Santa Barbara: The Straight Man's Shangri-La?

My girlfriend, Susie, and I went to Santa Barbara for Valentine's. Well, it was the weekend before Valentine's but that was the intention. I am very tempted to segue into a Valentine rant at this point but I'll save it for the sake of staying on topic. Besides, it's nothing earth-shattering; it's something every guy knows in his head, heart, and wallet.

On with the show!

It's been a few years since I've been to Santa Barbara. The last time I was there was back in college sometime and it was always a day trip. So I was glad to be getting back there and spending the weekend. For those that have not been, I encourage you to check it out. I won't go into the tourist highlights as you can find that info in any brochure or travel website. Rather, I'm going to tell you what I learned that was not in the brochures.

I had two revelations while we were there:

1. Santa Barbara has a substantial gay community. Either that or they are extremely metro-sexual for such a laid back community. I got this vibe from some of the locals we walked past, spotted in bars, or chatted with. This wasn't a bad thing; it's not like they were aggressive in any way. In fact, I think it might work to the advantage of a straight single male partying in SB. More on that later. The most convincing and, not uncoincidentally, the most curious piece of evidence of the town's underlying rainbow hues was discovered on State St.

After dinner on Friday night, we walked down State Street in search of some night life. We came across an adult store aptly named, "The Adult Store." Naturally, we went in to peruse the fine collection of strap-ons, dongs, double-dongs, and latex vagines. We were checking out the videos when we noticed an abnormally large collection of gay porn. Most video stores have some gay porn; this store had an entire wall dedicated to sword fighting and West Hollywood butt darts. By comparison, the lesbian porn section was unusually minuscule. It was one dinky shelf, maybe a foot and half long with just a handful of girl-on-girl action videos. How very disappointing. The only redeeming quality to the pathetic selection was a video titled, "Box Lunch," which we thought was hilarious. We lol'ed irl. tee hee.

2. A straight single guy could do well in Santa Barbara, poon-wise. During the day on Saturday, Susie and I went wine tasting in Santa Ynez Valley and it was a great time. We had some great wine, met some fun people, and we enjoyed the beautiful weather. As we moved between wineries and tasting rooms, it became painfully obvious that something felt out of place.

There was something out of the ordinary and that doesn't occur often. In fact, the last several times I have seen this happen in LA were at BBQs where the host bought 1 pack of hot dogs and 2 packs of buns. That's right sports fans, there were more buns than hot dogs. I'm talking about the male-to-female ratio. It's rare that this ratio is ever less than 1. It might approach 1, but to be less than 1 is the stuff dreams are made of. In this case, the ratio was easily 2:3 or even 1:2. The absolute worst it gets at wine tasting is close to 1:1.

Oh, it gets better. Think about the patrons that wine tasting attracts. When was the last time you heard a bunch of straight single dudes get together and plan their next wine tasting trip? The last time I heard that was last year during the month of NEVER. Wine tasting is most often patronized by couples, bachelorette parties, or whatever girl's day out event. Let me spell it out:

• The dudes visiting the wineries are usually not single or not straight. These hot dogs already have buns or are looking for another hot dog, not a bun. In either case, they are not competition.
  
• Bachelorette party = bride + X + Y, where
  
• X = number of single women in the party that have been drinking all day,
• Y = number of non-single women that have been drinking all day,
• bride = woman who has been drinking all day.

Do the math and you end up with a bunch of women that have been drinking all day.

• Girl's day out. See the above formula regarding bachelorette parties. Substitute the left side of the equation with "bunch of girls."

Unfortunately, there is a catch. Straight, single men don't go wine tasting at wineries unless the wine is actually beer and the winery is actually a titty bar. The only way around this that I see is to head up there with friends that are couples. That way, the single male is just hanging out with homies. Nuttin wrong with that.

The above scenario is currently untested but I would be interested in seeing the theory in action. If any bachelors would like to test this theory, then give me a holla and I will try to accommodate. This might work in Napa also but should the bachelor strike out, the Napa nightlife or lack thereof would be very unforgiving. You'd have to go all the way to Frisco to party. The drive from Santa Ynez Valley to SB sucks after a day of drinking but it's shorter than Napa -> SF.