Want a Date?
Stats and Facts
Welcome!
If you're reading this doc, chances are you know me vaguely, or were given it by a friend. Chances are, that you, like me, are looking for a partner. I am 34. I've had a couple of long relationships, and fallen in love a handful of times. I can assure you my heart works. I know yours does too. But for some cause, legible or not, we find ourselves single. Thank you for taking the time to read this bottle tossed into the digital ocean! If it doesn't appeal to you, drop it or pass it on. If it does, let's talk.
I am at a place in my life where a lot of things feel more or less figured out. My work is meaningful, I have good friends,and I've told my parents everything they did wrong and forgiven them for all of it. I'm not as much into festivals and parties as I used to be. (the last time I went to burning man was 2019 and I couldn't really care less whether or not I go again) I have many things that bring me joy: surfing, writing, meditation, cooking for friends, creative projects, and being in nature. I am pretty happy in summer and kind of melancholy in winter, and neither of these stop me from staying healthy and working on things that I feel are good for the world. It is a good life, but it has been a dream of mine for as long as I can remember to raise and share a family with someone I love. I am by nature adventurous, but I'm interested in some longer-term adventures. Is this a place you can relate to?
That was the short version! I like to write, so what follows is the long version. Feel free to skim or skip to the end if you would rather just talk. I spend the rest of this document communicating what I'm like, what I do, and my values and life goals most relevant to a partner, aka "Big Rocks".
Without you the instruments would die.
One sits close beside you. Another takes a long kiss.
The tambourine begs, Touch my skin so I can be myself.
Let me feel you enter each limb bone by bone,
that what died last night can be whole today.
Why live some soberer way, and feel you ebbing out?
I won't do it.
Either give me enough wine or leave me alone,
now that I know how it is
to be with you in constant conversation.
--Rumi
What am I like?
Sometimes fancy
Frequently upside-down
Being a dork with my friendsPersonality
Past lovers have described me as: kind, cute, genuine, attuned, a weirdo, brilliant, mischievous, spiritual, extroverted, shy, loud, quiet, colorful,
wise, anxious, competent, stubborn, calming, wholesome, pure, surprisingly erotic, surprisingly heavy, unique, sunny, stormy, gentle, very California,
surprisingly not Chinese, optimistic, irreverent, sweet, healing, very honest, frustrating, nerdy, surfer-bro, energetic, athletic,
a personal wellness-influencer, shows deference to nobody (not true, I show deference to parents), and outdoorsy.
People can't really be written down. But it doesn't stop us from trying. I used to be really into personality tests. Here, have some:
- Enneagram 7
- ENTP
- Elemental Energy: Air and Water
- D&D Archetype: Somewhere between a Wizard and a Monk
- Virgo/Libra cusp - I don't do astrology and I don't really know what it means, but people tell me it fits.
I love reading, thinking, writing, and talking. I am naturally quite wordy and full of ideas and logic, but I've been pulling myself towards being more somatic/heart-based for years. I think I pair well with someone who leads with their emotions, but loves talking about ideas too.
Story
In reality, I don't believe that we are anything but the sum of our experiences and the people we've loved along the way. So what's my story?
I was born in Utah to two sorta-hippy parents from California. I grew up in a canyon, and spent a lot of time wandering in the wilderness. It was a bit lonely, but also peaceful, and I have a little sister. It was weird being non-Mormon in Utah, and most of my friends in high school were the children of Chinese immigrants. My parents were extremely chill - perhaps too chill. My friends' parents were not, and I followed my friends and an inherent love of science into all kinds of academic environments.
I went to undergrad at Caltech, where everyone is sorted into houses by personality. Everyone is a science nerd there, which means that ceases to be a way that people identify each other. So I got to ask, am I a jock science nerd, or a preppy science nerd, or a punk science nerd, or a hippy science nerd? I ended up splitting time between the hippy house and the house known for elaborate projects and constructions. Caltech was a wonderful time in my life, not least because I got to experience student-guided communal living.
Post-undergrad, I moved to San Francisco, got a job at Google, and started making group houses. I've started and managed about 6 small-scale (5-10 person) grouphouses.
I love community effort, mediating conflict, and trying to build warm home environments.
I got dialed into the burning man community, and went to the burn 4 times. I've helped run the Priceless festival, and made art for a handful of events.
At some point I went to grad school in Berkeley for a while. Since then I've been a neuroscientist in industry.
While I've explored a lot of the radical, niche, hip, bay area subcultures, Utah left its mark. One ex told me that I'm a weirdo who
wants pretty normal things. I have a great affection for counter-culture, but at the end of the day I'm about the wholesome family, community, and spiritual
life, not about the raging parties or experience-maxing. I'll take a flower garden or a good wave over a drug-fueled orgy any day.
But every so often I might show up, serve tea, and remind them to drink water.
What do I do?
Work
I am a fairly rogue scientist. My degrees are in Neuroscience (Caltech undergrad, Berkeley PhD dropout MS). I have worked as an ML Software Engineer, Research Scientist, Concept Prototyping Engineer, and Neurotech Consultant. I'm currently a Neuroscientist at Forest Neurotech, a nonprofit Focused Research Organization. ( We got called "the most advanced BCI device in the world" recently in the press!) I like problems that I think will benefit human health and well-being, especially mental health and addiction. I recently worked on generative AI for Pathology, and published a bunch last year. I am generally pretty stoked about my work, and can slide a bit into workaholism.
