SKI TOWN GUYS: Seared Ahi or Smelly Scrod?
It’s not always easy being female in a ski town. Sure, in theory we have it made: The proportion of single men to women tilts way in our favor—getting a date should be like shooting fish in a barrel. Except, for some reason, single guys in ski towns don’t really believe in dates, choosing instead to show their interest by getting liquored up enough to make drunken oogle eyes and lurch in for a smooch. Well, that’s fine—as long as a guy can keep up on the slopes, he has potential. But there’s a huge difference between potential and actual. When the guy you’ve been dating has, for the second time in a week, woken up on the couch in full ski gear with the Playstation controller in his hand, the smoke detector blaring and the charred remnants of a frozen pizza still burning in the oven, he shouldn’t cite “you don’t lose your girlfriend, you just lose your turn” as the reason why you’ve moved on. Not to say that we’re perfect ourselves—I’ve burnt a few pizzas in my time, too—but we tend to shoulder the blame more often than not in this eternal struggle. Still, we soldier on, and happily, the barrel is still full of fish. Here are some types you might shoot for:
The Sensitive Outdoorsman
Opening Line: “Have you ever seen the sunrise from the top of a 14er?”
Most likely a guide and/or ski patroller, he’ll go backcountry skiing with you, he’ll cook his grandma’s secret recipe, he’ll stay up into the wee hours with you drinking peppermint tea and discussing the universe, and he’ll send you letters and mix CD’s while he’s off fighting fires, counting endangered species, or caring for his ailing granny during the summer. You’ll gaze into his soulful eyes and sigh….the same exact sigh that another girl or two are making at the same moment while listening to the same CD he made you. It’s not his fault—he’s a victim of his own sensitivity and the subsequent discovery that it totally gets chicks. He’ll tell you from the beginning that he’s been hurt recently and isn’t looking for anything serious—but after a few attentive nights you’ll forget all that. Just don’t be bummed when he says he has some things to work out and can only be friends right now, but he’ll see you in a few months, and, “Hey, if things are meant to be, they’ll work out.”
The Super-Connected Smooth Talker
Opening Line: “Here, don’t pay for that. Tell me where you live and I’ll bring it by later.”
These are the wheel-greasers of ski-town society, and if you’re new to town and want to meet everyone quickly, he’s your ticket. He always knows where the party is, and the after party, and the free wine and cheese. Money, however, is no object, as he operates with his own type of currency—the barter chain. He tells the girl at the coffee cart where the hot party is—she slides across a few coffees, smoothies, and day-old bagels. Voila—breakfast. The smoothies are re-gifted to the ski tech buffing the skis of Smooth Talker’s liftie buddy. Liftie buddy looks the other way when S.T. and his dude-bro slide on the lift, sans pass. Dude-bro hooks him with a nug. The bud winds up in the pocket of the guy working the door at the concert that night. Downside? You start off in town as another of Mr. S.T.’s flavors of the month. Upside? Your new education in bartering tells you it was a good trade, ’cause that liftie buddy is hot!