Why I’ve been dating men in San Francisco and why you should too.
Notes on the importance of sharing.
Alex asked me out for lunch one of the first days of having moved to San Francisco. We sat down at a table at Loving Hut, a vegan place on Stockton, and he smiled that Yale smile, looked deep into my eyes and asked if there was anything he could do for me.
I hadn’t expected him to pop the question. ”Anything!” he repeated, like if would widen my thinking. The dating couple at the next table fell silent. Maybe they we’re out of topics to discuss. Maybe did they think the same thing of us. I said that I honetly couldn’t think of anything right now but Alex seemed to misinterpret my hesitation as a sign that I was about to ask for something big. ”Come on! You moved here from Stockholm! You got to want something while in San Francisco and I’d love to help you, introduce you some guys I know.”
Were it only for the access to capital and the geographical proximity to other innovative companies, the magic recipe for innovation that has given San Francisco and Silicon Valley its reputation would have been copied decades ago. But i think the Bay Area equivalent to the secret sauce in the Big Mac is the generous attitude of sharing knowledge. We might understand what goes in to the sauce but it is really hard for other cities to copy.
Alex wouldn’t take my no for an answer. A few days later, he emailed me and suggested that I date a guy called Jerry over lunch. Jerry was copied on the email and as I read Alex description of that wonderful intelligent human being that was me, I blushed. When I read Alex description of that wonderful intelligent human being that was Jerry, I felt I wanted to meet him at once. Alex ended his email with ”I hope your paths will cross if they haven’t already”. To my surprise, Alex had no intention of attending the date himself, which isa very un-Swedish thing to do. (The fact that Alex is from the US might explain that, though.)
I love connecting people that I think can benefit from knowing each other. But in the past, I’ve accepted full responsibility for their encounter, from arranging their first meeting to being present on their first date as a big brother watching over his teen sister. In San Francisco I realized that this behavior is completely unnecessary; curious people love meeting new people in order to explore what they have in common.
I met Jerry over a white mocha at Starbucks on Sansome. He’s heading of some kind of exclusive think-thank for C-suite hot shots and we almost instantly hit it of and engaged in a discussion on how they view sustainability. After half-an-hour, during a brief pause, he leaned over the table and asked with that deep voice of his if there was anything I wished he would do for me.
This time, I was more prepared and said I’d be interested in meeting someone who was liberal and offered the opportunity to pay for the services that they provided? Did he maybe know of someone open minded who had explored entirely new business models for online video or understood the nature of sharing online. He thought for a few seconds before he displayed a confident smile and said ”I think I know of someone who will be right up your alley.”
Three days later, I had an email from Jerry where he wrote that he thought that Neal and I would like each other. Jerry ended his email ”I hope you roads will cross soon if they haven already done so” just like Alex.
We met over coffee at the Blue Bootle Coffee in a backyard somewhere in SoMa and soon realized that Jerry was right. We did like eachother. Neal Gorenflo is the co-founder and editor of an online magazine called Shareable.net and fills his days thinking, writing and speaking of the phenomena of sharing. Beyond a new aquantance, I left the coffee shop with new thoughts, new names and a new perspective on looking on how we connect people. No more than I need to follow up to see if a friend has read the magazine I gave her, no more do I need to assume responsibility for if two friends kept in touch or not after meeting over that lunch I suggested.
As Neal reminded me, sharing is caring and just doing that is enough. It’s a way of showing that you care rather than delegating a task that requires following up on. In order to make the world a better place we ought to become as generous with sharing connections in the physical world as we are with sharing URL:es in the digital space.
It’s also one of the best ways of popping that filter bubble of yours by meeting people you wouldn’t have met otherwise. The better algoritms get at suggesting items that we might like, the more I try to meet with people that got suggested to me. Te fact that people are less good than algoritms when it comes to predicting who I would like, is in this case and advantage, not a problem.
By learning sharing this way in your own city, going on lunch dates and arranging dates for friends of yours, you will get a step closer to emulating the sharing culture that has fostered so much innovation of San Francisco.
Nowadays, I end all my introduction emails to people I connect with ”I hope you paths will cross if they haven’t already”. And every time I think of Alex, who introduced me to a way of setting up lunch dates, Bay Area-style.
