Things you buy through our links may earn Vox Media a commission. In the four years I lived in Anchorage, I dated more than I probably will for the rest of my life.

I got asked out a lot — at the grocery store, at the library, hiking the Matanuska Glacier, gliding down the bike trail. But most of them were just genuine guys trying their luck, which encouraged me to try my luck, too. In short turn, I soon realized that if I wanted to meet guys in Alaska, all I had to do was go outside. I got to Alaska the way most people do: Through personal trauma and a series of questionable decisions.

I went to visit a friend in Anchorage in Februaryand it felt right. I sold all of my furniture, quit firmly kinky hookups All job, bought a car, and spent two months by myself on a cross-country road trip to Alaska.

I assumed my romantic life in Alaska would continue the same way it had everywhere else I lived — sparse and unexciting. My lack of a high-school love life and the fact that Alaska never saw any hometown dick makes it easy to go back to visit now, but at the time it congratulate, single dating sites consider me feel ill-prepared for dating in the real world.

I quit college after alaska year and moved to California when I was 19; I met my first boyfriend at work, and we dated for three years. I worked too much to even consider dating when I moved back to New York, aside from a few great make-out sessions in the local Irish pub at dating time. By the time I moved to Alaska, Alaska had been in a relationship without ever having been on a date. But somehow, in Alaska, I was like one of those plants that only bloom once a century — it took most of my life up to that point to gain the strength and confidence I needed to really shine.

I think I was successful because there was nothing at stake.

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I had moved to Alaska to try something completely new, and to set my own limits. I was at my most independent while I lived in Alaska. And I jumped into that oddball dating scene headfirst. I spent a month or two with Derek names changed throughouta legitimate maestro who was mostly a bartender owing to the shortage of symphony orchestras in the state. I went on a hike with Scott, who asked me out because he liked alaska book I was reading dating night while I had dinner alone in a restaurant.

I had a roommate in AmeriCorps, and enjoyed having sex with one of her co-workers, Paulo. I worked in a used bookstore, which was a petri dish of makeups, breakups, hookups, and that one customer who looked like Robert Goulet and always hung out near the Left Behind series.

I was also the hostess at a pizza place, which was a breeding ground for sexual harassment from inebriated customers trying to cop a feel on their way from the bathroom back opinion messianic jewish dating where the table where their wife and kids were sitting.

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Once, on a fishing trip with some friends, I met one of those firefighters who parachutes into fires from an airplane. I had my first, real dinner-and-a-movie date in Alaska with a sweet man I met at the bookstore. He picked me up, and dropped me off at my door with a gentle kiss. Then I went out with a Scottish businessman; he had soft, tiny doll hands and once, during a robust round of fucking, he accidentally but unapologetically jizzed in my eye. It was the next dating time I punched a man right in the face, before I ran screaming to Planned Parenthood to get checked dating ocular STIs.

Living in alaska city helped a lot. I once spent the better part of a year working in alaska fishing village in the Aleutian Islands, and the men of the Alaskan bush country were as surly as werewolves. So what is the point of dating, then? I had an epiphany while I lived in Alaska: Dating can be so much fun.

Sometimes you get to sit on the rooftop of a bookstore, drink wine, and watch the Aurora Borealis. I want that Alaska feeling back. This email will be used to sign into all New York sites. By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy and to receive email correspondence from us. Account Profile. Sign Out. Photo-Illustration: Getty Images. Tags: it's complicated alaska dating first person love and war More. Most Viewed Stories. Most Popular. By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice and to receive email correspondence from us.

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Anchorage’s dating pool is so small, and the pandemic isn’t helping. How can I meet new people?

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