looking for mr. real

by emily bittner

Forget those geek-chic guys. After Sept. 11,
Real Men are back, and dating one is the thing to do.

• • •

I belong to a generation of girls bred on sissy sex symbols like Leonardo di Caprio. Khaki-clad dot-commers romanced us via Instant Messenger and, when we were lucky, at five-star restaurants. In an era when geek was chic, manly men lost their spot atop the dating hierarchy.

And then came the flood of stories after Sept. 11 about "knights in shining fire helmets" dashing into collapsing buildings, brawny construction workers searching for survivors and former athletes rushing terrorists on United Airlines Flight 93.

"There wasn't an appreciation for the everyday guy who couldn't pay for the $300 dinner, but in the long run, had a much more substantial core. That's what Sept. 11 revealed," said Robin Givhan, fashion editor for The Washington Post. "That's why people are so in awe. Here were these men - brave, with a sense of what was right, with a sense of dedication."

Not to mention bulging biceps, broad shoulders, narrow waists, squeezable derrieres ...

According to culture watchers at The New York Times, USA Today and The New Yorker, Real Men are back. Dating one is now as de rigueur as toting the latest Louis Vuitton bag or waxing away stray eyebrow hairs. So in the spirit of all great investigative journalism, I set out to find my very own red-blooded Romeo and observe him at work, play and, hopefully, more play.

Who else but a fireman could serve as the model?

I called the Santa Ana Fire Department. The public information officer, Randy Black, volunteered Station 1's "young, strapping bucks."

The bucks and I spent a day together chasing medical aid calls. And the next day, my very own Real Man, who Black handpicked, took me on a date to show me exactly how his ilk treat the ladies.

Between the nine of them, I discovered there's more to the Real Man than mere feats of strength. They grocery shop together every day, watch Britney Spears videos on mute — preferably with country music blaring in the background — and cringe when they're called heroes.

• • •

Defining a real man is kind of like the Supreme Court's standard for obscenity: You know one when you see one.

His dominant trait is physicality. This is a guy who can probably bench press more than his checking account holds, who would rather play sports than watch them and who would risk his life to help during a crisis.

As Givhan says, a little breathlessly, "Real men can get down and dirty. They can work with their hands and build things and rescue and save things. He can do things that touch you on a visceral level rather than a guy who pushes papers across his desk."

There are a few other certainties: Beer is his beverage of choice, unless he's on vacation and can knock back a froufrou drink. He reads Tom Clancy. He keeps dogs, tigers or Komodo dragons as pets — no spiders or cats. He drives a truck, a Humvee if he can afford it. His wristwatch features a compass, a Global Positioning System and a rocket launcher.

"He's probably more of a larger, huskier, fearless, slightly balding kind of guy," said paramedic Brent Anderson, describing a man who would be his identical twin. "He's not the brightest, but he's not stupid."

Out of fairness, I also looked for the intellectual, but relatively wimpy, type — a guy who could take me out and prove that his breed had once deserved the summit of the social hierarchy.

I called a Boeing spokeswoman a few weeks ago to find a rocket scientist to woo me. She said it might take a while to find someone young, eligible and "who won't bore you to tears."

I'm still waiting.

• • •

The night before I met the firemen, I worried about what to expect. SportsCenter and 2-by-4s? Weightlifting and porterhouse? (As a vegetarian, that could get complicated.)

Even steak seemed like a piece of cake compared with actual, romantic, intimidating alone-time with a fireman. A lifetime of reading Cosmo can't prepare you for such a nerve-racking pleasure. Nonetheless, when my pedicurist asked what color to paint my toenails, I knew to answer, "Fire-engine red."

Monstrous butterflies in my belly seemed to be battling it out for the Stanley Cup when I arrived at the dilapidated station for my day with all the firemen. I breathed deeply and walked inside.

Jorge Vargas — cut, cleft and charming — was washing breakfast dishes. He smiled, and sunbeams streaked through the window behind his midnight locks.

I think he said something like, "You must be the reporter. I'm Jorge. Nice to meet you." But my knees were too busy quivering for me pay close attention.

