Or how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb.
Huffington Post writers love to think about surfing when they are not thinking about founder and inspiration Arianna’s accent and/or changing political position. They write about Laird, Ron Jon, the spirituality of surfing and the deliciously healthy pancakes that surfers eat for breakfast. Quite basically, the Huffington Post is The Inertia. Their most recent, thought stirring pieces are “Yogis and Surfers Are Most Attractive On Online Dating Sites – Here’s Why” followed closely by “15 Reasons You Should Never Date A Surfer.”
The seven reasons you should date a surfer are:
-driven but non-competitive
-live/travel to beautiful places
-great bods
-attack their days
-patient
-embrace nature
-mellow
The fifteen reasons you should not are:
-you come in second
-their idea of dressing up is shirt and pants
-you become a surf widow
-no quality time at the beach
-they are shit bags
-act like forever 16
-dumb
-incessant talk about Kelly Slater and the WSL (?)
etc.
etc.
etc.
-but at the end you really should date one because they are mellow
Aside from the cliched writing, it is silliness because if you really and truly surf, then you know “surfers” is far too broad a category. For every dreamy Cyrus Sutton there are the way way too many 40+ men who surfs next to me on aged shit surfboards, rotund bellies pushing neoprene to its max, drooling, loudly, about whatever else fills their meaningless lives. And for every 40+ there is the Insta kid standing on Ponce Inlet beach, WaveStorm under arm going on a #hangloose #surfer #surferdude #soultraining #ripping #instagood #instashred #like4like #follow4follow frenzy.
Nothing makes a surfer except surfing. Anyone can do it and its democratic nature makes me happy sometimes (when I’m surfing alone/with Derek Rielly) and angry sometimes (when I can’t paddle fast enough to beat the 40+ for waves). We are a tribe of 1.6 billion and if you want to date one, who knows what’s going to show up at your door!
P.S. The other day a Cadillac honked at me because it thought I was in the way. I was not. I got out of my car and charged up to his window. It was a 75 year old Indian man. I said, “Why the fuck did you honk?” He said, “I did not see what you were trying to do.” I said, “Never honk at me again. Ever.” And then turned and walked away. He tried to mumble something and I charged back up to his window and said, “Do you want me to pull you out of this car and kick your ass?” He was a 75 year old Indian man. He had his 8 year old grandson in the passenger seat. He looked horrified, said, “No” and drove away.
Mellow my motherfucking ass.
hahaha epic
Today I pulled into the development I live in and aggressively downshifted causing my BMW V8 (the only indicator that I may once have been wealthy) to roar as I pulled up to the stop sign. I was doing probably 15, but the roar of the engine and the tires squealing from downshifting so fast apparently made it sound like I was going fast. Some 40-something Asian dude gestured for me to roll my window down so I did because I thought there was something in the road or what not.
He goes “There are kids who play in this neighborhood and it’s dark you need to slow down”
Me: “Probably not gonna do that”
Him: “Screams something incoherent and throws his nasty as beverage at the back of my Arctic White 540i”
So I had to stop my car, unravel my 6’8/280 frame and wander over to him, at which point (I wish I was lying here) he proceeded to wet himself in front of his 6 and 7 year old boys who I saw watching in the window. I figured that was punishment enough and left.
After I got home I took my dog for a walk and as I went by the dude’s house I could hear his kids wailing and screeching in pain and him screaming at them incoherently, as he had done to me. I felt a twinge of guilt that those kids were getting thoroughly beaten because I had embarrassed their father. Then I realized how much I despise kids and how necessary it is to beat them, and to humiliate older men who think they can talk to 30-somethings like we’re teenagers. So party on, Chas, you’re good in my book.
Anybody else have Google post ads to date a surfer on your browser? I thought so. Well once they get their shit together their fancy formulas will figure out that I am trying my best to sneak in sessions. Thus it will be ‘want a hologram to sit at your desk?’ or ‘have groceries delivered to your car while you surf’. OK the mainstream media should go back to ignoring this strange obsession of ours now.
“I did not see what you were trying to do,” was such a thoughtful, wonderful response. I’m all for screaming at idiots, but dammit Chas.
I went in my house after the exchange, put my head in my hands and thought, “I have a real problem.”
Fret not, because his 8 year old grandson learned a valuable lesson in manners. If, one day, said grandson does try his hand at our saltwater pastime, he will never drop in on anyone, ever. You’ll have done us a public service.
Or more likely he’ll ride a longboard no matter what size the waves are, backpaddle everyone and take off on anything that moves, being a royal dick about it all. In that case, you’re totally at fault.
Horn jockeys? Such a scourge. I ain’t one for death penalties, but riders of the horn sure do deserve the chair.
That HuffPost article is tripe, not unusual for them though. It assumes a shitty stereotype of surfers partners. Omg plz teach me hw 2 surf omg blu crush xox havin a surfer bf is so fa$hionable. Fuck off. I don’t give a fuck how long my partner surfs or how far he has to go to get waves… Really, my field of fucks is barren. Just stick me in the car too and give me a real fruit ice cream for the journey. I stand on the beach, not an idle “surf widow”, but taking awesome photos and doing MA thannnng, whatever that is, I used to sit in the tussocks and have a cone. Soon I’ll have to start whistling at him like Filipe Toledo’s dad and get a following of stray dogs.
Good on you Bitch.
But as unfathomable it may feel today. One day the warm glow of puppy love may wear off, Your pink fluffy studded dog collar turns into a bleeding ring of pain and suffering around your swollen neck. Yapping, relentless little puppies shit on the floor and turn your body into a bloated vessel for feeding their over zealous mouths.
Worst of all you may even start reading Huffpost and celebrity gossip magazines.
Lovers leap lane is the most romantic ending.
That’s a grim prediction but with such colourful imagery, I feel as if you speak from experience. I’d like to think I could round up those “relentless little puppies” and chuck them into the sea under the watchful eye of my husband, while I sneak into the tussocks and have a cone. Responsible parenting is my middle name. I’m sure HuffPost will be obsolete by the time I am with child and some other trashy lifestyle news site will take its place. So not to worry, circle of life and whatnot…
I feel like you would need to sneak off into the tussocks, whatever the fuck that is, and spike your veins with some golden triangle deliciousness in order to truly tolerate relentless little puppies.
Laura is that you lurking in the mens underwear department at Westports Footlite and Sole?
Who the fuck is that bitch? What the hell is “Westport”? Sounds like somewhere Henry Kissinger would have a secret hideout…
Sorry Bitch, someone spiked my pipe with some of that “wacky tobacco” my mother warned me about.
I got euphoric for 10 minutes and spend the rest of the evening hiding under my smoking jacket in a dark haze of paranoia.
Westport is a penal colony in New Zealand by the way, I would have assumed if you have had a “Cone in the tussock’s” you may have heard of it.
“my field of fucks is barren” – i wish i could double up-vote just for that one
The worst thing about surfing is the surfers.
God yes.