I do not know if it was me or if it was the New Yorkers but it had been several months since I had moved to the city and had not made any new friends outside of work. The ones at work were nice people but under what seemed to be a permeable layer of personality laid a very tough shell like the seed of a peach, it was impossible to break through. So the friendships at work remained limited and gave me as much satisfaction as miniature people on a bookshelf.
The streets, the gym, the clubs, the restaurants were no better. Unlike the people in Austin, New Yorkers took pride in having a wall around them. At first this seemed a little strange to me. As months went by I finally understood. The answer was simple, these people were rude to strangers for a good reason: most of the strangers in New York City were FREAKS! The scariest part of it is the fact that these freaks were perfectly capable of hiding their freakiness. Through years of trial and error a new species of freaks had evolved in this city; a complete new species that on any day you would meet, conduct business with, exchange a simple subway banter but never ever know what you're standing up against.
With so many freaks roaming the streets it would make sense that some people would have these freaks as friends or perhaps at least as acquintances. Strangely enough the people we knew were never freaks, they were weird friends, strange acquintances, dear childhood friends with obsessions, coworkers with addictions and habits that they just can not kick but never full-fledged freaks. It seemed that this city had made it an art of hiding the freak in us all. On any regular day, the battlefield commonly known to others as Manhattan was full of freaks in camouflage. The strangely kind water man, the old nasty neighbor lady, the couple that you ran into in the mornings, people walking their dogs, all were freaks in hiding.
You can only imagine my shock and delight when one day a particularly normal looking guy approached me at the gym and asked about the pair of shorts I had on. I was wearing the last surviving pair of Duke shorts from my college days. It turns out he too was an alumni and we hit it off right away.
I was soon to find out that unlike the Mid-West, people's schools mattered a whole lot more here on the island of brands and images that were applied and re-applied more frequently than Staten Island makeup. Entire friendships and relationships could be based on people's educational background here and I did not mind it. In the land of diploma elitism I had nothing to fear with my BA and MA degrees tucked under my arm.
The guy's name was Bob, and he was in advertising which meant that he was mentally pretty sharp. We soon started working out together and it was fun to be talking to someone at the gym for a change. I always looked forward to running into Bob at the gym because he always had lots of stories to make me laugh.
It was also a no-frills friendship. It was completely clear that I was taken and he also made it clear that he was too tired to date anyone anymore. He had been out there in the playing field and had suffered his share of injuries and disappointments. I think one should always watch out for these people in life; because just two moments after they announce that they have given up and admitted defeat, they turn around and do something really out of character and end up doing better than you are somehow.
Bob was no different. He disappeared for a week or two without a warning. It turns out he went on a gay cruise where he met the man of his dreams (surprise!) who happened to be living in Chicago. I was a little shaken by the fast pace of changes in Bob's life but nevertheless I was glad for him. Next thing I knew he was making plans for moving to Chicago and the full nine yards of kissing adolescent independence goodbye once and for all.
Bob was in what I call the marriage mode. A type of mental state when sentences almost always begin with "We" and mostly are about home furnishings, home improvement, babies, and financial plans for the future. It is most apparent in women but the convergence of gay towards mainstream has resulted in gay men also exhibiting the same type of codependent behavior. What's interesting to me as a foreigner is the word "codependent" almost always carries with it a negative connotation in the US. What is so bad about needing someone to hold onto, needing someone to talk to, needing someone to share an agenda with? I still do not know.
Every brick of every building, the pavement beneath my feet and all the people around me friends or not seemed to be silently whispering "independence, go for independence" when I was not looking. Independence; sounds great. Sign me up but then what happens next?
Codependence, independence, multi-dependence, anti-socialism all become no different than long distance carriers that each have individual benefits and caveats leaving us wishing there was one plan to put all the good stuff together and leave out the bad. So far no such luck so we carry on with our choices...and still get frequent tele-marketer calls from the other carriers.
It bugged me. No it disturbed me that Bob, my independent, never gonna date again, "I will be alone and fabulous for the rest of my life" friend had gone four weddings and a funeral on me overnight.
