The Sexual Manifesto: A Play Party? Is That Like an Orgy?

As I walked down the hallway, I spotted the two attractive shirtless men who had caught my eye before. Lying on their sides, they had…

The Sexual Manifesto: And Now I’m An Extra In A Porn Shoot

It’s not every day that you get to be an extra in a porn shoot. At the Armory, that’s called Thursday night. It’s 6:30 p.m.,…

The Sexual Manifesto: On the Other Side of the Peep Show Glass

You’re buzzed in through the employee entrance. You snake your way along a thin corridor that makes you feel as if you’re backstage at a…

The Sexual Manifesto: A Woman’s Perspective on a ‘Pickup Artist’ Bootcamp

A man spots an attractive woman, follows her up an escalator and around a corner, threading through the holiday crowd at the Westfield mall. He’s…

The Sexual Manifesto: The Tao Of Being Single

There seems to be a widespread sentiment that singles are a sad sort…or maybe this is just the effect of reading too many Cathy comics…

The Sexual Manifesto: Everyone Knows Your Name…and What You Look Like Naked

You can’t swing a tit around in this city without knocking your knockers into someone you previously dated. This is particularly true in the startup/tech…

The Sexual Manifesto: A Bridge Between Us

The East Bay is only several miles away, but to San Franciscans, it’s an eternity and a half. Its crown jewels of Berkeley and Oakland…

The Sexual Manifesto: Roommate Wanted (Sluts Need Not Apply)

It’s hard enough to find a decent apartment to rent in San Francisco. But couple that hunt with some sex-negative sentiments from potential roommates, and…

The Sexual Manifesto: The Post-Modern Take On Tech And Dating

San Franciscans can smell desperation like they can smell the morning buns baking at Tartine before they roll leisurely out of bed to line up…

The Sexual Manifesto: Does The SF Dating Scene Need To Freshen Up?

awk date.jpgThere’s something rotten in the state of dating. At least that seems to be the current soliloquy.

On a Wednesday evening, I found myself at a launch party for TRY ME, the newest venture to tackle San Francisco’s frustrated singles. I’ll admit: there’s a certain sort of exhilaration walking into a bar and knowing that (1) everyone is single and (2) everyone is looking for a potential relationship. If anything, an events service like TRY ME makes it that much easier approaching a stranger at the bar. These singles want to talk to you!

Of course, two of the singles I managed to talk to were both on a panel called The State of Sex and Dating in SF. In the hour-long panel, survey says San Francisco is fucked (and not in the way we want to be). That seemed to be the consensus for much of the partygoers as well.

“I know more people frustrated with the dating scene here than anywhere else,” said Beth Cook, co-founder of TRY ME. In San Francisco, Cook explained, people are more focused on their careers. There’s no social pressure to commit and settle down, so many people just float by.

Many San Franciscans will agree that dating is on the rocks for the Barbary Coast. They’ll cite our acceptance of online dating, remind you that we’re a tech hub, and worry over what the iPhone has done to the public transit commute. Obviously, it’s the internet’s fault (and bars, apparently), and we’re going to be single well past the time our ovaries stop producing eggs, especially since we harvested a bunch of those back in our early 20s to pay off student loans.

But now we’re just scapegoating San Francisco’s technology scene. First of all, I’ve never known anyone personally who was a match made in Muni. Oh, I’m sure there exists a couple somewhere who met as they were pressed up against each other in the 5:30 p.m. rush on the N-Judah, but most people don’t really want to try to make small talk and then bomb in front of 50 other people smelling each other’s pits in a plastic and aluminum tube. Just sayin’.

We–as a collective culture–have always complained about dating and romance. Look throughout the past century in our songs, movies, TV shows, and books. And not even the past century! Jane Austen, anyone? It’s not just San Francisco, and it’s not just the year 2000whatever.

Dating is often a means to an end. You date because you want a relationship of sorts: ongoing sex, a casual but regular thing in which you never meet the parents, a serious partner, maybe even marriage. When we don’t reach that end, that’s when dating becomes frustrating. It’s a constant quest, a string of unfortunate first dates–until, eventually, you stop because you’ve found your end…or because they have a nice end (heh heh).

Dating doesn’t necessarily need to be fixed or saved. Regardless of what method you use to find your partners, you will always run into duds or periods of solitude. It’s about finding the right method for you: an events-based service like TRY ME will scare the timid, but a dating site could overwhelm with the paradox of choice.

No matter where I go or whom I talk to, people will bemoan the dating scene. Humans are very social and lustful creatures, so it makes sense that we get frustrated when we don’t have good mates. But it’s up to us to work with our culture–not against it–to make dating work for us, however you define that notion of success. Not all of your dates will end in a mutual declaration of undying soulmate love…otherwise you’d only need that one date (or if you’re polyamorous, like, three or four). You moved to San Francisco because you wanted to, remember? Use what makes San Francisco so unique to your advantage. Who knows? Maybe you will meet the love of your life on the bane of your commute after all.

Image by Exit343.

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The Sexual Manifesto: Reasons Why You’re Still Single

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The Sexual Manifesto: Queer Enough for You?

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