The girls of Southern California in the 1980s


I spent some of the best years of my life in Southern California, from age 25 to 31. And while the 1980s really don't seem so long ago to me, actually they were. And while I have no intention of doing a "kiss and tell", or naming names, but I do want to share how wonderful the girls of Southern California were, and hopefully still are.


The first thing you have to know about places like Los Angeles is that the ratio of men to women isn't even. Like all cities on Planet Earth, the greater the civilization, the greater the percentage of women. This is wonderful for men like Jan and Dean who sang "two girls for every boy" in the song "Surf City" in the 1960s, but it creates a dynamic that can become unpleasant for people seeking romance, and meaningful relationships. Of course women can go live in other places, like Alaska, where women tell me that the odds are good, but the goods are odd.

OK, I'll get this out of the way, I'm a straight guy. Or as my gay friends might have called me in the 1980s, a "grim". And without going into too much detail here, the Southern California girls had what I wanted. That is, they were female. I'm glad we had this little talk!

Anyway, in my experience the girls in Southern California weren't "Hollywood" or "Gold-diggers" (I had no gold to dig for!), they were just the female equivalent of myself. They worked there, lived there, and were looking for love, romance, and you know. Stop that giggling! I mean it!


I lived on the western edge of the San Fernando Valley, and spent most of my time in "the Valley". Technically the valley is part of LA, but there was definitely a difference between people who lived in the basin (real LA) and people who lived in the valley (fake LA). Girls who lived in the valley in the 1980s were immortalized as "Valley Girls" saying such things as "totally!" and "gag me with a spoon". They were seen as vapid and slightly boring, as immortalized in the Tom Petty song "Free Fallin'". But those were mostly teenage girls, and the girls I knew were more grownup, although they did kinda talk that way.

As an absolutely clueless man on the subject of what to wear, when I moved to the valley I wore the dress clothes that the local men's store suggested, and when I went to a corporate party I was such an embarrassment that one of my coworkers took me gently aside and said something like "really?" We were not romantically linked ('m sitting next to her in the photo up there), but she took me (with the full understanding of her boyfriend) to the Sherman Oaks Galleria, where I gave her free range to pick out whatever clothing she thought was appropriate for me, and I just brought my credit card. She set a tradition that I've followed ever since.

Thank you for visiting the girls of Southern California in the 1980s with me!

Well, East coast girls are hip
I really dig those styles they wear
And the Southern girls with the way they talk
They knock me out when I'm down there
The Midwest farmer's daughters really make you feel alright
And the Northern girls with the way they kiss
They keep their boyfriends warm at night

 I wish they all could be California
I wish they all could be California
I wish they all could be California girls
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