Heading out the door? Read this article on the new Outside+ app available now on iOS devices for members! Download the app.
Q: How many climbers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: Climbers don’t screw in lightbulbs. They screw in vans.
You’ve heard this joke before. It’s been around forever, kind of like this author and the sentient, chalk-eating dust bunnies behind the MoonBoard at your local gym. Yet the joke remains relevant because it points to a key truth about our weird little community: Climbers are primarily social misfits who dwell on the fringes and for whom carnal congress in vans—our traveling homes on wheels—is barely anything to blink an eye at.
Our weirdness also makes us, well, odd dating material, both within our community and with the non-climbing normies baffled by our filthy, impoverished, obsessive ways. Without further ado, then, ten reasons never to date a climber.
- We’re poor: You can (maybe) get paid to climb up stuff if you’re strong, good-looking, like running around on big, slippery plastic blobs in comps, have rich parents, and/or are an influencer. But it’s probably going to be less money than you spend to go climbing in the first place. So unless climbing is a bougie tax write-off like those head-scratcher movies that have you going, “Why was this cringefest made?” (e.g., every Blumhouse horror movie ever), or those weird, permanently unoccupied office buildings around town, you’re going to be poor. And poverty is unattractive unless it’s fake, fashion-accessory, trust-fund poverty you can shed like a scarf.
- We’re cheap: Due to our penury and allergy to work, which takes away from climbing time, we’re also cheap. How cheap? Well, I once pretended I was attending a university in Arkansas to score a free shower instead of paying $2 at the KOA (it’s a long, convoluted story). Climbers basically got Torrent Falls at the Red River Gorge, Kentucky, which was closed to easy access because they were too parsimonious to pay a $2 day-use fee. And, once, while staying at a friend’s house that he owned and was paying a mortgage on, I was horrified to learn he had no shaving cream (“too expensive”) but instead used the bar soap in the shower as “lather”—the same soap he most definitely used on his business.
- We have poor hygiene: Road trips/camping/poverty/big-wall climbs make it tough to stay clean, but I’ve noticed that even when climbers have access to running water, we do the hippolike bare minimum—just get a whiff of that shirtless bruh at your gym (“Bro, BO > Axe Body Spray”). Once, at Rifle, my buddy Charley and I watched another friend try an overhanging 5.13a groove in a pair of Charley’s borrowed long johns. As our friend moved into the splits, he revealed a pair of twin, parallel skidmarks on the outside of the tights—that’s how scuzzy climbers are. (Charley and I went around the corner to stifle our laughter—and he didn’t ask for the tights back.)
- We’re narcissistic: Obnoxious self-importance is an almost ubiquitous phase in a young climber’s life. You tend to think only of yourself and your goals, to a nearly psychotic degree, and can’t be relied on for anything that doesn’t support them. Disagree? Watch a video of a boulderer after they get a flapper on “day one of an epic trip to Swizzy” and compare their grief to that of parents in a warzone who’ve lost their children—now tell me who thinks they’ve suffered the most.
- We’re socially awkward: We climbers love to talk climbing (witness our many training- and sending-focused podcasts). However, change the subject to anything more substantive or add the social pressure of romantic interest or being amidst the public, and we punt, like the pro climber my friend saw at his shoe sponsor’s booth at an event, hanging out shirtless, flexing his abs, and not speaking to or making eye contact with anybody—perhaps he thought his hot, 5.14 climber-bod did all the talking.
- We’re terrible at sex: Despite our fit physiques, we’re always either too exhausted from a long day on the rock to perform, or we don’t want to use up precious “send energy” on a rest day. This means we only put real effort into sex right after we send, or maybe when we’re injured—at which point the lack of climbing has left us too maudlin to do much more than write long, self-pitying Instagram posts.
- We have weird feet: Unless you have some deep, dark, unhealthy fetish, climber’s feet are a massive turnoff. Years of tight climbing shoes + poor hygiene (see No. 3) = the gnarliest, stinkiest, most deformed feet on Earth, dogs so unappetizing that even a barefooted, hairy-toed Hobbit like Bilbo Baggins would puke up his second breakfast at the very sight of them.
- Our lingo is jibberish: Most people won’t want to date someone who, with a straight face, spews such low-end idiocy as, “Bruh, I dabbed on the deadpoint to the lower thumdercling cause I got wicked flash-pumped on the warmup. Shouldn’t have bothered with a ground rip. Last go, best go, though—let’s fucking go!” We sound like bit players in a cheap 1980s surf movie that wasn’t made by surfers.
- We’ll try to get you into climbing at any cost: We’re so sure that our way is the best (only) way that we’ll try to get you into the sport, whether you like it or not. This usually leads to huge fights at the cliff, where one person wants to be, but the other does not. I once had my cultured, European, city-girl girlfriend pack all her things into her backpack and start walking out of the canyon at Rifle in hopes of hitching a ride to parts unknown—she was so tired of me, my stupid wobblers, endless belays in the summer heat, and the monomaniacal Rifle climbing scene that this seemed like the better option.
- We’re never around: If you want to be with someone who’s always around, into quality time and bonding, and likes “helping out with household chores” and “doing things together,” don’t date a climber. In high season, we’re off climbing all day three or four times a week, not to mention road trips, expeditions, and so on—and then we come home exhausted and just want to eat and crash (and not have sex—see No, 6). We’ll never change, and you’ll only be frustrated if you try to “fix” us, so don’t bother. It’s a lost cause.