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.
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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.
Luckily for us, these types usually don't breed (Earth overpopulation and all that).
WTF is organic house-cleaning?
Is there any doubt that this is really a religion?
These idiots just don't want to date outside their faith!
Woe, indeed...
Woe be any man who meets a liberal woman in SF.
He wears deodorant?
This thread is Gaia.
They deserve each other.
And they ought to be made to live in a tent in the wilderness, just to keep them from bothering the rest of us.
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.”
Maybe it's using organicly made free range water.
Mating Rituals of Neurotic Eco-Nazis
Can you imagine what these idiots would do to their kids?
You should be ashamed of yourself. Go to your room, and think of a proper punishment.
Using things that aren't chemically-based for cleaning. Such as using salt & lemon juice to shine copper pots, a vinegar-water mixture as a spray cleaner, and using ordinary baking soda as a household scrub for toilets, sinks, and tubs.
It saves money, too.
Any psychologists out there?
You ought to, honey, you're made of it. I wouldn't blame the poor sumbitch for resorting to pickled eggs, refried beans, and a sixer of cheap beer for a little revenge.
“It wasn’t just the compost,” Claudia says, “but it raised some control issues that we couldn’t resolve.”
Hmm...ya reckon?
Its when you have so much money that you can buy REALLY expensive crap that is 'organic" to clean your house instead of the ordinary soap we poor stupid UN-Green slobs use.
Was the guy required to recycle any latex products?
The Chicken Cordon Bleus
Steve Goodman
When I first met you baby you fed me on chicken and wine
It was steak and potatoes and lobster and babe I sure felt fine
But now all you ever give me is seaweed and alfalfa sprouts
And sunflower seeds and I got my doubts
You left me here with the Chicken Cordon Bleus
My stomach is empty and all I got is food for thought
I been up all nite thinkin' 'bout the twenty pounds of groceries we bought
We bought ten lbs of brown rice and five more of beans
And five pounds of granola and you know what that means,
I'm just a regular fella with the Chicken Cordon Bleus
I'm starved for affection and I don't think I can stand no more
This stuff is so wierd that the cock roaches moved next door
Can you see that old dog out in the street
He's got a big smile on his face
Cause they let him meat
Babe I got the lemon and the Chicken Cordon Bleus
(spoken)
Yeah I'm goin down to the baker and get me a cannoli.
and Maybe a chocolate eclaire would be nice...
People like this disgust me.
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