To cap things off, Bob was having a huge birthday party in a week or two. I was not really looking forward to it but he kept harassing me until I had to say yes. Most people love birthday parties for some reason. I guess it is because they only have fond memories of birthday parties past. What I remember from my birthdays in the past is, I would invite all my classmates and only 5 girls out of 25 people would show up every time. So after primary school I just gave up on the idea of trying to make friends. Something about me was annoying people, I was too young to know exactly what but I knew even then a crowded loneliness waited for me in the future.
Unfortunately before I had time to get ready for it, the big day arrived. Bob had informed me that the party was at a restaurant in East Village. I thought to myself, good at least I do not have to venture to another part of Manhattan.
I am in love and have always been in love with having the option of bailing out when I need to. It is just this noncommittal part of me that needs to know I can hit a panic button and I will be taken out of the current situation with the fewest number of scratches and scars possible. And this restaurants location fit my exit criteria perfectly.
So I get dressed and show up at the party with a little happy birthday card mostly because I did not know what to get him. I was hoping for a party of ten to fifteen people. I was mentally prepared for ten to fifteen people. When I arrived on time at the restaurant there was no one. No sight of Bob, nor his entourage.
It was a little hole in the wall restaurant that specialized in French Armenian cuisine. I still do not know what kind of food that ends up being: very spicy, delicious and very little food that's beautifully arranged on a plate? The food was delicious but the quantity was simply not enough. Oh did I mention more than thirty people showed up. Our birthday party quickly filled the entire restaurant.
Bob arrived and everyone was on him like he was fresh meat in a shark tank. I must have exchanged two sentences with him the whole night.
Bob's best friends were sitting next to me. This super cool Manhattan couple, I bet they thought their dodo did not stink. I was mortified by the size of the crowd but I was making a concerted effort to engage in conversation and maybe get to know some people. Well I chatted with Bob's best friends for a while. The guy was a major player in some startup multimedia company. I told him about my job and my company, and did not forget to put a little Sape plug in there. The moment the words "maybe your company and mine can do some collaboration together" left my lips he snapped at me "I know your company, there is no reason for us to do any work with you all. I was talking to you because we're trying to get more talent like you." This was strike two for me because this couple had previously offered me a joint in the middle of a conversation and it seemed very incoherent and out of place to me at the time.
So I turned to my right, and noticed that what seemed like a random seating of individuals was almost dead on in terms of separating the GAYS into one corner and the straight people to the other. I was dead in the middle and it was appropriate in some ways. I was gay after all but most people did not figure it out until I started making frequent unnecessary references to musicals and movies.
The "gay" crowd was gracious and nice to me. So I pretty much remained turned to my right the rest of the night and had a blast with people I would never see again. I don't think people in Turkey do not have this experience when they entertain in public. Usually when you see a group of people in Turkey having a blast, you can be guaranteed these people have known each other for more than one night; or at the very least I can guarantee you these people will see each other again. I never saw these people ever again for the remainder of my stay in the city.
There was a lot of food, a lot of drinking, and it seemed like I was trapped in what seemed to be a re-enactment of the last days of Rome. When I felt that I could take it no more, I got up to leave and one of Bob's friends grabbed me by the arm on my way to the door.
She said: "did you pay Bob for the party?"
I said: "excuse me? pay for a party this size?".
She said: "Yeah we all have to pitch in to pay for the party and you owe $70."
I have never been the kind of guy that winces at the sound of a price tag or restaurant bill but this one bothered me. It bothered me that I was almost the only non-drinking guy there and I was paying for all the booze these people were washing the Armenian koftes with. I had $40 with me so I gave her that and told her I had to get more money. So I left and came back and gave her the rest. In the meantime her husband in his drunken stupor looks at me with recognition and says: "ah the douche bag is back to pay .... great". I was speechless, I really was but anger was brewing inside me and I had to get out of there before I got into some situation.
By this time Bob had also joined his friends in the land of drunken messy faced stupor. I felt like I had been transported to this alien planet and I had to go back, get out of this place before it claimed me.
So I turned around, and told her that I can not believe her husband has the balls to call me names at a friend's party. She was apologizing for him when I said: "that's all I have to say to you". I turned around, I could hear her still gabbing in the background but I kept my steady pace towards the door. Soon I was out, and what seemed like hell was behind the door, nicely contained in the East Village night.
I walked home silently in disbelief, and anger; anger for myself for going to a birthday party for someone I did not even know that well. I called up my cousin later to vent and he could not believe the story, he was convinced I was making it up or exaggerating the details but I was not.
