Two reporters, Julia, and four other single ladies gather at the Brotherhood on a Sunday night. Although she received a few date applications through OP&L, she asked to take her friends out instead. And to stay downtown. We still feel bad about what happened to her originally (sooo not our fault), and we are committed to every FNS having a great time, so we can make an exception just this once.
Plus, what a great opportunity to get inside the minds of single gals in Oly! They have promised to bare their souls and offer whatever nuggets of wisdom we can print.
Why did she pick these four? “I’ve been here three years, so we’ve known each other for more than two years. They’re all really good friends who’ve helped me out at some time.”
Three of them, including Julia, grew up in the Washington, DC area; one is from Texas, and one is from San Diego. They all met their first year at Evergreen. They are all twenty-one or twenty-two.
We pull Julia aside for a little check-in first, and to give her friends a chance to dish behind her back.
So, why didn’t she pick one of the guys who wrote in? Well, she wasn’t sure that the ones who responded to the first version of her would like the ‘real Julia’ that came out in the later version which she wrote. Plus, one of the guys who wrote in she’d already gone on a date with.
“I hoped I’d get some mystery knight-in-shining armor.” From everything we’ve heard, mysteries – while not impossible – are infrequent in the Olympia dating scene.
“I’m just hoping to treat my ladies right,” says Julia. “I want to let them know I love them, and that I’d rather hang out with them than a stranger.” (Kinda misses the point of a date, but what the hey.)
“We’re all kind of nervous. We all know who we’re dating and who’s seeing who.”
Are they ever seeing the same people? “Olympia’s so small that… sometimes, yeah.”
Turns out there’s nothing scandalous to be shared with reporters behind Julia’s back. Her friends agree that you can say anything you have to say in front of her.
“And she’s definitely not boring,” says Jackie.
“It’s easy to be Julia’s friend,” Morgan adds.
“I love Julia!” shouts Nicole. She was involved in the whole initial FNS write-in, and wastes no time explaining.
Here’s how it went: Julia had been considering writing in, but didn’t know what to say about herself. Several friends took it upon themselves to write something and send it to us to jump-start the process. They didn’t realize that, by posing as Julia herself, they would get her in the paper without her knowledge.
Morgan remembers seeing that first issue with Julia’s picture on the back cover.
“I said, ‘What?! Julia didn’t tell me she was the Fortnightly Single!”
She was also there when Julia saw it for the first time.
“It was obvious to her that whoever wrote it was a friend, someone who knew her well.”
“I remember getting that first paper and turning it over,” says Julia. “I was embarrassed. All of my jokey problems were caricatured in it. I couldn’t decide whether it was hilarious or I hated it. It was really well written. Actually, I was kind of appreciative, because I did want to do it. I had to ask around to find out who wrote it.”
(That’s a secret.)
Morgan says, “Maybe she wanted to go on a date with you.”
“I was surprised you were able to publish such profanity,” says Julia. (Well, the First Amendment allows a lot of things, but the jury’s still out on whether we crossed the line on our own standards.)
The consensus this evening is that it was clearly a fake, no harm done, and the whole thing was funny after all.
Julia got a lot of informal feedback from that first piece, mostly people saying they’d date her but they didn’t want to write in to the paper. She responded, “Hey, if you really want to date me, dude, it isn’t that hard to write a paragraph about it.”
“I had a couple of intriguing people approach me, but I’d rather have someone write in about how fabulous I am than have someone drunkenly proposition me on the sidewalk outside the Voyeur. This one guy wanted to turn it into a performance art piece. I got a lot of women who were willing to respond, and I like that.” She says she understands people not wanting to write in, that it’s “nervewracking” to go on a public date.
(Note to “intriguing people”, drunken propositioners, “this one guy”, and a lot of women: if you actually write in, it increases your chances by at least 100%, possibly more.)
“I definitely felt like I was a celebrity for a bit.”
On Dating in Olympia
“Everyone keeps saying that Portland is ‘Olympia with opportunities’,” says Julia. “The longer you stay [in Olympia], you get to know everyone, and it gets complicated. I’m surprised that you get as many Fortnightly Singles as you do. It’s good to see that people do want to go on dates.”
“People just don’t want to write in to the paper,” says Nicole.
“There’s not a lot of opportunities to just date someone,” says Julia. “No one does that anymore. I’ve been on like three dates in my life.”
