I’m warming up to the idea that I live a safely unconventional life. I maintain a reasonable level of decorum and responsibility, I practice kindness, I almost always have my wits about me, but I’m learning to dance at the edges of… I’m not quite sure how to describe the spaces where I’m dancing. When I think of how I would define a conventional life, it would be a 9-5 job, and going out to dinner every now and then, friends, dinner parties, a partner, maybe some travel, time with family, maybe a goldendoodle or a picket fence, maybe complaining about the boss or the nanny or the weather or the retirement plan. My life looked more like that eight or nine years ago – married, kid, house in the suburbs, garden in the back yard. And now…? Well, things are different.
An example. Maybe a week or two ago, I was hanging out with a woman I know. We were having drinks at the bar – which is how I spend some of my evenings. Depending on the week, it might be how I spend most of my evenings. The woman and I are friends, or friendly, or whatever. She’s cute. She thinks I’m cute. We flirt. I’m not quite sure how to describe our relationship – maybe bar friends plus. On that particular night, there was another guy at the bar who started talking with us. He might have been hitting on her but maybe not. He said we should all go back to his place, continue the conversation, have another drink. My friend asked if she could bring her dog, he said sure. While she was getting her dog, he asked me if she and I were dating, I said no, we’re neighborhood friends who may have a passing interest in each other when we hang out at the bar. Back at his place, he asked me a lot of questions (I’m still the unknown and new entity in town who moved here when others were moving away) – questions about life, philosophy, why I moved to SF, what I do. He’s well-off (investment banking and owns a house) and said he’d donate to the nonprofit where I work. He indicated that he goes to a lot of fundraisers and events. We talked about dating and relationships and being single in SF. He’s married. His wife (who I later looked up and learned had a c-suite job at a major tech company) was out of town – which made the earlier flirting seem icky. I’m pretty sure had he not thought she and I were a thing, he’d have tried to get my friend back to his place alone. Who knows, maybe he wanted a threesome – it is SF after all. As we talked, the two of them, wanted to know why I wasn’t more aggressively pursuing her. I said I think male aggression is a real problem in this country, and I’m pretty zen when it comes to ambition/pursuits. He thinks I’m missing out – not just with her but with lots of people and maybe fundraising or job opportunities. He thinks I have the type of personality that, with even the smallest amount of effort, could get me anything I wanted, but then conceded that maybe it’s the lack of effort that draws people in. Either way, he might be right. We were there until dawn. I walked my friend back to her place, went home, and took a nap.
This is what I mean when I say I live a safely unconventional life. Mildly irresponsible but always in control. Sometimes sitting still and sometimes going wherever the wind takes me. Full of desire, but equally full of complacency. Frequently placing myself near things or people who intrigue me yet sometimes keeping a safe distance. Hanging out with relative strangers until all hours of the night. This, I suspect, is not most people’s experience. I’m not even sure how comfortable I am with it being my experience. But here I am, unsupervised and with a book of matches nearby… and then I wonder – maybe this is more people’s experience than I’m aware of. I’m fairly certain none of my peeps back home live life like this, but I’ve encountered quite a few people out here who do. Sometimes, I worry that living this way is incompatible with the other lives I’d like to live – more structured lives, more like the way I used to live with its picket fences and yearly vacations.
The other day I saw a t-shirt that said New York is where you go to be somebody, LA is where you go to be somebody else, San Francisco is where you go to be yourself. I think that’s what I’ve been confronted with since moving here – a minor crisis of identity spurred on by having been exposed to so many different identities: bankers and bartenders, techies, bros, hippies, addicts, the ethically non-monogamous, people into kink, outdoorsy people, tree-huggers, surfers, punk… you name it, it exists here. I suspect some of these people live multiple lives – one public and one in the shadows, while others live everything out in the open. There’s a refreshing and wonderous fluidity to it all.
I can’t say that I came to San Francisco to re-invent myself or even find myself, but I do feel challenged and maybe even enticed by the opportunity. There are days when I feel like I could meld into any crowd or any situation, be whoever I want to be. That, in turn, plants a few seeds of doubt. Do I not know who I am? Do I know what I want? I don’t think it’s the core parts of my being that are in question, but I can envision trying on different adornments, exploring different facets and facades. The options become overwhelming and create a feeling of decision paralysis. The hint of uncertainty lights a small fire of cognitive dissonance. On a whim, I recently applied for a part-time job as a door man / bouncer at a music club. Maybe that’s who’s been lurking inside me waiting to be let out? The other day I received a like on a dating app from a woman whose profile screamed smart, well put together, and erudite. Ivy league, likes cabernets in Napa, moody jazz bars, has a photo in front of a lot of books, and used the word ineffable. Though I’ve been tempted to like her back, I keep asking myself – is this who I am, is that who or how I could be?
I encounter this feeling a lot, especially when I’m looking at dating profiles. I try to imagine other versions of myself – not necessarily because I want to be someone different, but because everyone else’s life seems foreign and mildly interesting to me. I become curious and almost want try it on for size, but then realize that’s not the best reason to connect. There’s a constant push and pull in which I say “why not?” and then give myself a dozen reason for why not. Despite wanting to be open to a vast array of experiences, more often than not, I find myself closed off or prematurely rejecting people. Besides, I’m beginning to prefer organic experiences to the ones I have to will into action.
There was a time in the not so distant past when I thought I’d be willing to move to another city or state if I met the right person. Now I’m hesitant to date people who live 10 miles away across the Bay. And when I’m not ruling people out because they live too far or seem too this or too that, I’m ruling them out because I’m thinking I’m not the right fit. The me who I’m struggling to define. The self-talk isn’t always kind. She’s not gonna wanna be with a broke bar fly, who’s passport is long expired and who, through his choice of a career in the nonprofit sector, has basically taken a vow of poverty. Or else the self talk goes in the other direction in which I think I’m too much of a normie, straight-laced, square. On top of those things, I’ll remind myself that I’m also an insufferable and hypocritical anti-capitalist who’s never quite sure if he wants to sell out or hold on to his ideals.
In this respect, I feel slightly mismatched for my geography. In this respect, my fifty-year backstory feels far to conventional and uniform for the diversity that exists here. I feel a bit too sensible for the wild crowd and a bit too irresponsible and care-free for the professional crowd. In my brief experience of living here, San Francisco feels like a study in contradictions with an over-abundance of options. Extreme wealth and extreme poverty. Laid back and full of hustle. Mountains and sweeping hills and beaches and water. Gray, foggy neighborhoods and never-ending sunshine. Urban grit and stunning natural beauty.
And maybe that’s the answer to why I’m not aggressively pursuing much of anything (jobs, success, women, friends). Not only am busy dancing at the edges of who I could be, but I’m also one of those fortunate people who has learned to love the many things that come across my path. I have the luxury of saying either it will happen or it won’t and both will be fine. I’ve had the dumb luck or wisdom to know that something else, conventional or not, always comes along and I’ll probably figure out how to like it.