Modern Love

An affair with the Bozone.

I’ll get straight to the point: I have beef with Bozeman. Sure, it’s got all the usual traits of a mountain town: full of transplants (I’m calling out every one of you that complain about the housing crisis when YOU are also the problem), off-leash zones, trustafarians, rival taco trucks, and mountains. I can also say that it is a prideful town—you see us rally for race, gender and sexuality equality, and other items of agenda that prove our strength as a community. Bozeman has a list of qualities so great that it convinces us all to pay atrocious rent prices for basements with the only light being covered by your upstairs neighbor’s Sprinter van. So what’s my beef, then? I clearly love Bozeman; I wouldn’t consider the option of moving to a lesser place even if it had a mythical spring with water that protected your ACLs from each and every ski tumble you take. I’m here to tell you what Bozeman’s biggest fault is: dating.

To start off, here’s a bit about me. I work at a Bozeman-famous consultant company in town, dare I say it’s named after a delicious food. I run, bike, climb, ski, cook, shop local, have a STEM degree that I’ve never touched, own a dog with a name that’s not Bridger, and actually take care of said dog. Hell, I even compost and recycle. In short, I’m essentially every Bozeman woman in her 20s who really just aspires to be every Bozeman woman in her 30s—a woman with a ski-bum husband to call her own while she has a successful career that supports her, her husband, and their town chickens.* Can you blame us?

So what’s the issue? Everyone and their therapist knows there are plenty of strong, independent women in this town, and even more ski-bum boys who believe that they’re the next Tom Jungst. The issue is Bozeman itself.

I wake up most weekday mornings and make coffee with beans roasted by Dean at Treeline. I walk to Cooper Park where I chat with a nice man with two border collies about our dogs’ latest woes and qualms. I go to the office where I overhear discussions of weekend plans consisting of an activity most people would only do once a year on a family vacation. I come home, then casually run up to Mt. Baldy or maybe flirt with some naive, overweening boys at Leverich. I make dinner with the venison I shot up at Mount Ellis and serve it with beets and other veggies from my weekly CSA. I meet up with friends at a brewery, maybe even end up dancing with the staggeringly old man that hangs out at the Eagles (bless you, sir, for letting us all serenade you on Karaoke Thursdays). What can I say, I’m a busy gal—I don’t have time to date when I’m too busy dating my eccentric, but very smug town. Bozeman is TOO great. We all want to take full advantage of its quirks and perks; not a single one of us has the time to consider sacrificing a second on a date with a boy that you could only wish was one of Jenny Lowe’s sons.

One Hinge date in this town will prove my theory a thousand times over, I can guarantee it. So that’s it—Bozeman may never be the place to find a soulmate or life partner. But I can sure as hell say that you’ll have a blast wasting money on rent in the meantime. Bozeman, I plan on leaving you someday to buy a house that I can afford, but I’ll enjoy you as my jouissance for the time being.

With love,
An emotionally-unavailable woman who’s in love with Bozeman (and her ex).

*The chickens don’t actually lay eggs anymore; she rescued them from a family off Craigslist that planned on slaughtering them for stew.