“I feel like there’s not a lot of dating going on – not many formal dates, at least,” echoes Morgan. “I haven’t been on very many formal dates since I’ve lived here.”
The consensus? That’s just how it is here.
So is it like that in other places?
“Yeah, on TV!” says Nicole.
“It’s weird because everyone knows each other,” says Madeleine.
“I have a man friend,” says Morgan. “We went on a birthday date together.”
“A lot of times, dates happen after you’ve slept with someone,” says Jackie.
Madeleine laughs. “Yeah, you wake up in the morning and you’re like, ‘Hey, I like you!’ It gets complicated,” she adds. “We’re all friends and we date our friends.”
So have they ever dated the same people?
They all simultaneously use the word ‘overlap’: “There’s some overlap,” “There’s a lot of overlap,” “They sort of overlap.”
“That’s part of the agreement from the start,” Madeleine says.
“That’s what’s nice about Olympia dating,” says Julia. “Everyone is open about things. People are honest here. You don’t have to worry someone’s lying to you.”
“ – and you’re probably going to see them walking down the street tomorrow,” adds Morgan. “When I’m seeing someone I don’t have a lot of expectations of commitment.”
“I always assume someone is seeing other people, unless they say otherwise,” says Madeleine. “That’s probably not normal, is it? I wonder if this is something that happens everywhere, or just in Oly? I know a lot of people in relationships, but I don’t know anyone in a monogamous relationship.”
“You kind of have to shut off your jealousy,” says Morgan. “Or at least not let it get out of hand. It’s easier to just acknowledge that you’re sleeping with the same person rather than get angry. You don’t have to fight over the guy.”
“You have to be able to put it away, like any other emotion that’s negative but necessary,” adds Nicole.
“The main thing about being in a relationship is you can stop looking for sex all the time everywhere,” says Madeleine. “I read a study that communities with a higher percentage of women to men will have a higher level of sexual openness.”
A discussion follows – no one really knows what “sexual openness” in a community looks like, although most agree sleeping with a lot of people and honesty are two key components.
The consensus? Women in Olympia are way cooler than the women at whatever high school you went to, so you don’t have to be jealous.
On Criminal Justice, and Scabies
“We just talk about all of our shit all the time. We’re pretty much a girl gang,” says Julia. They all break out laughing.
“We’re the original girl gang crew in Olympia… ever.”
“Ever?”
“We’ll get in trouble for that.”
Some guy at the bar can’t resist asking, “So what does the original girl gang in Olympia do?”
“We fuck shit up.” They all roll their eyes at him.
(Editors’ note: Anyone that might be tempted to take this as evidence of the existence of a so-called ‘gang problem’ in Olympia needs to get out more often.)
Julia mentions that a friend of hers recently got a ticket for jaywalking, and that she herself is – wait for it – on probation! Now that’s scandalous!
For what? “It’s really stupid. This is a problem with the Olympia police – they have quotas. I was under the Fourth Avenue Bridge at one o’clock in the afternoon on a nice day with some friends and a puppy. There’s no sign there, but the fence is supposed to count for a no-trespassing sign, I guess. Anyway, this cop walks up and says, ‘Hey, I’ve been watching you for twenty minutes, and you guys can’t be here.’ I mean, we’re sitting there with a puppy in the middle of the afternoon. They’ve had really loud punk shows there at like three o’clock in the morning with hundreds of people!” She got a $600 fine that she worked off doing community service.
“I went back three weeks later and shot off fireworks, no problem. That time I should have been in trouble.”
Morgan has a great story about getting pulled over by a police officer (her car is missing a front license plate). She had just had her wallet stolen, so she had no proof of insurance and no drivers license, but she paraphrases the cop: “You know what, you seem to have your shit together. How about if I just give you my card. You should call me sometime.”
“I bet he’d take you on a real date!” True story.
So the ladies admit to having met up ahead of time to prepare for this “date”. (Cheaters!)
“We were super nervous. We went to Le Voyeur to plan out what we were going to say. We didn’t want to say anything bad about anyone accidentally, or name names.”
One of the things they agreed ahead of time not to talk about is Astrology. So of course, upon the mere mention of the forbidden subject, everyone shares their sign (and their moon sign and rising sign), and a lengthy discussion about relationships, friendships, work and astrology ensues.
Reporters: “This is too easy. So, out of curiosity, what else did you agree not to talk about?”
“Scabies,” they all say in unison.
