In the spring of 2016, I graduated from a room in a crappy college apartment I’d shared with five roommates to my childhood bedroom in San Carlos. This idyllic town on the Bay Area peninsula, nestled between San Francisco and San Jose, markets itself as the “City of Good Living.” There’s a charming downtown with dozens of upmarket dining options, and it’s a great place in which to raise children.
It isn’t, however, a fantastic place for a twentysomething fresh out of college.
While I appreciated my parents’ generosity in allowing me to live with them, I vowed that I would be there for only a few months. I daydreamed about splitting a studio with my boyfriend, who lived in Mountain View. This was the only way I could afford to live on my own without having half a dozen roommates. Postgrad life was miserable — for the first time, there was no plan to follow, and the next step was entirely up to me. Figuring out the real world was daunting, so instead I clung to the fantasy of moving in with my boyfriend.
Alas, planning for the future is a futile task. Sometimes life throws a wrench in your plans, and for me that wrench came in the form of my boyfriend cheating on me with my best friend. They’d hidden it from me for two months. Neither of them was planning on telling me. A mutual friend informed me of their secret.
I was heartbroken. I felt completely betrayed, alone, and undeserving of love. After a few weeks of hysterically sobbing into my pillow, I turned to Tinder, where I hoped I could rebuild my shattered heart. As I waited for the app to download, I pondered the eligible bachelors and bachelorettes San Carlos had to offer.
The dates unfolded over the months like a tragic montage from a millennial version of “Sex and the City,” but with less glamour, far more ghosting, and lots of sitting in traffic.
No, I didn’t want to date a guy who suggested going for a hike at 10:00 p.m., smoking weed, and “chilling.” I didn’t want to get murdered, so I unmatched him. There were a lot of people like him on Tinder, who’d never moved away after high school—or worse, people I knew from high school.
I also wanted to date ladies, but there were next to none in my queue. When they did appear, we had nothing in common besides an interest in women. The rest of my local dating pool consisted of techie transplants who’d decided the peninsula would be a great place in which to live, though it’s just as expensive as San Francisco and far from all the fun. Besides, their idea of fun was coding late into the night, riding a hover wheel down the sidewalk, or talking endlessly about their job.
It became clear to me that I wasn’t going to find the confidence-boosting, ego-affirming, worth-proving rebound date and/or hookup I desperately wanted in the City of Good Living. Dejected, I readjusted my Tinder radius to 25+ miles to open up my options. A flood of effortlessly cool city dwellers appeared in my queue. Soon, I had a handful of dates lined up, and I would finally be able to move on.
The dates unfolded over the months like a tragic montage from a millennial version of Sex and The City, but with less glamour, far more ghosting, and lots of sitting in traffic.
First, there was the cryptocurrency startup founder. He was a techie, but he was cute and seemed interesting. I met him at a dimly lit Mission dive after securing a coveted parking spot within walking distance. He looked at me incredulously when I told him I’d been single for three weeks and was already dating again. He invited me over, so I guess he wasn’t concerned he was a rebound. The most memorable thing about his apartment was the huge box of Soylent in his bedroom. When I asked him about it, he matter-of-factly stated that he drank Soylent as a meal replacement because he didn’t have time to eat, being a startup founder and all.
I stayed the night because I was too drunk to drive and couldn’t afford an Uber home. The next morning, I saw myself out at the crack of dawn to beat the infamous 101 traffic and get to my peninsula job on time. I returned to my car to find an $80 parking ticket. He barely answered my texts in the following weeks—the first of many ghosts.
There was the Brit, the sole occupant of his parent’s expensive Dolores Heights house. We bonded over electronic music and binge-drinking on weekends. We dated for a month. I liked him because he ordered garlic bread on Uber Eats whenever I wanted it. He liked me because I was willing to drive 23 miles to see him whenever he beckoned me. He ghosted me in the end, but after some prodding, he admitted that he wanted to stop dating me because he’d found someone he liked better. I took comfort in the fact that he shared this, because many of the others stopped replying after they’d gotten me into bed.
