Hot tree huggerContinuing our new series “Sleeping With Money” about money lessons learned in relationships, my story today is about one of the hottest guys I ever met, an honest-to-god park ranger in San Francisco. (This picture is of a hot model, not the guy I’m talking about.)

We met through a kind of club that a few friends and I had set up in the Bay Area, called “Gay Young Spirit” (GYS). It started out informally, meeting in people’s living rooms, as a way to socialize with other young gay people without getting drunk and/or felt up in the local bar scene. Eventually it grew large enough that I and a few roommates rented a house together to have a more enduring space to meet. And on one of those first evenings in the new house, in walked one of the most attractive, sincere, interesting men I had ever met.

Let’s call him Bo, and picture for a moment the burly arms, deep pecs, tan skin, and shaggy hair you probably already associate with outdoorsy ranger types. Add in the flattest stomach you’ve ever seen (because he’s vegetarian, of course, and loves sit ups) and legs of steel from bicycling to work 5 miles each way. And then top it off with the most sincere personality I have ever come across, and you have pretty much pictured the man I lusted after during much of my 20’s.

He was intriguing, especially for being almost completely opposite to me. As a Buddhist, Bo didn’t worry much about the future. He was in the moment, living for today. I couldn’t tell at first if it was a front, but he gave off the aura of one utterly carefree, engaged with life and happy with his place in it. But this didn’t make him careless about money and debt, quite the opposite. “If I can’t afford it, I probably don’t need it” was his motto. And if he did decide he needed something, he saved up and paid cash.

One of the first things I learned about him, hiking together one day in the mountains south of Half Moon Bay, was that he was utterly debt free. He owned a credit card, but never carried a balance. No mortgage: he was perfectly happy with his small “cave” (a basement apartment) that had an equally small rent. No student loans.

Bo once owned a car, but he discovered that bicycling was more fun, got you around San Francisco just as well if you didn’t mind a few ridiculously steep hills, and kept you in good shape (I’ll say!). Besides, a bicycle is practically free after you’ve bought it, and costs nothing to park; while a car requires gas and oil changes and maintenance, and it’s a fortune to park in any major city, especially San Francisco. But most of all, Bo objected to “getting through life in a bubble.” When you drive somewhere, you see, you aren’t really “in” the world. When you bike to your destination, you feel the sun on your skin, the wind on your face; you smell and hear and feel the world.

And that was Bo all over: thoroughly in the world and in the moment, not dwelling on yesterday or fretting over tomorrow, and having very few wants and needs. As a consequence, he spent very little money to meet his low expenses. As a park ranger he wasn’t paid very much, but somehow he had lots of money left over each month.

Contrast that with me, a young graduate student saddled with loans and credit card debt, frenzied over the extensive reading that I was supposed to do last night and the undergraduate papers I had to grade by the next morning. When Bo wanted to share a lunch with me, he had cash and the time and attention to give to me; I pulled out a credit card and spent most of the time together weighed down by other concerns.

Through my haze of stress, it was hard for me to connect with Bo. I was incredibly attracted to him, but I was not in a mental place where I could really tune in to his world. Years later, we’ve lost touch. But the lessons learned have stuck: debt free is the way to be! But the larger lesson for me is to be fully present and attentive in the moment, not thinking about what I need or want next. If I needed it so much, I would probably find the money. If I don’t have the money (in cash) then I probably don’t need it today.

I don’t know where you are today, Bo, but I hope you are still debt free, still happy go lucky, and still out there hugging those trees!