I do. Also, I have always hated bicycles but I love what the bicycle does for the male body so perhaps I will change my tune. Although when my SF dates ask me if I like to hike, I still respond, “Um, do you mean walk on dirt? Uh, no!” I still have a shirt in my closet that says: I Hate the Environment. I will try to not flaunt that thought and shirt as it may scare away some winners.
I recently went on a date where this guy was trying to bring a bottle of Jameson into a club. I was attempting to be more street so I grabbed it and put in my purse. When we went through security this girl asked to search my bag. I gave her the look and made a comment under my breath that my bag was worth more than her life. She was as sweet as can be and let me in while apologizing. My date was impressed but I felt awful and so embarrassed by my behavior. It reminded me of my first week in SF when I said something else rude and then followed it with, “Sorry, is that princess behavior?” and my friend put me in check saying, “No. That is LA bitch behavior.”
So the new me is attempting to shed some of my LA bitch behavior, my strong judgments and truly look for and embrace the realness is others. Right now, for me, the richest and sweetest variety of that is the smell of sweat. If sweat be the smell of authenticity, play on.
