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Dating in Bakersfield: Feeling the love — or not?
| Wednesday, Feb 13 2008 10:59 AM
Last Updated: Wednesday, Feb 13 2008 11:22 AM
If you’re single in this city, perhaps you’ve asked yourself, “Where are they all hiding?”
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Feeling bitter? Rejected? There are other ways to celebrate love’s day. Divorce360.com offers these top 10 survival tips.
1. Instead of feeling bad about not receiving gifts, become a giver. Surprise loved ones with something thoughtful.
2. Plan a night out with your single friends. Chances are you’ve still got one or two.
3. Gather up those painful old love notes and have a Valentine’s bonfire. You can do this in your fireplace, make a circle of large stones in your backyard or go somewhere neutral where it’s safe to build a fire.
4. For those who feel that Valentine’s Day requires a date, find an appealing singles event in your area. Don’t be afraid to browse online dating sites.
5. Celebrate being single this year by doing an out-of-the-ordinary solo activity. Visit a psychic, get pampered at a spa, schedule a horseback-riding lesson, or try a yoga class.
6. Order in from your favorite restaurant, rent a movie, buy some magazines or curl up with a good book.
7. Host a small get-together at your place. Invite as many noncouples as you can. Have a secret Valentine gift exchange or a grab bag filled with kinky party gifts, depending on the crowd.
8. Celebrate different forms of love and go the extra mile this year: Plan a trip to visit a friend or relative.
9. Make yourself a favorite meal or experiment with a new recipe. If you drink, open a bottle of good wine and enjoy the process of cooking for yourself.
10. Don’t feel like celebrating Valentine’s Day at all? Then don’t! Go about your business as you would on any other day and don’t sweat it.
Photos:
Jamie and Shawn Groves during Lamaze class before working on massage relaxation techniques.
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Are Bakersfield’s eligible ladies and gentlemen tucked away in a network of underground tunnels, working on their MBAs and selecting high-brow foreign films for their Netflix queues?
Or have they all jumped into the bigger pools of Los Angeles or San Francisco?
Of course, the state of love in our burgeoning city depends on your perspective. One woman’s DiCaprio is another’s DeVito.
Young local singles often complain their peers are married off by their mid-20s and divorced soon after, with kids in tow. Older singles say they have it harder, their prospective mates carrying similar baggage and fully jaded or married off. Most agree the bar scene isn’t the place to meet the right crowd.
At a recent Marcephne Speed Dating session for people 30 and over at the Holiday Inn Select, Donna Hermann, 57, said it’s tough for singles in her age group to meet.
“Clubs are geared to younger people, so I think a setting like this makes it less threatening,” she says of speed dating, in which men and women go on minutes-long mini-dates and appraise each other afterward by anonymous survey.
The outgoing Hermann says it’s best to meet new pals through sporting events, charity functions, concerts and other social gatherings.
Meanwhile, Anthony Garcia, 24, is looking for quality, and he says he’s not finding it here. By quality, the Los Angeles transplant means attractive, career-oriented, ambitious, noncomplacent women who strive to make better versions of themselves.
Garcia, district manager for sales firm Vector Marketing, moved to Bakersfield from Pasadena in 2006. The dating scene in the two cities, he says, are like night and day. He used to work in chic Old Town Pasadena. There was always something to do.
“In L.A., you’d meet more people who had went to school at UCLA or USC or were more established in their careers, but there were also the same low-quality people you meet anywhere, depending on where you went, what you did,” he says.
It’s been tough trying to find a lady in Bakersfield.
“I guess it’s a different mentality, such a small-town mentality,” he says. “You meet somebody, they’ve been doing the same thing their entire life, same circle of friends, people become complacent. ... If you date someone from this town and they’ve been dating in Bakersfield awhile, they’ve dated everybody.”
Garcia says you can’t really go out looking for dates. It’s better to spend time with your friends and socialize. Eventually, you’ll meet people like you, then sparks might fly.
Lucky for him, he met someone who’s rounding up young professionals seeking a social life in Bakersfield.
A salsa dancing lesson sent him into the path of Lynn Juve, a 24-year-old Arvin High School teacher. Juve started the Bakersfield Teacher Network in November. She’s expanding the group, which has attracted about 30 members mostly in their 20s and 30s, to include local professionals in other fields. Her group meets monthly at Rusty’s Pizza Parlor on Ming Avenue.
A Wisconsin native who spent time in singles-rich Minneapolis, Juve moved to Bakersfield in 2006 and hasn’t found the dating scene as tough as many would believe.
“I think that it’s gotten a reputation as a place that is not good for young singles and there aren’t enough opportunities,” she says. “We might not be predominant as we might seem. We’re not the majority. But if there’s half a million people (in Bakersfield), it’s a large group of people.”
Her trick is being open to new activities, such as salsa dancing.
“That’s the problem with people from Bakersfield,” she says. “They’re friends with people for so many years, they don’t meet new people. New people seek out new friends, but people who’ve lived here don’t always seek out a new friend base. In my experience, they all date each other’s friends.”
Juve says many young teachers meet through an unlikely mutual friend: the state. The program is called Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment, one of the steps required in the credentialing process. Most participants are in their 20s and 30s, says Jan Clark, BTSA project specialist for the Kern High School District.
Jamie Groves, a 30-year-old teacher at Centennial High School, met her husband, Shawn, through BTSA. Both are from Bakersfield.
They met at a year-end BTSA function at Stars Theatre Restaurant in 2001. Shawn, a Frontier High School teacher, sang and played guitar at the event. His talent caught Jamie’s attention. A friend introduced them.
“He was really cute,” she says. “He was holding the door while holding his guitar in one hand and an amp in the other.”
Jamie took the initiative and told the friend she was interested in Shawn. First meetings led to hours of conversation at Starbucks and they learned they were a great match.
Jamie felt Shawn was on the right track: He worked hard in school and had goals in life.
He proposed to her outside Stars. They married in 2003 and are expecting a baby girl, who they’ll name Samantha Michelle. The “BTSA Baby” is due March 14.
Jamie’s advice to singles? Have fun, but set high goals for yourself.
“You’re very important and it’s important you’re treated well and taken care of by someone who matches what you want to do similarly in life,” she says.
The best way to meet people is through family and friends, Shawn says. Friends more so than family because they know what you like.
And for those of you too bitter to contemplate new romance, head to RJ’s at Riverlakes for the Bitterness Bash tonight, where co-owner Russell Carter will provide a woodchipper that’ll shred love letters, divorce papers and other painful reminders of failed relationships.
“But they can’t throw their ex in there,” Carter says, laughing. “That’s the number one request.”