Melanie Hamlett, Washington Post:
The threat of death forces a rare kind of intimacy at lightning speed. Despite the intensity of those situations, I was never that scared. Rather this is what terrifies me: A man I know rather well and care about deeply, realizing how brutish and imperfect I am.
My boyfriend is embarrassingly romantic; he’s one of the smartest, kindest men I’ve met. But he’s never slept outside or climbed, nor lived in a truck for years on end like his half-wolf girlfriend has. So how we get along so well, or even found each other, baffles me.
Being a Patricia Pan — a grown woman who lives for adventure and sees commitment as imprisonment — I’ve always assumed I’d end up with a Peter Pan, or more likely no one at all. Patricia Pans don’t need no man! We’re too busy rafting down Class IV rivers and couch-surfing around South America to be bothered with such nonsense.
But in the past few years, I’ve finally been willing to date seriously, and I’ve noticed myself swiping left on the adrenaline junkies I used to go for. Especially if they’re proud “dirtbags,” meaning climber-types who drink wine out of recycled bean cans and repair our down jackets with duct tape.