Lessons in Love from the Heart of San Francisco
You can get what you want if you know what that is.
Where does everyone in San Francisco go to get anything that they need? If you’re from here, you didn’t hesitate before you answered “Craigslist”. It’s the first stop for anyone in the city who is looking for a job, a friend, a one night stand, a list of the day’s events, a ride to another city, an apartment or just a place to rant and rave. And the great thing about “Craigslist” in San Francisco (as opposed to some of the other cities where the SF startup has now spread) is that there are enough people here with enough divergent interests who are all looking in that same online space that you can get pretty much anything you want there.
So, if you’re seeking a one-armed musician to take photos of in order to build up your portfolio or you really want to find a group of female-to-male transgender swimmers to be friends with … you just post in the right spot on Craigslist and chances are that, with a little persistence and some luck in your timing, you can get what you think you need.
But therein can often lie the problem. In order for Craigslist to work well for you, you actually have to know what you want. If you’re vague, you’re either not going to get any responses or you’re going to get responses that turn out to be not really what you were looking for. “I need a roommate” may be true but “I need a roommate who can shared a one-bedroom studio apartment in a terrible neighborhood with me and my three cats” might get the better response more promptly if that’s really what you need.
And romance, really, is the same way. Relationships work better when both people go into them knowing more or less what they need from another person and the situation as a whole. Sure, there will be compromises and changes to what you need will take place … but things just work better if you have a basic understanding of who you are and what you want. If you don’t know what you want and you just end up in a relationship with someone by circumstance, you often end up blaming the other person for not being what you need when you weren’t even clear about that need in the first place.
Of course, sometimes San Franciscans just hang out on Craigslist to see what’s out there. Perhaps you don’t need anything specific and just want to see what’s out there. Then sure, do some splashing around in the dating pool; San Francisco’s singles scene has more than one diving board for your enjoyment. But if you’re trying to find a certain something, you should probably pin down in your mind what that is before you start advertising it to the world around you.