I never saw Bob again, and never heard back from him again. I figured he had moved to Chicago to get married to his dream date and possibly if nature permitted squirt several kids out promptly so that he can commence his life as a soccer mom in the burbs of Chicago.
Bob called me almost a year later, two weeks before I left New York City. He left a message on my machine telling me he was sorry he did not have time to talk to me before he left for Chicago. He and his hubby were going to Turkey the next day so he had called me for tips and pointers for things to do in Turkey. I never called him back.
Category :
It seems that if you're a gym addict, your whole life can fall apart but you still can not miss a workout. At these times of stress, the opposite happens, you actually find yourself going to the gym more often than usual, and spending more time there.
My addiction to the gym is no different than most New Yorkers' affinity to endless number of coctails after work. My poison involves "lifting heavy things and putting them back down". Needless to say, as an unemployed, semi-illegal alien that was having issues with his immigration status, welfare, partner and his own family, my addiction to working out was stronger than ever. I frequented the Crunch Gym on Lafayette near Astor place.
The Crunch gym was not the most expensive gym in town; in fact I would call it a midrange gym. It was prominently located but never too clean and usually lagged on the amenities: locker room, showers, towels etc. Still I liked the layout of the gym floor and it was the closest one to where I lived, Stuyvesant Town. Closest, being at least ten blocks away! It usually took me a good 15-20 minute walk to get to the gym. I did not need much cardio after that.
When I say Crunch was a midrange gym. Midrange classification also applies to its clientele. They were also midrange Manhattanites; not too rich, not too poor; not too successful, not a complete failure. But if you asked them each of them was a VP of something; usually you could not immediately tell what function they served.
Here was a group of people that saw each other religiously every day and still managed not to even exchange an occasional nod. There was this strange invisible and somewhat cyclical pecking order in the gym. What seemed to be at the top of the food chain were the incredible pretty people with extremely fit bodies. These were the gods, they ignored everyone, and socialized with only their kind, other gods. Then the second teer was the really good-looking people that were in way or another flawed; either unemployed currently, or a big spot on their forehead, bad haircut, or a torn muscle. Then came the normal looking people; the people you would walk by on the street and probably not pay much attention to. These were the most mellow of the bunch; don't get me wrong, we're still in Manhattan, so even their mellow is nothing like yours. Then below this midrange was the semi-ugly people; overweight, or too much bodyhair, not enough hair on their head, scars, bad tattoos, crooked noses, or just old --funny how age can put even the hottest person into this category. Then came the ugliest people; these people were so ugly, they were hot. What I have observed is, the ugliest people are also usually extremely fit and to make matters more complex they get to ignore even the gods, the most beautiful of the gym.
So the pecking order continued up and down and around the food chain; a whole gym full of superficial people, 90% of whom were gay and thought that NYC would not be the same city without their own sad original story to tell. What makes all of this funnier is the tagline of the Crunch Gyms: "No Judgements."
Some days I felt very at ease with this crowd of antisocial judgemental bodies and some days I broke a sweat just walking into the gym. I really can not tell you where I exactly fit in this mad world of muscle and fitness; perhaps in the middle somewhere.
I tried to make friends for the longest time at the gym with little success. Most people I attempted to talk to either ignored me or treated me like your everyday stalker. Along the way I met one or two friendly people of course. After all the good people are bound to be out there. I even regularly worked out with one or two. It was good to have gym buddies.
The gym was the modern day version of Cheers, the sitcom; "a place where everybody knows your name". Well not really they did not know your proper name, they knew your gym name. The gym name can be anything that identifies the person uniquely, with the exception of their real name. If you need to refer to someone in conversation and don't know their name, you have the gym name to fall back onto.
A gym name is usually connected with a physical attribute or certain behavior that belongs to the person being named:
--This is of course a completely fictional list, provided here for illustration purposes. Any resemblance to real life characters is just a mere coincidence and perhaps one of the little mind games Manhattan plays on the unsuspecting.
The Crunch gym was not the most expensive gym in town; in fact I would call it a midrange gym. It was prominently located but never too clean and usually lagged on the amenities: locker room, showers, towels etc. Still I liked the layout of the gym floor and it was the closest one to where I lived, Stuyvesant Town. Closest, being at least ten blocks away! It usually took me a good 15-20 minute walk to get to the gym. I did not need much cardio after that.
