Go fish

On dating in Mammoth Lakes...

“When was the last time you went on a date that wasn’t arranged by the internet?” a dad at the bike rodeo asked me two weeks ago. He stood in front of me, dark-tinted sunglasses on, adjusting his belt.

“Last night,” I replied, deadpan.

“Really?” He pulled back, surprised, still fiddling with the waist-band of his jeans. He’d just told me how he met his wife at the Clocktower Cellar, “back when guys used to pick up girls at the bar.” My recent romantic escapades somehow defied his version of reality. “How’d that go?”

“Good,” I said and laughed.

I wanted to tell him hitting on girls at the bar is not a fixture of the past. Deleting my Tinder and Hinge hasn’t stopped any unwanted advances. Men here are brazenly forward. They’ll say anything for a chance in your pants.

This is my second month living in Mammoth Lakes. I love it here. The unparalleled outdoor access and deep sense of community makes this place feel like home. People here are open, vulnerable. They want to get to know you. They want to be your friend.

Sometimes, however, my interactions with men have shown me there’s a dark underbelly to this friendliness. I call it the plight of being a completely normal looking girl in Mammoth Lakes.

The first time I went out in town was with Fisher, during Margarita Fest in August. Determined to make an impression, I wore my favorite cheetah print cropped shirt, black baggy low-rise jorts, and a purple bandana, tied around my head like a pirate. I was abiding by the mantra my friends and I repeated to ourselves in college, “You can’t always be the prettiest girl in the room but you can always be the most interesting.”

Turns out, in Mammoth, you likely are the prettiest girl in the room. That’s because you’re likely the only girl in the room.

I did make friends that fateful August night. But I was also groped by strangers in Lakanuki. One persistent boy told me he’d “be anything for me” as long as we went home together (I politely declined). Another couldn’t remember my name, referring to me only as “gorgeous” in his charming British accent. A third, maybe in his forties, insistently asked me to dance. No, I kept saying. When I biked away from the establishment, he yelled after me. “Hey sweetie, let me hop on those handlebars.”

I’m no stranger to unwanted attention. I grew up in Alta, Utah. I know what it’s like to be a girl in a ski town. We used to joke about being an Alta 10 and a Salt Lake 6. In high school, young skier boys with goggles beneath their helmets and their pants hanging below their knees asked me for my number in the lift line. Back then, it was harmless, even flattering. Who doesn’t love a little male validation? I started to crave it.

My college experience was tainted by the institution’s Greek system and the hierarchy it imposed. Clout was determined by which frats the boys I kissed belonged to. Was my one-night-stand A-side or B-side? Fingers crossed for the former; my social capital depended on it. Sex became gamified, leaving both parties to feel objectified and used. This was no way to form an authentic connection. The more I bought into this culture, the less desirable I felt.

Mammoth is a different beast. My feeling of undesirability has been completely erased, replaced by the sensation of my body on constant display. Suddenly, I’m everyone’s prettiest girl they’ve ever seen. It’s as if there’s an invisible sign hanging around my neck which reads “for sale, come and get it.”

Maybe it’s the clothes I wear, the mini-dresses and chunky jewelry and silver studded belts. Lunch accuses me of being a hippie, but sue me! I’m a lover of a long flowy skirt and electric blue eyeliner.

It also could be my friend-making strategy, which revolves mostly around going to Liberty and Clocktower alone and introducing myself to girls. “I’m Ulla,” I’ll say, shaking their hand. “Can we be friends?” This usually works until a boy interrupts. “Come play Mario Kart at my house,” he’ll say, often winking at both of us. The girl I’m schmoozing into being my friend and I will exchange a look, like, smooth dude. No thanks.

The truth? Mammoth is “a sausage party,” as one male suitor aptly put it. There’s an abundance of crusty men and a lack of crusty women. Part of me wonders if deeply entrenched misogyny in outdoor culture has anything to do with it. If any of these men are thinking “if I can degrade women out there, I could do it here, too.”

My experiences are not unique. Normal looking girls everywhere in Mammoth face the same thing. In conversations with Fisher (who is beautiful, duh, but still), she’s told me similar stories. She says it was worse when she was single, but the occasional creep still comes along.

“It’s like the boys here are hyper-horney,” a barista with a septum piercing told me. “All my guy friends want to talk about is the dates they go on and all my girl friends are just trying to chill.”

The barista told me she’s stopped going to bars, because “I just don’t want to feel uncomfortable.” She pointed to other spaces she feels objectified in, like the hot springs. “It’s a group of naked men who are like come on in.” Ew.

Of course, there are good guys in Mammoth. I’ve met plenty of well-intentioned, friendship material men. But the women here are the real gems. It’s a small pool, but it’s well stocked.