The Bay Area is cursed

xoxo

Three years ago, I moved to the Bay Area, and I vowed to figure out the social scene. Three years later, I’ve become an introvert who becomes an extrovert again when I step off a plane at LaGuardia. I can’t get a grip on the region’s ways. I talk to strangers at the climbing gym and it’s like I’ve startled a bobcat.

The Bay Area has a curse. It is the curse of Aboutness. Social life here is not regarded as something people do naturally, an organic element of being. It has to be About something. In New York, it’s an important component of the human repertoire to dress up nicely, gather, drink and eat, be part of the throng. In the Bay, most gatherings have the sweaty air of Purpose. Discussions are held to uncover new information, not because it is good to be around each other. Conversations feel like podcasts and the hosts are not funny. Someone recently said to me: “I’m tired of drinking in living rooms with overly smart people.”

Sure, you could characterize the New York social life as purpose-driven: social positioning, conspicuous consumption. But motivated beauty is still beauty. I don’t care what motives make people strut alluringly towards delicious meals, or acquire interpersonal grace. I care about the actual richness this creates. It’s what we do instead of birdsong. In New York, the attractive people are attractive, but so are the ugly people — from the West Village girls to the octogenarians, costume and posture convey points of view.

In the Bay, beauty (personal and otherwise) is looked down on and the famous gender imbalance has chilling effects. Is there a less sexual city than this? Perhaps Salt Lake, but I’d imagine it’s close. My gorgeous friend M is self-conscious about wearing pretty dresses, which is insane anywhere else, but reasonable here: hotness is a quality people aren’t sure what to do with. Recently there was a themed Gender Ratio party where beautiful young women dressed glamorously, at least one for every man. In other cities this would be referred to as a party.

The good, sweet men are scared of women. They find it unacceptable that someone, somewhere, could find out that they want sex. Meanwhile, many of the rich older men are shockingly misogynist, or keep harems. The hippie guys know how to fuck but performing the dictates of adulthood is something they’re less handy at.

An eligible young woman recently told me: “someday I hope to experience monogamy.” Multiple women in their 30s, who lived here previously, have referred to poly as a “mind virus” that ate their 20s in discussions with me, without consulting each other. Most of the women who want monogamous relationships either import somebody (my wife’s strategy) or they move away. Sometimes you’ve got to meet your husband at a gangbang. Otherwise, women date the same guy, who everyone knows is a terrible boyfriend, and all have the same experience. People who care about present-moment phenomena, who don’t need to be here for career reasons, eventually move away. Crowds feel dead. Nobody is noticing each other. Bodily information doesn’t ripple from person to person, communication below the neck is limited.

The sexual dynamics themselves are not relevant to me personally. What’s relevant is that a place so erotically damaged has little eros, generally. Culture springs from the willingness for romance. Without it, life is less directed by wonder and attraction writ large. Fewer connected conversations with people who laugh easily and palpably enjoy each other’s company. Fewer moments when it feels like the human burden has been lifted (those moments are the inverse of Aboutness).

People are dreaming up the future here, who have never fully experienced their own bodies or emotions. They talk philosophically about how to reshape society, but don’t know what society feels like. They’ve never been able to rely on peers, or receive care informally. San Francisco is an avoidant city, and Berkeley is an anxious colony. The most awkward people I’ve ever met write widely read posts about the secrets of charisma and attraction. Psychology is one topic haunting the city here, because so many have a rough go of it. But the main topic is, of course, AI. A friend’s group house had “days since AI mentioned” as a counter written on the whiteboard, I never saw the number rise above 2.

I met a guy recently who might be starting a cult. He gave me some ideas about how to align corporations with real human interests. Obviously he had never heard a critical response to his positions, which were silly. There really are so many cults, and they’re all mediocre NXIVM cover bands. Human potential, what if we unlocked everyone, what if we finally cut off the shackles that stop us from being perfect. The common view is that humanity is a problem which can be solved if we finally just put our heads together. Lots of the most brilliant people I meet out here were once cultists. It’s the local version of pledging a frat. What I’ve concluded, after surveying many of the groups, is that the only people worse at organizational design than hippies are nerds.

It’s a good place to work, to meditate, to experience solitude. I’ve grown more intellectually rigorous, because everyone here is so fucking literal-minded. My cardio is better because I can run along the ocean, next to a cluster of trailers parked by Emeryville, a topiary-ish mall-oriented suburb. There is a miscreant violinist there who watches me huff and puff. It feels so good to be alone with God in the kelp smell in the green of early evening. I’m happy and fulfilled here as long as I behave like I’m living in a rural setting, with calm, quiet, and a few dear friends for an occasional dinner.

And then I return to the people and the smell of Aboutness greets me again. Sure; I am describing a pair of bubbles: the tech and spirituality cliques. You can live outside of those bubbles — at which point, you are in a 2nd-tier American city, which is to say, living one of the best lives possible in material terms, although without much of a shared social fabric. Snail Bar is a fun night out, the Flour + Water pasta tasting menu is great, Royal Egyptian Cuisine is one of the tastiest lunches of my life. It does feel thin. Over and over again, I meet people who have moved here a few months ago. They turn to me and say something like: “I heard that the Bay was amazing. Is this it?” If I feel like being encouraging, I mention the natural beauty, of which there is an embarrassing supply, enough cliffs and gardens for a lifetime of rumination.

An old friend told me “it sounds like you have insufficient bullying there,” and that is a reasonable diagnosis of everything good and bad about the Bay. And yet, I hesitate to write this piece, because it feels a bit like bullying, but nowhere near sufficient. I do love many of the individuals here, so many. Truly love. There is a mutant species here that is scarce everywhere else. I just don’t like the gestalt that forms around them. The Bay sucks up bright minds and invites them to descend into insular parody. It also sucks up try-hards who imitate the genuine eccentrics and, in the process, merely become mediocre dysregulated people. So what is the cure? I hear there are plans to import 50,000 art hoes. Unless imprisoned I believe they would blow away to LA within a season. It could help to implement Parisian sidewalk drinking culture. Just put people on the sidewalk facing each other, and give them natural wine that tastes like pickles and $26 fish crudo.

Ultimately, Aboutness may not be curable. It is just one manifestation of the local spirit. This place has always been transient and searching. From the gold rush to the dot com bubble, to Philip K. Dick’s amphetamine-fueled visions, this is where the future has repeatedly almost solidified. Maybe the Bay Area will always find itself tomorrow.

Thank you to Cate Hall, Carly Valancy, and Sarah Sherman for helpful feedback.