When I say Crunch was a midrange gym. Midrange classification also applies to its clientele. They were also midrange Manhattanites; not too rich, not too poor; not too successful, not a complete failure. But if you asked them each of them was a VP of something; usually you could not immediately tell what function they served.
Here was a group of people that saw each other religiously every day and still managed not to even exchange an occasional nod. There was this strange invisible and somewhat cyclical pecking order in the gym. What seemed to be at the top of the food chain were the incredible pretty people with extremely fit bodies. These were the gods, they ignored everyone, and socialized with only their kind, other gods. Then the second teer was the really good-looking people that were in way or another flawed; either unemployed currently, or a big spot on their forehead, bad haircut, or a torn muscle. Then came the normal looking people; the people you would walk by on the street and probably not pay much attention to. These were the most mellow of the bunch; don't get me wrong, we're still in Manhattan, so even their mellow is nothing like yours. Then below this midrange was the semi-ugly people; overweight, or too much bodyhair, not enough hair on their head, scars, bad tattoos, crooked noses, or just old --funny how age can put even the hottest person into this category. Then came the ugliest people; these people were so ugly, they were hot. What I have observed is, the ugliest people are also usually extremely fit and to make matters more complex they get to ignore even the gods, the most beautiful of the gym.
So the pecking order continued up and down and around the food chain; a whole gym full of superficial people, 90% of whom were gay and thought that NYC would not be the same city without their own sad original story to tell. What makes all of this funnier is the tagline of the Crunch Gyms: "No Judgements."
Some days I felt very at ease with this crowd of antisocial judgemental bodies and some days I broke a sweat just walking into the gym. I really can not tell you where I exactly fit in this mad world of muscle and fitness; perhaps in the middle somewhere.
I tried to make friends for the longest time at the gym with little success. Most people I attempted to talk to either ignored me or treated me like your everyday stalker. Along the way I met one or two friendly people of course. After all the good people are bound to be out there. I even regularly worked out with one or two. It was good to have gym buddies.
The gym was the modern day version of Cheers, the sitcom; "a place where everybody knows your name". Well not really they did not know your proper name, they knew your gym name. The gym name can be anything that identifies the person uniquely, with the exception of their real name. If you need to refer to someone in conversation and don't know their name, you have the gym name to fall back onto.
A gym name is usually connected with a physical attribute or certain behavior that belongs to the person being named:
- A guy that frequently wore a pair of "Harvard University" shorts could be named the "harvard guy".
- Someone who spends half his life in the tanning salon may be the "alligator".
- The biker guy who at some point in his life completely misplaced the distinction between having a little scent to his body and smelling like a homeless guy working out may be named the "Stink".
- A writer of children's books who has really long red wavey hair may be called "Samson".
- His snooty boyfriend that asked you your age, as the second question after asking your name, and then proceeded onto not talking to you when he found out you were not available for "fun" could be "Delilah".
- The actor who played the waterboard employee in Erin Brokovich, who also can be seen all over East Village on his rollerblades perhaps could be called "Mr. Wheels".
- ...
--This is of course a completely fictional list, provided here for illustration purposes. Any resemblance to real life characters is just a mere coincidence and perhaps one of the little mind games Manhattan plays on the unsuspecting.
Category :
At first it is great, with my severance in my bank account, and all the time I could not have before while I had a real job, I was in heaven.
Typical days consisted of waking up at 10 am if I felt like being more productive thay day. I do not know what it is about the morning hours; it seems if anythingt is going to get done in a day, they seem to get done in the morning hours --perhaps mostly because we are to sleepy to realize that we're supposed to be putting off these tasks in the first place.
I would wake up and have my breakfast in front of the TV. One egg yolk, 4 egg whites, two pieces of toast, glass of green tea and a small glass of orange juice stood on the dark brown coffee table like an odd group of cattle preparing to jump off for their freedom.
One by one they would dissapear from the plates, then the plates would clank as they turned into a stack in the living room. Some people get sloppy when they're unemployed. The opposite seems to happen to me. I become the anal king of the world. The dishes soon found their places in the dishwasher --like passengers pouring into an early morning ferry to Manhattan. Soon the diswasher would be on, humming its rhythmic swish that might one day inspire a dance named the dishwasher. As water whirled around my dirty dishes like the whirling dervishes, I sat down at my only couch to fill out the job applications for that day.
