Outside Magazine: Adventurous SWF Seeking Soul Mate Gets Hottie (And Bothered)

I’ve trekked through Nepal, gone on safari in Africa, and (in case things got too wild) learned kung fu from a Shaolin monk. I cook a mean coq au vin on a camp stove, and I don’t wear mascara when I surf. But last November I turned 36, and I still hadn’t met the right guy—by which I mean a real guy.

I decided I was through playing barstool roulette and hanging out at my local Barnes & Noble. I was sick of dating fussy intellectuals and well-groomed metrosexuals obsessed with pedicures and designer jeans. It was time to find a mountain man, a guy who could chop wood, rappel down an ice face, and run a wild river. Why not hunt for him the 21st-century way—on the Web?

I certainly had nothing to lose: I’d run screaming from enough freaks I’d met the old-fashioned way. In the past few years, I’d gone out with a media exec who was afraid of the ocean and brought his mother along on our second date. I’d let myself get picked up on the street by a tall, handsome high school teacher who took me out for a drink, ordered red wine, and proceeded to sip it through a straw so he wouldn’t stain his teeth.

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