Honest Climbing Partner Wanted Ads

The following is an excerpt from Bears Don’t Care About Your Problems: More Funny Shit in the Woods from Semi-Rad.com, by Brendan Leonard. Buy the book here or read more on semi-rad.com

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I WANT TO GIVE YOU BETA

You: A decent climber. Me: An expert on every route in this gym, even the ones the route setters are halfway finished putting up as I write this note. I know all the route setters—Dave, Serena, Jason, Carly, and Alex—and I know their climbing styles, what they like and don’t like, and how they communicate their likes and dislikes with the routes they put up in this gym. Want to know everything? Climb with me and I’ll tell you the minutiae of every single move of every single route here, even the 5.7s. Don’t want to know anything? I’ll tell you anyway. While you’re climbing the route. I will tell you exactly where to put your feet, how many pads you can get on that hold, and when you’re doing all of it wrong—because chances are, you are doing it wrong. I climb here Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m.

LET’S CUT THE SHIT, I’M JUST LOOKING FOR SOMEONE TO MAKE OUT WITH

Man looking for a partner for Tuesday/Thursday evenings from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. I lead 5.11c–d but am not picky about how hard you climb as long as you can give a good belay. And in the event you are a single woman who reads this and doesn’t really like climbing and just wants to get a drink, I would love to do that too. If there’s mutual attraction, I am willing to completely give up climbing and do whatever it is you like to do on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. Let’s talk.

I SEEK ATTENTION

If you climb here, you’ve probably seen me working my project—or, rather, heard me screaming at the upper section of one of the techy, overhanging routes here in moments of extreme effort and then frustration. I sometimes sulk and/or pout when I just can’t get the final crux sequence. I am not “psyched” on climbing so much as I am adversarial. I do not enjoy it; rather, I approach it as a bullfighter approaches a bull—it is to be danced with, then killed. Except, unlike a bullfighter, I never wear a shirt and I make lots of grunting noises and the occasional shriek. If you find the noises a cat makes when it gets into a to-the-death fight with another cat inspiring rather than terrifying, email me at the address below and we can climb together on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

BOULDERING MAKES ME SAD AND LONELY

I come here by myself and I climb for two minutes and then rest for five minutes, looking at all the problems in the bouldering area until it’s time to climb again. I repeat this ten to fifteen times and then I leave. I just want to get higher than 15 feet off the ground. Please belay me and I’ll belay you and we can be friends. Or not be friends, whatever works for you.

I PROMISE TO KEEP 80 PERCENT OF MY ATTENTION ON OTHER PEOPLE AT THE CLIMBING GYM, 20 PERCENT ON BELAYING YOU

Partner wanted for mostly 5.10 to 5.11 routes where, when it’s your turn to climb, I can talk to other people or just keep my head on a nearly-360-degree swivel to see if anyone is looking at me, is interested in talking to me, or is an attractive person who might be interested in me. Don’t worry about it, I got you.

JUST WANT SOMEONE TO TALK AT

Are you a good listener? Have you ever dropped someone while belaying? If the answers to those two questions are “yes” and “no,” respectively, let’s climb! I am here Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. and I have a lot of things I need to express. I’m not looking for conversation, I just want to talk. As long as you nod your head every once in a while and acknowledge both my existence and that there are words coming out of my mouth, I’m sold. I climb mostly 5.10s.

I AM OSTENSIBLY LOOKING FOR A CONSISTENT PARTNER TO KEEP ME MOTIVATED

I have big climbing dreams and goals and believe I just need the right partner to hold me accountable by committing to a regular training schedule. Want to climb here three evenings a week and keep each other psyched? Me too, hypothetically. I’ll show up all three agreed-upon days of the first week and climb hard with you, and maybe even all three days the next week too. But then something will come up and I’ll miss a day the next week, and then another day the next week, or maybe two. Then I will stop letting you know when I am or am not coming, and you’ll show up and just climb with other people instead of waiting around for me. Don’t take it personally—it’s not you, it’s me. How do Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays work for you?