Each morning, I would re-run all my job searches and check to see if any new positions became available since 4 am last night. There would be several per day and they kept me busy for 1-2 hours every morning.
This was your typical mix of job postings: positions I am way too qualified for, others that are so right for me that it's wrong, and finally those I am way underqualified for. For every acronym I knew, there seemed to be three more I needed to know. For every year of experience I had in one thing, I was required a certificate in another. To paraphrase Barbie, "Job hunting was HARD!"
At first I was mass-applying to everything, sending thirty to sixty resumes a day to jobs all over the place. After I attended the job hunting workshop I slowed down a little and I focused on quality applications sent for positions that I have a very good chance of getting. This approach worked better for me. I got some calls but still I was not getting interviews, I was not getting offers. It just was not happening for me.
In an effort to preserve my sanity, I assumed my backup job title for the rest of my time in New York City, a painter. I started to introduce myself as a painter to people. You would be surprised what a big difference it makes to switch from calling yourself an internet consultant to a painter. Suddenly there was more attention paid to me. Being a painter meant, I was creative, strange, and perhaps dangerous.
It was all fine and well but I also was not very good at marketing myself as a painter. I visited galleries all over town, introducing myself, showing my portfolio, meeting gallery owners, their minions and their lovers. Still the responses I was getting were less than enthusiastic.
At a time when I managed to fail at everything I attempted, it suddenly dawned on me that I was probably half-responsible for the miserable outcomes. All my life, when I am not watching, this other side of me has been secretly sabotaging everything. It is almost as if I introduce myself to people and immediately move onto making a fool of myself with this stand up act routine that only comes across as self-effacing. Well maybe, if I was in Istanbul, that act might elicit some form of recognition and perhaps in time even gather quite a group of fans. But here? in New York City? This was the worst place to get my self-effacing mask on -- and it was glued to my face during the unemployment months.
The morning would wrap up with the applications sent to that one way trip to nowhere. Many like passengers departing on a condemned ship never returned and were never heard of. Most days I had lunch at home: chicken breast, rice and vegetables. Some days I felt the need to get out earlier, so I left around noon to have lunch at a restaurant near by.
I frequented the Lemon Leaf on 3rd Avenue, St. Marx Cafe on St Mark's, Telephone Bar on 3rd Avenue, and countless pizza joints on 1st and 3rd Avenues.
Most days I lunched alone. I guess I could have called a friend or two but I feel so much more at ease when I am by myself. I would sit there waiting for my lunch in that raw Manhattan Spring with its brisk breeze and burning sun doodling away in my notepad like a crazy artist I wasn't.
Afternoon usually was spent browsing the stores and going back forth between absolutely indulgent purchases and others not made because of guilt. I think I still managed to part with 20-50 dollars a day at the very least because of these mini sprees. I returned home late in the afternoon with all the killings of the day. There was however little time to enjoy these trophies. I had to change into my gym clothes and rush off to the gym to make it to the 7 pm showing of the "lifting heavy things and putting them back down." The crew at the gym changed by the hour. I like the 7 pm crowd, they were easier on the eyes, and they had lives, and still they were nice people.
After the gym came the dinner and perhaps watched a DVD. Then I chatted on the computer for a while. During this period, I became completely addicted to Yahoo Messenger and spent endless hours talking to strangers all over the US on just about anything ranging from dating to weight training to politics to foreign travel. The greatest thing about online chat is it allows a person to socialize without going through the angst of being there with the real people. So in this sense, chat is the sterilized, pausterized, and homogenized version of daily social life. No wonder there's so much comfort in it.
Extended exposure to chat life however has been proven to create allergic reactions to daily social situations --so one must always exercise moderation when engaging in an online life. Yeah right, like that will happen.
Typical days consisted of waking up at 10 am if I felt like being more productive thay day. I do not know what it is about the morning hours; it seems if anythingt is going to get done in a day, they seem to get done in the morning hours --perhaps mostly because we are to sleepy to realize that we're supposed to be putting off these tasks in the first place.
I would wake up and have my breakfast in front of the TV. One egg yolk, 4 egg whites, two pieces of toast, glass of green tea and a small glass of orange juice stood on the dark brown coffee table like an odd group of cattle preparing to jump off for their freedom.
