brad_warner

I got an e-mail yesterday from a blogger who wanted my Zen dating advice. The blog is gonna come out next week and I'll link to it so you can see what I said.

It's weird she should ask me this now because I've been thinking quite a lot about the subject lately. I am a Zen teacher and I am now well and truly free of any romantic entanglements. No girlfriend, no wife, none of that stuff. I told the interviewer "I am dating." And this, for her intents and purposes and ways of defining things was true. People who are not attached or celibate are "dating." At least I think that's how it works these days.

I suppose I'd say I am "open to dating." Of course, basically no woman in Southern California will touch me with a barge pole because I am too old and not a "player."*

I had this weird experience at a party last week in which I was talking to a woman. Once she figured out that I could not help her career or whatever she wanted from the men she chose to speak to she started looking around the room for someone better to talk to. It was extraordinarily rude behavior. But this is common practice in Los Angeles. I don't even take offense anymore. I am clearly not a "player." There are certainly a whooooole lot of ways I can help a person. But I cannot help them be successful in "the business" in this town.

I know those of you who don't live here are probably thinking there could have been lots of other reasons for such behavior and that I'm being defensive or what have you. Maybe my breath smelled. Maybe I was boring. Maybe I'm ugly. All kinds of stuff. But I've seen this enough that I can be sure I'm calling it correctly. Whatev's.

When someone doesn't want to hear what I have to say, I'm not going to waste my time saying it. This goes for any situation, whether dating or the potential thereof is part of it or not. There's really no point.