Naturally, a fascinating discussion about the etymology of the word ‘scabies’ follows, along with descriptions of the illustration in the Latin textbook itself. Then, we are caught up in a lurid conversation whose dialogue shall remain unattributed, to protect the reputations of the previous victims of these pernicious parasites. (Suffice to say, each of our daters spoke authoritatively on the forbidden subject. From direct experience? We’ll never know. )
“The only way to get rid of them is to set fire to your whole house.”
“Are we talking about scabies? God damn it!”
“It’s the most complicated disease you can get, because everyone’s misinformed.”
“The best information is on the CDC website.”
“I felt like a leper when I had it.”
“It’s worse than herpes.”
“At least it’s temporary.”
“I was walking down the street one day, and I was like, ‘Damn, I’m glad I don’t have scabies anymore!’”
“Guys, we’re not supposed to talk about scabies.”
“It’s worse than an STD, because you don’t just have to tell the people you slept with, you have to tell everyone. Even if you just sat in their car for a second.”
“We’re not supposed to admit that we had scabies!…”
“Yeah, scabies are not a turn-on.”
“…but nobody cares if you smell.”
“It’s hard to be cleanly in Olympia,” says Julia. “Everyone’s like, ‘Oh, you smell – that’s a turn-on.’ I was going into the parole office and my mom was like, ‘Make sure your clothes don’t have holes in them and make a good first impression.’”
“My mom always asks, ‘Is it cool in Olympia to look ugly?’”
“We just have different standards of beauty here,” says Madeleine.
The consensus? It’s hard to let go of a favorite item of clothing, even when it gets… structurally compromised. But hey – if you live in Olympia, you don’t always have to let it go. If you lived in Bethesda, well, that’s a different story altogether. Oh, and avoid the scabies.
“It’s nice to have some DC folks around here,” says Julia.
They all pretty much came to Olympia to attend Evergreen.
“I first read about Evergreen in Gossip Girl when I was in middle school,” says Jackie.
It turns out students in the District of Columbia get in-state tuition anywhere in the country.
“It’s because we’re taxed without representation. So we get this instead.”
“If anyone needs a cigarette they should bum off me,” offers Nicole.
“The nice thing about going on a date with friends is you can steal all their cigarettes,” says Julia. “So, when she heard I was going out with friends for my Fortnightly Single date, my mom said, ‘Don’t worry that no one wrote in. You’re beautiful, and smart, and wonderful, and blah, blah, blah…”
“Thanks, mom,” Morgan interjects sarcastically.
“It’s nice that people write in,” says Julia, “that they really want to go on a date. When you spend so much time hanging out in bars and with friends, it’s nice to know that there’s another way of life. I kind of appreciated them [her friends] writing in. I really did want to do it but didn’t know what to write about myself. But that first one – my boss read that, my teacher read that. People said, ‘That’s great, that’s really cool that you don’t care what other people think of you.’”
“No matter what you’re like, when you put it on paper, someone’s going to say, ‘that’s dumb’,” Jackie point out.
“I ran into the guy from Sleater Kinney last night,” Julia says. “He was like, ‘Nice earrings. Are you from DC?’ and I was like, ‘What? Are these too DC?’ I didn’t know there were ‘DC earrings’.”
“Oh, yeah, every time I go back there I get like six pairs,” says Nicole.
“Sleater Kinney? There’s no guy in Sleater Kinney.”
“Oh, I meant Bikini Kill.”
We were worried that, without romantic tension, the date would never end. Usually, it goes one of two ways: either “Hey, it was great meeting you and I had a great time and we should hang out but I have to work in the morning,” or “Let’s go hump each other’s legs right now at some house show on the Westside.”
But with friends, how does it wrap up? Casually and comfortably, it turns out. They’re all going to a show at Dumpster Values after the date, so they gather up their things and share a few last-minute gems.
“I actually just picked all these ladies cause they’re hot,” Julia admits. “I’m just happy with the way things turned out. I had a really, really good time.” (Of course you did! You were hangin’ with your homeez at the Broho dishing vaguely about sex and danger. Mystery knights notwithstanding, it doesn’t get much better than that.)
Just as she’s packing up her things, Morgan gets a text.
“It says, ‘Tell op&l that dating in oly is hard because, like ‘cheers’, everyone knows your name.’”
“I’m still getting used to Olympia,” says Julia.
Go here for scandalous out-of-context quotes, cuss words, and dating advice from these gorgeous gals!