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I’ve never quite understood the idea of having a “type” when it comes to dating. Favorite ice cream flavor? Sure. Favorite type of guy? Not so much. Perhaps this is because I’ve gone out and hooked up with a lot of different kinds of men, and I’ve found myself equally attracted to guys of varying ages, races, heights, and builds.

It’s puzzling to me, then, why I’ve encountered so many people who stick to a preferred physical type. I’m not talking about broad categories as much as I am about specific traits, such as hair and eye color or, more to the point, race. On the dating site OkCupid, for example, users can search for potential matches by filtering the database with specific criteria, including ethnicity.

I’m not even going to get into whether dating someone based solely on looks is a good or bad thing (because that would constitute a whole column of its own), but I have friends who exclusively date a particular type, be it black men, Asian women, or the ever-popular Abercrombie model. Some say, “But I’m just not attracted to Asian/Black/White guys.” Others claim they’ve never met a person they wanted to date outside their race. Unfortunately, if variety is the spice of life, then there are a lot of people out there dating the same bland types over and over again. Read More »

A few years ago, while working as a ski instructor up north at some unnamed resort, I made friends with an awesome guy.

A youth instructor like myself, we spent our days holding up languid 3-year-olds on the bunny slope and chasing screaming kindergarteners down larger hills, hoping against hope no one slammed into a tree in the process.

Being in a high stress (and FREEZING) situation supplied us with an instant bond, and we soon found ourselves skiing together during our free time and discussing our lives on chairlifts.

During out time together, it began to dawn on me that he was everything I had ever looked for in a guy: smart, funny, good with kids, active, gentle, and giving. He liked his parents, wrote music on his off time, and always waited for me whenever I fell into a giant snowdrift.

Basically, he was awesome. The only issue? I wasn’t attracted to him in the slightest.

He wasn’t ugly. It didn’t hurt to look him in the face or anything; he just wasn’t my type. Nothing about him made me jittery or full of butterflies, my heart never jumped when he walked into a room, and those long chairlift rides were never awkward with anticipation.

I didn’t fantasize once about kissing him. Read More »