Not bad so far.

And then sweet reality dawned. Randy Black had assigned Jorge — who stands 5-foot-9, weighs 185 and is pure muscle — to be my Real Man.

He blushed at the label. "I'm going to get a lot of (feedback) at the fire station for this," he said. "It's just the word - Real Man - that makes it so funny."

How about hero?

"We're human, we have emotions, we have weaknesses," he said. "We do what we do because we love it. None of us see ourselves as a hero."

Another fireman swept me away for a station tour, but Jorge had piqued my interest. He already seemed more complicated — and cuter — than I had dared hope.

• • •

Later in the morning, we drove the fire engine, a Tele-Squirt 65, to Ralph's.

It seemed appropriate that while we browsed the meat section, female shoppers smiled, stared or muttered, "Hi." One brave soul squeezed against Jorge's shoulders where the aisle was especially narrow.

Not just women, but people in general have been friendlier since the terrorist attacks, often impetuously thanking the men for their work, said Capt. Steve Snyder.

"It's nice to hear, but we still feel funny about it," Snyder said back at the firehouse. "We just love our jobs. People bring us cookies and doughnuts, even though we're not cops."

Just before 11 a.m., four firefighters from Station 2 stopped in for a visit. The men chortled when Jorge told them about his assignment to date a reporter, slapped him on the back and turned to me.

"Oh, this one, he'll charm your shirt right off!" said Owen Gipson, a veteran firefighter. Promises, promises. Over Jorge's chicken stir-fry for dinner, the married firemen pitched their single buddies as multitalented, modern men. (For Real Men, I discovered, I eat meat.)

"You're a young lady; a fireman would be good for you," said 48-year-old John Garcia. (And how!) "He can shop, cook, plan a meal, fix the car, do the laundry, vacuum, clean, paint. He can be a mechanic, do yard work, tree-trimming, mow lawns."

Absent from Garcia's personals-ad list of skills was tact, made woefully apparent when Jorge shared his point of view on our rendezvous.

"My boss called me on my day off and told me I could either accept this or be forced to accept it," he teased, his milk-chocolate eyes twinkling behind a rim of ebony lashes. "And he told me I have to be on my best behavior."

• • •

Jorge picked me up at 9:45 the next morning in his 2001 Ford Ranger — fire-engine red. As we sped up the Pacific Coast Highway, his right hand snaked over the steering wheel, the veins in his forearm bulging even with his muscles relaxed, and one eye trained on the waves.

Normally, he assured me, a Real Man pays. Lucky for him, the Register was bankrolling this one.

I handed him a wad of $20s. He tucked the bills into the breast pocket of his casual button-down shirt.

"I feel like a gigolo," he laughed. (For the record, as a Real Woman, I would've split the bill.)

We stopped at The Beach House in Laguna Beach for a posh oceanfront breakfast.

Our conversation was still in interview mode, and Jorge talked about his free time, usually spent mountain climbing, spear fishing, surfing. He visits jazz clubs in Los Angeles and listens to "aggressive music, that gets your blood pumping," like Social Distortion. A graduate of Santa Ana College and the son of Colombian immigrants, he doesn't remember if he spoke English or Spanish first.

We talked about fire calls — his worst ever had been when he was relatively new to the job and working as a volunteer in Culver City. A 19-year-old had found his mother dead in a sauna on Mother's Day.

"She had been there for a day and a half, her body cooking on 120-degree steam the whole time. Everyone was very quiet and somber after that," Jorge said. Afterward, "The first thing I told (my captain) was, 'I want to go home and see my mom.' I guess you see others' misfortune and realize how vulnerable you are."

• • •

The real man should be tough and tender, someone who can witness emotionally blistering events, deal with the gore and tragedy and then talk about his feelings, says Ellen Kirschman, a psychologist and mental health consultant for firefighters and police officers.

If not, he will tumble into a pitfall of excessive machismo.

