Dating the Homeless

I love when something you read engrosses you so much that you forget you're hungry or thirsty. This week's Modern Love column in the New York Times did just that - made me ignore my bodily needs. My reaction is slightly ironic because the column, written by Lee Conell, is about her homeless, ascetic boyfriend, who chooses to sleep under the stars instead of a ceiling. 

The boyfriend, Terry, sought personal fulfillment by rejecting material objects. Like Conell, I enjoy create comforts, which makes it hard to embrace Terry's mission to rebel against a mainstream lifestyle. Living in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood makes it even harder to endorse ascetic behaviors. I can't walk down Haight Street without at least two people asking me for money. Mind you, Terry's more rural brand of homelessness seems to be different from the city brand that I encounter, but bumming around is bumming around. I doubt the kids I see ever find enlightenment. They just find lice and drugs. 

Conell's essay concludes with Terry giving up on his experiment with homelessness. She gloats when he fails and returns to four walls. However she knows the dreamer in her shouldn't celebrate Terry quitting. Likewise, I know I shouldn't be so hard on the kids I see on the street. When I was sixteen nothing would have pleased me more than to have run away from my small town to have adventures. I didn't have the courage to embrace that lifestyle and go against the statuesque. And just because I couldn't venture into the underbelly of American I shouldn't judge those who can. Modern Love reminded me of this.