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Things I’ve Learned Dating in the Rocky Mountains

Wendy Cohan
3 min readSep 2, 2021
Photo by Holly Mandarich on Unsplash

I’ve been in the Rocky Mountains for seven years, now, and along with a whole new set of wrinkles, living here has taught me a lot about life.

I’ve learned not to ask a guy I’m dating how many guns he owns. Because it’s a loaded question. And there have been a few cases where I don’t want to know the answer if I’m ever questioned by the FBI. I’ve learned about red beer, but I still don’t understand how anyone could choose to drink tomato juice and beer, over, say, hopped cider, or a Moscow Mule. I’ve learned that there’s a fine line between a rustic lifestyle and hoarding behavior. From the evidence, it seems it’s easy to cross over the line. Here’s a tip: No one really needs that many abandoned vehicles, no matter what he tells you. And it’s not three hundred miles to the nearest hardware store. There’s an ACE hardware right around the block. And you can buy things there.

Most mountain towns are pretty dog-friendly, but I’ve had to learn to consider what kind of dog a man chooses. I always avoid men who prefer basset hounds. They’re just not for me: I’m a big-dog girl. But I also avoid men with over-sized German shepherds and Rhodesian Ridgebacks. Men with huskies are usually okay, but sometimes they tend not to listen very well — they often run miles away and never come back on their own. Men with labs are usually keepers, though…

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Wendy Cohan
Wendy Cohan

Written by Wendy Cohan

Author of character-driven women's fiction, short stories, and essays. Her contemporary romance, The Renaissance Sisters, debuted May 23, 2023.

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