The Snacking Culture

Everybody has their favorite snack. Whether its a couple of Hot Cheetos, sliced apples, or perhaps a even worse snack, men.

We all love a good snack!

Just enjoying my favorite snacks.

I recently came into the realization that I might just love snacking and not want to commit to a serious relationship for a while. Fuck it, life is a buffet.

It was a typical Sunday afternoon where I was doing a few publicity projects at work and perhaps worked 10+ hours.  I was sitting at a book reading I had created for one of the places I work while it hit me; maybe I am not meant to be in a relationship anymore.

Author Micah Perks read a couple of short stories from her newest book, True Love and other Dreams of Miraculous Escape, during the event when a couple of women joined in for a very interesting but eye opening conversation.

https://www.micahperks.com/

Micah was the married woman, another one was newly divorced, and one the last one was married to another woman and had twin toddlers. Here I am sitting across 3 different women sharing my struggles of being single in a Tech owned city!

Luckily my girls who have joined me in this journey came to my event and the conversation became more saucy.

So here we are, three women who have experience marriage, relationships that lasted more than 5 years, and have created a family sitting across three young women in their mid to early thirties who can't even get a date without a proper "Goodnight kiss" without it turning into, “Hey do you want to split the Uber?”

Several bottles of wine later we realized that dating for millennial in this city is not simple.

Upon stories we had to share there was the guy who lived in his car. The guy who had a mattress on the floor with a curtain dividing the living room space, or the guy who lived in the East bay and needs a good night fuck and roof for the night because he doesn't want to Uber back home for $30+.

One fact Kat, Kali, and I had in common was the famous phrase we tend to hear when we are in a date, "So how's your living situation."

Pretty funny but pretty damn embarrassing!

It's time to spill the tea on some of the dating disasters we had during this "snacking" culture.

As we are sharing some of the situation's we have come across from swiping to the left with dating apps such as Tinder, OKCupid!, Bumble, or even Instagram, we all realized that living in a tech owned city where romance is almost dead and everyone is just trying to snack (fuck) around is maybe the only choice we have left in such a developing zip code.

I recently had a very strange month where most of the men straight up said, "Look, I am almost 40 years old and want to get married soon and have kids. You have your shit together and look like you have great eggs and I want to have exotic babies!"

Very blunt, very straight forward, but very uncomfortable. I have "good eggs"....how the hell do you know?

Men can be so desperate at times, especially when they are almost hitting 40!

From the past few months I have been attempting to date after ending a long term relationship that almost took me to an international altar. Sadly, I come to notice that Mr. Right is nowhere near to be found.

Younger girls under 25 are usually snacks with a price (Sugar babies), women almost hitting 30 want to find someone that has potential to be more than just a "snack", and sometimes women over 30 just say, "Fuck it, I will snack around".

Men at any age just want to "snack around" but somehow men almost hitting 40 who have never been married want to settle down with a woman reaching her thirties and sadly divorced men just want to catch up on snacking from all the years they invested in their broken marriage.

Somehow this snacking culture is pretty savage for any age group.

I remember one guy in particular when I first moved to San Francisco mention that, "This city is like a buffet of women. Many come and go from all over the world and he wants to try everything in the menu!" John Doe, 35 and a San Francisco native. Full disclosure, his name is actually a sea mammal but I am not trying to get in trouble for sharing it since it’s pretty unique. This says a lot about him.

Never the less, I never saw him again after that comment nor did he try to have some of my Middle Eastern and Mexican Cuisine.

After multiple attempts between me and my girls, we all realize we are living in the snacking culture.

Remember the episode where Samantha complains about the dry phase in Sex in the City series, well maybe she should come to San Francisco because everyone is always wet one way or the other. Dry spells aren’t real here in the city, in fact the city is definitely not known for its drought if you know that I mean.

I love exploring San Francisco and I must say, I have not seen real romance from locals but perhaps maybe with tourist who pop the question during sunset by Pier 39 while I am enjoying my gelato.

I tend to find a better chance for love when I am out of the country than within my own zip code. Even my girls tend to match with people far away or outreach of the city.

In the years I have been single and dating around, I’ve never heard someone say “I left my heart in SF”. Instead it's more like “I got fucked in SF”. The snacking culture has clearly taken over the romance of the city which has left many of us wondering, “Will we ever find love here?”

People who you date might just want to snack around as much as they can and finding a true partner that genuinely gives two shits about you is pretty rare in this city.

As I am reaching my 'Dirty 30',  which makes me wonder, wasn’t my 20’s pretty dirty too; I begin to feel the pressure to find a partner. I will like to fall in love with someone and not just “snack” around. I will like to eventually get married and perhaps have a mini me but in the meantime living in this city makes me realize that this image I have in my head might not happen till I am hitting 40+ if I stay in San Francisco with this culture.

I haven’t felt the romance even on tacky Valentines day. The last time I got flowers was 5 years ago but during this culture crash, I usually buy mine from Trader Joe's as a reminder that I do not need a significant other to make me feel loved.

Trying to figure out if these dead flowers have more love than this city.

As long as I have my Indie music playlist with a couple of treats from Good Vibrations, than I can survive but its getting pretty old “snacking around” town.

I feel like I have a better chance when I move to my next destination which is Vegas, ironically as it sounds but there might be potential there.

Not that my biological clock is ticking however, it's time for many reasons to move out of San Francisco and explore other territories.Guess we'll see how it goes when I move to Sin city which might not be as sinful as San Francisco itself.

I am not a goddamn snack but a full meal.

"Veneno" by Anitta is the perfect anthem for this "snacking" culture.

                                                  Written by Gardenia Zuniga-Haro

                                                    Photography by Briana Garcia