After the Brit, there was the Sunset-based stoner Segway tour guide who treated me like his therapist. Our dates were boring, and he often asked me to spot him money. I would give him the money; I was too afraid of scaring him away with Venmo requests for reimbursement. He asked me if I was “crazy about him” on the third date. I was taken aback, so I said something vague about liking him a lot. But really, I was lonely. He asked if I would drive him to the Oakland airport at 4:30 a.m., after I had already driven an hour to his place at 11:00 p.m. I pretended I had a stomachache and went home. His disrespect of my time reminded me of my ex, and frankly, it did make me nauseous. I texted him a few weeks later to end it.
Once I spent the day with a Menlo Park–based guy who had just returned from a 10-day silent meditation retreat and worked in public health. We made out, and a few days later I developed a rash on my nose. I didn’t think much of it until he let me know he had a skin infection and might have passed it on to me. I went to the doctor to get antibiotics. We never spoke again.
I had a handful of dates with women, but none of them was exceptionally bad or good. Women were harder to find on Tinder because I had to swipe through dozens of mediocre men until a woman popped up. One of those times, I got coffee with a girl whom I had a lot in common with, but she said that she still lived with her ex-girlfriend. Neither of us messaged the other afterward.
Up and down the peninsula I went, driving to date after awful date. After a year and a half of this routine, I surprisingly found some semblance of self-worth. I knew I had more to offer, and I craved an emotional connection. I wasn’t going to be taken advantage of any longer.
My suburban home base prevented me from meeting anyone promising, and I didn’t want to spend more time and money traveling to dates that weren’t worth it.
I raised my standards. I abandoned Tinder for OkCupid; it seemed like a better place in which to find something serious. I swore I’d accept only dates with people who would meet me halfway, split the bill, and state their intentions up front. These requirements proved to be too much to ask for. Usually, people responded to meeting halfway by asking where halfway was — Millbrae, I guessed — and how to get there (sit on BART for 45 minutes). They usually stopped responding after that. If they did respond, they would ask if I could just meet them in San Francisco, because it would be easier (for them).
I was beyond frustrated, tired of being treated badly, and lonely. By this point, I wanted love — not a bunch of underwhelming and objectifying hookups. I didn’t want to date a recent transplant who moved here only to live/eat/breathe tech—the majority of the dating pool. I didn’t want to date someone I had things in common with but who was otherwise a slacker.
Ideally, I wanted to find someone in between — and there were options in between. But they lived more than 15 miles away and weren’t willing to meet me in the middle. Or they were polyamorous or stopped texting back or were afraid of commitment—the list goes on. Despite being picky, my approach to dating wasn’t going to cultivate love. My suburban home base prevented me from meeting anyone promising, and I didn’t want to spend more time and money traveling to dates that weren’t worth it.
My love life was basically a dumpster fire. The rest of my life in the Bay Area was less than stellar. I was stuck in a dead-end job, and I couldn’t afford to move out, despite the fact that I had been saving every cent I’d earned, a privilege I owed to my parents.
It was time for a change. I quit my job to travel for a while, abandoning all hope of finding love to focus on myself. I boarded a flight to Australia, a destination I chose because it’s warm and relatively safe, and because people speak English there. I landed in Sydney with a suitcase, a budget, and no plans.
I found myself in the wilderness a few hours outside of Sydney. As I settled in for the night on an old leather couch in the lounge room of a hostel, an Aussie sat across from me and offered me a beer. We started chatting, and that was that. Dating him was effortless, natural, and easy. Like the old adage goes, I found love when I wasn’t looking for it.
The following year, being in a long-distance relationship wasn’t easy, but it was easier than any of the other dating experiences I’d had prior because I was finally being treated with the respect I deserved. I’ve since relocated to Melbourne to live with my partner. I’m happier than I’ve been in a long time.
Isn’t it funny that I couldn’t find love in the Bay Area — my home — after trying so hard and instead stumbled into it across the world? Dating is tough, especially when you’re selective, living in the ’burbs with your parents, and recovering from a breakup.
Looking back, I wish I’d spent less time dating and more time doing things for me. Maybe if I’d looked within myself to find love first, I wouldn’t have struggled so much to find it in another person. I don’t regret my journey — it brought me to where I am now. It made me stronger, and in a roundabout way, it showed me what my worth is.
