I suppose a date with one of these guys is out of the question.
Posted on 11/18/2006 7:39:21 PM PST by Valin
As if it weren't hard enough to get a date in this town, ecosexuals add another kind of green to their ideal mate's personal profile.
______________________________________
San Francisco designer Rachel Pearson, 33, owns a successful line of children’s clothing made of organic cotton that also meets international fair-trade rules. For herself she favors clothing from thrift stores—“Not buying new,” she says, “eases the toll on the earth.” A vegetarian, she recycles religiously and loves to pamper herself with yoga and meditation.
There’s another arena in which Pearson upholds green values, and it can create a bit of an etiquette problem. “I won’t date a guy who doesn’t recycle,” she says. “He doesn’t have to wear nonleather shoes, but he has to get it.” And woe betide the guy who doesn’t.
For a while she was happily dating a film producer from Los Angeles who, she thought, was definitely on her eco-wavelength. But one morning they went out for breakfast, and Mr. Right ordered an all-meat meal and doused his coffee with several packets of Equal. “I was dumbstruck,” says Pearson. “I think I ate my entire meal in silence. Pork plus NutraSweet? That was definitely our last date.”
Welcome to the latest turn of the wheel in the obsessive trend-creating machine that brought us “metrosexuals.” Ecosexuals are an evolving breed of city dweller for whom keeping green is every bit as important in their romantic life as in their choice of household cleanser, dinner food, or wall paint. Sure, everyone has a checklist of qualities they want in a mate: smart, funny, good-looking, six-figure potential, listens to Beck, and so on. But now we’re adding characteristics like “sexy conservationist” or “romantic recycler” to the list.
And why not? As most species in mating mode do, ecosexuals find allure in their own kind. And with green living becoming so chic, it’s only logical that such values would migrate to the bedroom and slip between the allergen-free sheets. Claudia, for instance, a 36-year-old San Francisco writer, often sizes up a guy by checking out the products on his bathroom shelves. “I can tell instantly if he’s my type by the deodorant he uses,” she says.
If there’s any doubt that ecosmarts are now considered sexy—a must-have in some circles—check out the ultimate trend display case, the Web. There’s a site for vegetarian romance seekers—no surprise there, really, but a site called Earth Wise Singles promises to help “green-living and environmentally responsible adults” find their “soul mate.” Local singles who sign on to Green Passions will be particularly gratified: the California section has the highest number of profiles, 162 compared to New York’s 84, Washington’s 32, and Colorado’s 18.
Still, as Pearson discovered, environmental principles and romance can be a combustible mix. For every couple that bonds over the organic tomatoes, there’s another that never makes it past the compost pile. Food seems to be a particularly large stumbling block.
“I shopped at Rainbow; she shopped at Safeway,” is how Monte Gores, a 33-year-old Berkeley stock-trader-turned-acupuncturist summed up his differences with a woman he once dated. “One night she told me she’d just eaten half a chocolate cake for dinner,” he says. Not exactly a “mindful” way to eat. “If you’re thinking about a long-term relationship, that’s a red flag.” They broke up within two months.
Sometimes couples actually agree on their lifestyle choices but find themselves in a game of green one-upmanship, with disastrous results. Claudia, for instance, wasn’t happy when her boyfriend bought her a kitchen composter so she could recycle leftovers. “I was miffed that he was trying to tell me what to do, and he was miffed that I wasn’t using it,” she says. They, too, eventually parted ways. “It wasn’t just the compost,” Claudia says, “but it raised some control issues that we couldn’t resolve.”
Of course, the spats don’t necessarily end once people tie the knot. Often the stringency of green ideals becomes just one more thing married people fight—and, ideally, make up—about. Stacy King Reis, 35, a sales executive for health-products company Gaiam, is highly sensitive to toxins, so she eats strictly vegetarian and organic. She believed her husband, Matt, was largely on the same page until recently, when she started to smell a gassy foulness from him after he returned home from business trips.
“I know what smells meaty,” she says, laughing. Still, all is not lost. They compost and recycle, and are ecofriendly in their household product choices. And, she says, she swoons whenever Matt wears his hemp shoes from Simple. “It’s definitely attractive to me.”
For Aaron Mutscheller, a 33-year-old Bay Area resident who recently started a luxury organic house-cleaning business in San Francisco, the problem is his wife’s Range Rover. “It’s become a nightly dinner conversation,” says Mutscheller, laughing, who prefers his low-emissions Volvo. He’s working on converting her to a Toyota Prius by sticking little magnets with pictures of oil barrels that he got from their daughter’s toy kit onto the Rover’s bumper.
Sometimes, however, the passion to be green can’t hold its own against plain old passion. “At one of our first meals together, Geoff had a pork burrito and lardy refried beans, and I was sooo grossed out,” says Brittany *, a 32-year-old teacher living in the Mission. “But I think he learned his lesson when he spent that whole night in the bathroom. Real sexy.” She fell for Geoff regardless (though he did swear off refried beans), and after dating for four years, they were married this summer.
And then there’s Neil * (true enough), a 31-year-old Oakland landscape construction worker who had been living a green, monastic-influenced life (no meat, no alcohol, no sex) for a year and a half. “But then I met Erica, who corrupted me with her wonderful ways,” he says, and he’s been happily enjoying wine, sex, and even the occasional burger ever since.
Calls to mind the old chestnut about losing the battle and winning the war.
I like your attitude.
I'm sure you can arrange it by contract agent, but this caption says "at", which means she was "in" India.
That alone would undoubtedly have made the meal better.
...Please... somebody... anybody,,, tell me he really is and this is one of his finer pieces....
One guess. She looks like she was fed hard candy with a slingshot!
Notice she's sitting in a WOOD chair that was made from a tree that was cruelly chopped down! Nice eye liner. She must put it on with a trowel!
I suppose a date with one of these guys is out of the question.
Thank you! There are some things I do in life that seem rather "liberal." I just need to make it clear that I'm only "Saving the Earth" because it's a cheaper way to live, LOL!
If the Enviro-Wackos would promote it from THAT angle, they'd get a lot more people on board, I'd think. Luckily, they're blinded by their agenda, and people like me can just live their lives in peace. ;)
I'd lose her like a sock. She's upset because she can't control him when she isn't around.
Or on their website.
(Photo caption: Rachel Pearson, the owner of Speesees Clothing in San Francisco, chooses colors and patterns for her 2006 line at a printing and sewing factory in southern India.)
Please read the caption.
She looks like she's wearing one of her own designs for a child's costume, "Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack jump over the candlestick."
Nutrasweet, next thing you know, he was using wire hangers...
Easy, the one GWB played when he was a kid learning to dominiate the world while his dad ran the CIA BWahhahahahahaaa.
ping
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.