"If you don't have access to your emotions because you're impaired by machoistic stereotypes, that's where you get into problems with yourself and your family," said Kirschman, whose 1997 book, "I Love a Cop" is often distributed to families of officers in training. "You suck up your feelings; you're a rugged individual. You don't cope well, you might be prone to substance abuse, maybe to treating women and children badly."

Kirschman and several of the firefighters are members of the "integrity" camp on the Real Man question. All you have to do to be one, they argue, is live a principled life.

Indeed, many of Sept. 11's heroes defy conventional assumptions about the relationship between masculinity and bravery.

Although women are still breaking into firefighting, several female police officers and emergency medical technicians died in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks. Mark Bingham, one of the Flight 93 passengers credited with rushing the terrorists, was a gay rugby player.

"As a society, we have this whole 'Man' thing, this whole masculinity thing, that in order to be a manly man, you have to be straight. Not true," said Mathew St. Patrick, who plays a gay police officer on HBO's "Six Feet Under." People Magazine has described his character, Keith, as a moral center for the show. "Keith is a very real man. When you see this man, you don't think about what he does behind closed doors, you think of him as a complete person."

• • •

Jorge was already painting me a portrait of the well-rounded Real Man. Then he brought me to Disneyland.

"He's taking you where?" my geek-chic guy friends said. (In nearly the next breath, some jokingly asked for tips on how to be a Real Man — should they shave their goatees and get tattoos?)

A trip to the Magic Kingdom actually makes perfect sense as a "Real Man Date." There's not a lot of detailed planning involved. He could clasp my hand on roller coasters, grab my shoulders to steer me through crowds, cuddle on rides like the Pirates of the Caribbean and practice the time-honored tradition of opening doors for the girl.

Not that I fall for any of that stuff, my inner feminist reminded me. But yeah, I do.

True enough, the day played out much as Jorge must have planned. Disney's attractions provided a comfortable backdrop as we horsed around, ribbed each other and made inane bets.

Walking up to the Indiana Jones Adventure, I said, "I bet you we wait in line for 50 minutes. And if I win, I want one of your Santa Ana Fire T-shirts."

Jorge was game immediately.

"OK, sure. And if you lose?" "I still want the shirt." He laughed. "Then you'll have to arm wrestle me for it."

I pondered the offer and his biceps.

"Can I have a team?"

"Yeah, a team of journalists," he said.

Thank goodness I nailed our wait time.

When lunch rolled around, we'd already flinched at the 3-D effects of "Honey, I Shrunk the Audience" and squeezed hands during the Space Mountain ride.

While we waited for skewers and Mickey Mouse pretzels, Jorge leaned his elbow against one of the poles of Adventureland's Bengal Barbecue "hut." The foliage showcased his square shoulders and tanned, olive complexion. In the right getup, he would've made a great Tarzan. Instead, he consulted the park map for our next move.

"OK, Pirates of the Caribbean to the right," he said. "This was the ultimate make-out ride when I was in junior high school."

While we did our best to take advantage of the ride's romance potential, a group of yahoos from Northern California sharing our boat kept interrupting.

"Look at that goat! Is that real fire? 'Wicked Wench!' Ha!" the chorus guffawed behind us.

By sunset, we'd spent more than six hours at the Happiest Place on Earth. He rubbed my shoulders while we waited in line for Thunder Mountain, our last ride.

"Now here's some first aid," he said, massaging out all the knots of fatigue.

He asked if I wanted to grab dinner, and we left for a Dana Point sushi bar.

After the eel, Sapporo beer and mahi, I ventured to his San Clemente house — in the name of thorough journalism, of course.

He and another fireman split a sparsely furnished two-story. A big-screen TV dominated the living room and a few modern paintings and prints adorned the white walls. In the stainless steel kitchen, a dozen Pro Max protein bars were stacked on a spotless wooden cutting board. The cleaning lady had just paid one of her twice-monthly visits.

We chatted a little longer over Heinekens and eventually said goodbye.

"I had a great time," he said, slipping his forearms around the small of my back.

All day I'd wondered whether the Real Man could kiss.

All I can say is wow, can he ever.

Emily Bittner, Medill '02, wrote this story as a reporter for the Orange County Register.

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