One by one they would dissapear from the plates, then the plates would clank as they turned into a stack in the living room. Some people get sloppy when they're unemployed. The opposite seems to happen to me. I become the anal king of the world. The dishes soon found their places in the dishwasher --like passengers pouring into an early morning ferry to Manhattan. Soon the diswasher would be on, humming its rhythmic swish that might one day inspire a dance named the dishwasher. As water whirled around my dirty dishes like the whirling dervishes, I sat down at my only couch to fill out the job applications for that day.
Each morning, I would re-run all my job searches and check to see if any new positions became available since 4 am last night. There would be several per day and they kept me busy for 1-2 hours every morning.
This was your typical mix of job postings: positions I am way too qualified for, others that are so right for me that it's wrong, and finally those I am way underqualified for. For every acronym I knew, there seemed to be three more I needed to know. For every year of experience I had in one thing, I was required a certificate in another. To paraphrase Barbie, "Job hunting was HARD!"
At first I was mass-applying to everything, sending thirty to sixty resumes a day to jobs all over the place. After I attended the job hunting workshop I slowed down a little and I focused on quality applications sent for positions that I have a very good chance of getting. This approach worked better for me. I got some calls but still I was not getting interviews, I was not getting offers. It just was not happening for me.
In an effort to preserve my sanity, I assumed my backup job title for the rest of my time in New York City, a painter. I started to introduce myself as a painter to people. You would be surprised what a big difference it makes to switch from calling yourself an internet consultant to a painter. Suddenly there was more attention paid to me. Being a painter meant, I was creative, strange, and perhaps dangerous.
It was all fine and well but I also was not very good at marketing myself as a painter. I visited galleries all over town, introducing myself, showing my portfolio, meeting gallery owners, their minions and their lovers. Still the responses I was getting were less than enthusiastic.
At a time when I managed to fail at everything I attempted, it suddenly dawned on me that I was probably half-responsible for the miserable outcomes. All my life, when I am not watching, this other side of me has been secretly sabotaging everything. It is almost as if I introduce myself to people and immediately move onto making a fool of myself with this stand up act routine that only comes across as self-effacing. Well maybe, if I was in Istanbul, that act might elicit some form of recognition and perhaps in time even gather quite a group of fans. But here? in New York City? This was the worst place to get my self-effacing mask on -- and it was glued to my face during the unemployment months.
The morning would wrap up with the applications sent to that one way trip to nowhere. Many like passengers departing on a condemned ship never returned and were never heard of. Most days I had lunch at home: chicken breast, rice and vegetables. Some days I felt the need to get out earlier, so I left around noon to have lunch at a restaurant near by.
I frequented the Lemon Leaf on 3rd Avenue, St. Marx Cafe on St Mark's, Telephone Bar on 3rd Avenue, and countless pizza joints on 1st and 3rd Avenues.
Most days I lunched alone. I guess I could have called a friend or two but I feel so much more at ease when I am by myself. I would sit there waiting for my lunch in that raw Manhattan Spring with its brisk breeze and burning sun doodling away in my notepad like a crazy artist I wasn't.
Afternoon usually was spent browsing the stores and going back forth between absolutely indulgent purchases and others not made because of guilt. I think I still managed to part with 20-50 dollars a day at the very least because of these mini sprees. I returned home late in the afternoon with all the killings of the day. There was however little time to enjoy these trophies. I had to change into my gym clothes and rush off to the gym to make it to the 7 pm showing of the "lifting heavy things and putting them back down." The crew at the gym changed by the hour. I like the 7 pm crowd, they were easier on the eyes, and they had lives, and still they were nice people.
After the gym came the dinner and perhaps watched a DVD. Then I chatted on the computer for a while. During this period, I became completely addicted to Yahoo Messenger and spent endless hours talking to strangers all over the US on just about anything ranging from dating to weight training to politics to foreign travel. The greatest thing about online chat is it allows a person to socialize without going through the angst of being there with the real people. So in this sense, chat is the sterilized, pausterized, and homogenized version of daily social life. No wonder there's so much comfort in it.
Extended exposure to chat life however has been proven to create allergic reactions to daily social situations --so one must always exercise moderation when engaging in an online life. Yeah right, like that will happen.
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