As a gay San Francisco couple, who act like two 70-year-olds from Boca most of the time, you can bet your ass we’ve shared many-a-bottle of rosé with single straight-girls and boys, complaining about the Bay Area dating scene and it’s many challenges. Hey, I’m not judging anyone. I did the same thing when I was single….though I’ll admit it, I looked at my singlehood as a challenge, understanding what a wise friend in West Hollywood once taught me, that “dating is a muscle, and the more you do it, the easier it gets.” That being said, I don’t envy my single friends for a second.
Suffice it to say, we heard about some real wackos: guys showing up an hour late, girls talking about their ovulation cycles…yeah, that sound you just heard is Emily Post turning over in her grave. One girlfriend told us about a guy who revealed himself to be a transexual (F to M) and then asked her if she’d be interested in a threesome with his wife? I know! And because we’ve been together for almost six years now and the dating scene has changed with the onset of technology that practically automates human interaction, we’ve heard a lot of analogies for what dating in San Francisco is like…..so we took notes…..and here are the zingers we think stood out from the pack.
The Top 8 San Francisco Dating Analogies of 2014
- It’s like that test they do at the optometrist, you sit there trembling with anticipation and then BAM they shoot air in your eye!
- It’s like looking for a parking space on Valencia near 16th on a Friday night and then realizing you still would have been better off taking MUNI from the Outer Sunset.
- It’s like taking your sweet ass time sampling every flavor at Bi-Rite Creamery until some bitch two people back yells, “hurry up and make a fucking decision!” …and it’s your mother.
- It’s like waiting three hours for bagels airlifted from New York in an obscure SOMA alley that smells like homelessness only to hear “sorry folks…we’re sold out… but if you download our Facebook app, you get a free locally sourced pickle.”
- It’s like spending seven years commuting to Mountain View for a promotion you may or may not get in two more years, just to say “fuck it!” and quit, knowing you’ll be happier with a purple streak in your hair as you sell vintage clothing to consignment stores in Hayes Valley.
- It’s like launching Uber over and over only to see there are no cars available in your area.
- It’s like being OSX and learning you’re only compatible with devices that operate on Vista….and Microsoft is no longer supporting it.
- It’s like overpaying for one shitty apartment after another until one day you takeover a friend’s lease in a rent-controlled 2 bed 2 bath on Dolores Park that’s only $6K a month and you think to yourself, “I’m gonna die here.”
Have your own favorite San Francisco dating analogy? Share it with us via Twitter, Facebook, blah blah blah….or just leave a comment below.
Central Kitchen in San Francisco’s Mission District
And after we’ve downed a few glasses of vino, we usually head out to one of San Francisco’s many esteemed restaurants. Like Central Kitchen in San Francisco’s Mission District, full of innovative cocktails and cuisine, a winning one-two-punch with the power to pull any depressed single woman (or man for that matter) caving to capitulation; out of their funk, recharged, and ready to sign up for whatever the latest “bagels for boyfriends” dating algorithm everyone’s raving about.
From the street Central Kitchen doesn’t look like much, sort of like it’s neighbor, Trick Dog, a mid-century industrial adorned bar serving artisanal prohibition-style cocktails and delicious small bites to accompany them. Central Kitchen tinkers on the fence of being indoor and out, with it’s high (sometimes open) ceilings, cognac finished woods, hanging gardens and raw cement and concrete floors. The food is all locally sourced and inspired thematically by northern California cuisine. Each dish beautifully arranged with the imagination of a muralist going for whimsy elegance while simultaneously circumventing pretension. As you’d assume, the menu is limited to what’s in season, causing it to change often, but it still offers a variety to choose from, spanning land, sea, and earth in all the right ways.
Here’s what we had the last time we were there:
Three cheeses with crispy lavosh, fennel preserve and walnut.
Radishes and cultured butter.
a side green salad.
Coal roasted carrots with goat’s milk custard, mixed grains and seeds.
Beets with sunchoke, buckwheat, smoked date and crème fraÎche.
Heirloom squash with duck confit, kohlrabi, apple and burnt honey.
Cod with celery root, miso, chanterelles and toasted barley broth.
Duck with cabbage, confit fennel and mustard jus.
Walnut ice cream with poached apple and beet root.
Chocolate custard with candied almond and coffee ice cream.