Hobbies
I am the type of person that loves learning and can get into just about anything. So, “trying new things” is sort of a hobby of its own. But here are some that have stuck:
Surfing - My favorite form of exercise. I also love being near the ocean in general. I love boats. I can scuba and sail. I know every beach.
Climbing - Not a current focus, but I climbed consistently for about 10 years, and am lead-certified.
Cooking - I love cooking, and hosting dinners for friends and family. My cooking is Chinese with a pull towards Paleo + random experiments. Not many soups. I'm exploring that more. I love cooking together, and learning each others' styles!
Creativity and Crafts - I love to make things, and it's always different. Jewelry, calligraphy, water colors, costumes, lofts, absinthe, weird light art. I can learn anything from YouTube. I've recently done a little bit of blog-post like writing.
Travel and Festivals - Much of my community is fairly Burner culture. Despite this, I'm not really a festival junkie, at least not anymore. I've been to Burning Man 4 times in the last 12 years, and I'm not attached to either going or not going again. I'm likely to keep going (and supplying Absinthe) to Priceless, a ~1000 person hippy festival of mostly my friends. If you have a favorite festival, I'm happy to go with you, but in general I'm looking forward to more of my vacation time being about (my and my partner's) family, friends, and nature. I do like experiencing new cultures, and I'm fairly well-traveled, especially in Asia. Some new places I'd be excited to go to at some point in the future are Peru, Indonesia, and Turkey.
Family and Friends
I have a pretty big and close extended family, with around 20 cousins. Some live in the area. I am extremely grateful to be part of a large family, full of interesting characters. It is part of why I want to have children-so that I can pass on this experience. To me, partnership (and marriage) is about becoming family to one another, and becoming part of each others' families. Duty to family is important to me. And while I believe in being on my partner's side first, I appreciate when my partner makes that easy for me. This value shows up for my partners as well, and my past partners' parents have always liked me, even when their relationship was difficult. I think I work well with people who experience family (and friendships) as a high priority in their life, whether those relationships are easy or hard.
Partnership Big Rocks
I've heard the advice that “in a partnership, you do not commit to any particular principle or goal: you commit to each other”. This is good advice, but it has its limits. There exist, at least for me, several practical, material, lifestyle choices that could easily make or break a relationship. No matter how much we love being around one another, and no matter how attracted we are to one another, if we can't align on these, probably our time is best spent elsewhere. I've put my “big rocks” in a rough order of priority. But these things are all high priority, not likely to change, and I'm pretty certain of them. What are yours?
Children
I am very committed to having and raising (biological) children. I am 34 and I don't see this as something in the very distant future. I grew up with a sister near my age, and it was a fantastic experience. I believe having siblings that can be friends is extremely valuable to child development and emotional stability. If you think you might not want children, please swipe left.
Family
Another foundation of partnership for me is the idea that we are joining our families. If we stay together, your family becomes my family and my family becomes your family. There are many reasons it might not work well that can't be particularly attributed to either of our efforts. That's life, but what is important to me is that we share this value, and are willing to put substantial energy into joining each others' families. For myself, I can say I really like most people, and people in general. I have a lot of experience getting along with difficult parents, especially across a cultural divide. I aspire to make my relationship with your family at least as easy as yours is with them. My family is large (over 20 first cousins!) and close. Marriage is great, but the spirit of the thing is what counts, and to me, the spirit is family.
Monogamy
I don't know about you, but I live in very polyamorous communities. I'd say something like 50% of my social circles, especially the more party-minded folks are likely to be poly at any given time. I have been in multiple polyamorous relationships, and have some experience with it. One arrangement worked pretty well for a while, and we broke up for unrelated reasons. One was a dramatic mess, and a substantial contributor to breakup. These experiences have not left me inclined to polyamory. I love and support it for many of my friends. But for any relationship I am in, I feel like poly adds a potential for complication and drama that we simply don't need in our lives. Life is already challenging enough. I think there's a ton of space for nuance here, and I wrote a cultural commentary piece about it that went viral on hackernews. I find it hilarious that more people have read that piece than anything else I've written in my life.
Spirituality
This is a weird one to put here, because I'm not sure to exactly what extent my spirituality has anything to do with my partner. But religion is a common thing people fight about, and it feels like a mistake to not include it. I don't have particular requirements or asks of my partner's spirituality, except to please consider whether you vibe with this section or whether I sound insufferable. You don't have to “get” all of it, but if you really don't like it, well, that saves us both some time.
Spirituality is important to me, and I believe that what happens subjectively within us is just as important as what happens externally. And while it's not the point exactly, I also believe that good objective action is the direct result of inner work/practice/healing. I believe that words are just words, and stories are just stories. No story is absolute truth. To me, all religions are just stories designed to remind us how to heal. I believe that the truth at the origin and heart-center of every religion is direct Mystical Experience. I was raised with no religion in particular, but these days the religion closest to my heart is Theravada Buddhism, and I keep to some ritual from this tradition.
So, what does this mean about life with me? Well, it means I will probably babble about psycho-spiritual stuff a lot. I will probably encourage you towards spiritual exploration. I will sometimes want to do weird somatic meditations and random rituals (yes, I've made half of them up and you'll never know which half). If you have a religion I'll be generally supportive and curious, though I have a tendency to question any Dogma, and philosophically probe. I will be happy to join you on rituals of any tradition sometimes -- so long as they are open to the uninitiated.
I believe that the most important things in life are truly mysterious, and we must accept that at the end of the day, they cannot be explained. (道可道﹐非常道). But I also believe that it is noble to try.