Guest Post: Gold Diggers
Dr. Colleen Long is the author of “Happiness in B.A.L.A.N.C.E,” and practices in the Los Angeles area under the supervision of Dr. Richard Oelberger (PSY22186) . Dr. Long works mainly from a positive psychology framework as it applies to addiction, depression, relationships, body image and weight loss.
It’s been happening since 1848. People have migrated out to California for over a hundred years for their own personal gold rush. California is the land of promise, the home of dreamers, a perfect world, where ideal weather meets the beautiful people. Yet, as I sit here, three years later after my own search for gold, I feel something is amiss.
After being a serial monogamist for over ten years in the Midwest with only three different guys and then dating what seems like a thousand different people in the three years I’ve been here in California, I began to wonder “what changed?” I started to evaluate my looks (“maybe my figure is not as good as it once was?”), I started to wonder about my personality (“am I not as fun and spontaneous as I once was?”), and I started comparing myself to other girls out here (“they are much more light and airy, why am I so serious all the time?”). Then came the question- “what if it is not me at all?”
If we consider the typical person that comes out to California, we realize they are not typical at all. You have every homecoming queen that was told she should be in movies. We’ve got every jock who found out the mortgage business wasn’t what it promised to be, and moved out here to parlay their residual ruggedness into a spot on Tool Academy. We’ve got the real estate investors who made way too much money long ago and are used to having the best of everything (including women).
Besides this crowd, the type of person who moves out here wanted something more for their life. So much so, that they were willing to leave friends and family behind to courageously explore a new frontier, hoping for the best life they could possibly have. The person that moves out here, away from what is comfortable, realizes that we only get one shot in life, and for themselves- they don’t want to spend it in Hartford, South Dakota just because that is where they were born.
“So what relevance does this have to the dating scene,” you ask? The answer is “it has TREMENDOUS relevance because the same person who wants a perfect lifestyle, also wants a perfect mate.” In usual circumstances, if a guy meets a girl who is attractive, smart, funny, and outgoing, he thinks “wow I can’t wait to see her again, what a catch!” However, the same guy can meet the same girl in California and he’s going to think “God I love this town, what else is around the corner?”
So what do we newly minted Angelinos do about this quandary? Personally, I’ve decided -I’ll take those lonely Sundays where I long for someone to curl up on the couch with, all amongst a sunny back drop of 70 degrees and endless choices of fun things to do and places to go, than to be married to the same person, trudging through the sludge of bills and babies in sub-zero temperatures with nowhere to go but Bill’s Fish Fry or Wal-Mart.
