We all have questions and need advice, but sometimes the pseudo therapy in the Instagram stories of astrology girlies doesn’t cut it. Or maybe the gate-keeping culture of adventure bros has you fearing the judgment that comes with revealing yourself as a newbie at anything. This advice column exists to hold space for you and your Boulder queries (especially the uncool ones).
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What’s the deal with this Portal place?
“What’s the deal?” Who are you, Jerry Seinfeld? The question you should be asking is, “What is Portal a portal to?” Is the city’s new “thermaculture” hangout an alternate version of Boulder where no man feels the need to flex on his brothers and sisters and lives a life of health and wellness for himself alone, where hikes and runs are taken for the joy of it and nary a meal prep is shared on an Instagram story? Or is it a portal to your kitchen floor when you were five years old, when life was carefree and before you ever heard the words “JD Vance” or “brat summer.” Idk, I haven’t been yet, but rumors suggest that saunas and cold plunges are involved, and vibes are predictably horny. Check it out and let me know?
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I loved Boulder, but I’m moving to Longmont. How many times is too many to come back to town?
Oh buddy, if you’re asking, then you’ve already hit the limit. “How’s ‘Longtucky’?” your Boulder homies ask as you meet them at the Rayback for the third Thursday in a row. Your smile hides a sadness as you pass on the second round, knowing the 20-minute drive on 36 awaits you. As you watch them tipsily mount their bikes, you can’t hear them whisper: “Isn’t it kind of weird that Kevin still goes out in Boulder like, almost every night?”
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How do I ask out pretty girls at Trident?
I’m going to let you in on a secret: The pretty girls at Trident didn’t ask to be born with perfect skin, slender, artful wrists, or effortlessly chic hair falling around their perpetually frowny, pouty lips in a shag style that would look like crap on anyone else. They didn’t ask to be born knowing how to style baggy t-shirts like effortless nymphets, or how to order matcha lattes in a manner casually evoking naïve sexuality and aloofness.
That is all to say, the secret is that pretty girls at Trident don’t want to be asked out. Psych! I’ll let you in on a deeper secret: Yes, half the pretty girls don’t want to be asked out and just want to study their Russian lit or whatever. The other half are typing gibberish on their Macbooks, waiting, begging for you to hit on them with the perfect line, which I will reveal to you … psych again! The real secret? Yeah, they wanna be asked out, but probably not by you.
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Why is dating so, so bleak here? Like bleaker than bleak?
It’s counter intuitive, isn’t it? Boulder is so fun and hot! Boulderites are so fun and hot! Theoretically, we should be swapping STDs like an Olympic village or a retirement community in Florida. I can’t claim credit for this take, but once during a single-in-Boulder commiseration sesh, a friend dropped some real shit: Everyone dating in Boulder always thinks they can do better, and it’s easier to say “nah” after a mediocre first date than to stick it out to a better second one that leads to many more, a.k.a. normal dating.
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Can I aspire to be like the old Boulder ladies, or do I accept that I’ll never be able to retire here?
What a sick trick life plays. We grow up watching the promise of the post-menopausal life of the Boulder Crone™, where every day begins by keeping that shit TIGHT with a Vinyasa Level 2 Flow at the Little Yoga Studio and ends with watering the hydrangeas in a white linen tunic. Then, we’re forced to live in a reality where we (or this columnist at least) have no hope to ever own a house and getting coconut-pilled was the highlight of our year. Give yourself some grace, child: The Boulder crones never had their brains destroyed by the unnatural THC concentrates that have all but rotted ours, and they never had to date men who say things that begin with, “Actually, Elon did have a point about…”
To answer your question, you may just need to adjust your expectations. At the end of the day, it’s not her $2.5 mil. property on West Pearl that makes the Boulder Crone so timelessly sexy: It’s the smile lines that light up her eyes when she raises the heart rate of the Whole Foods cashier boy 30 years her junior. That is to say, you can get a head start by just skipping the Botox, m’lady.