Sex and the City

Interactions I had with boys while living in NYC (in grave detail).

It’s early June and I’m walking through downtown NYC, dramatically flipping my curly hair while wearing an oversized blazer and as I begin to cross a street that doesn’t yet have a walk signal, I hear the Sex and the City theme song start playing in my head.

The ways that Carrie Bradshaw and I are alike are few and far between. Like how her oversized blazer is from a man and I’ve never held hands with a boy but wear a blazer so that people are more convinced that I’m an economics major. I’ve always considered myself to be a Charlotte.

I had never seen Sex and the City before moving to NYC and everyone I worked with kept talking about how good the show was, so I started watching bits and pieces of it during lunch or when my roommates were showering. I have only seen the first season so far, but I have compiled a short list of the ways Carrie and I are alike:

• Journalists who exploit our lives for content

• Constantly interviewing friends, therefore exploiting the lives of our friends as well

• Have large closets with way too many clothes (aka not enough clothes)

• Have only three real friends with whom we talk about constantly

For right now, we’re going to focus on the first point. Journalists who exploit our lives for content. Since I’ve spent the past two months in the city, I suppose it’s not time for the exploitative part, in which I reveal all of my romantic endeavors, or lack thereof. If I wrote the Sex and the City column, here’s three examples of how it would read –

I went to CVS for vodka but found love instead

It was a Friday night and like most college students living in NYC for the first time, we were looking for some excitement! Some activities to facilitate stories that we would tell years into the future! We were looking for vodka.

Out of my six roommates, only one was over 21 and only one had a fake ID, but it was a fake ID from India and she didn’t think it would work in America. So instead of spending the Friday night in a club or a bar, we were going to send the 22 year old out to buy some alcohol and then spend the night drinking and playing spoons in our apartment. Which, I found, was generally just as fun, or more so, than going out. I loved clubbing, but in reality I just love to dance and you can do that just as well in an apartment if you get tipsy enough, push the kitchen table out of the way, and connect to a speaker.

It was our first weekend in NYC though, and we went down the elevator from our 16th floor residence thinking that if we just walked around enough, we would find somewhere to get alcohol. We weren’t really in a rush, and the six of us just liked to spend time together so we didn’t really mind how long it might take. Right next to our building was a CVS, we would regularly make late night stops there to get chocolate or pads or extension cords because there were no outlets in our room and we all had to snake cords from the living room into our separate rooms. When I was in Madrid, there was this corner shop where I bought the majority of my groceries and they had a whole section of alcohol – anything from tequila to $40 wine to champagne. We thought that we might as well check the CVS, since it was right there and it was also right in between two colleges and they would probably sell alcohol if they knew what was good for them.

We went right back to the refrigerated section, where they had different types of drinks like seltzers and beer but no blatant vodka like we were looking for to mix with our orange juice (Maia had insisted that orange juice was the best mixer, although skeptical we trusted her. Personally, I prefer champagne in my orange juice). While in the aisle, Sonia started trying to Google an alcohol store downtown. There have to be hundreds.

While we were still there, I saw this boy around our age looking around in the refrigerated section and we immediately made eye contact. He was wearing business clothes with a backpack on and as soon as our eyes met I felt this ultimate cosmic connection with him like, “this is the love of my life”. He kept walking towards us looking through the cold foods, occasionally looking back up. Sonia had yet to find somewhere on Google (During our time together, I learned that her fatal flaw is she has no idea how to fully utilize Google Maps) so when the boy got close to us I asked him, “You from around these parts?”

Maybe those aren’t the exact words I used, but I was wearing denim on denim and was made fun of just an hour earlier for my “country accent” and the way I pronounce ‘towels’ so I was really feeling like a hick. He immediately broke into a smile when I talked to him and said, “I’m here for the summer, but I’m from Baltimore. Are you from here?”

I told him I was asking because of our mission to find vodka and not knowing where any alcohol stores were yet because we just moved in on Monday and where I’m from. But the whole time I was imagining our NYC summer together after we got done with the small talk and he asked for my number.

He asked all my friends where they were from, and they told him how we’re here for art school. He kept looking back at me though! Sonia asked why he was in the city for the summer, he laughed embarrassed and said he was working in private equity. I told him I studied finance and economics and had worked in private equity too, and nobody can shame him for getting his bag. There was a little bit more small talk, and a few more intrigued eye contact made between the two of us before we said we had to leave to find our vodka. I was waiting for him to ask me for my number. Sonia kept staring at me, noticing that we had a connection. But when I said bye and we started walking away he let us leave.

When we got out of CVS and back on the street, Sonia hit me on the shoulder, “Why didn’t you ask him for his number?” I told her I was waiting for him to make the first move, since I was already the one who initiated the conversation. That’s another difference between me and Carrie Bradshaw. I have this idea that boys must be the one to make the first move on me, because I am insecure that if I make the first move they will reject me and then I will feel insecure. I also think that, despite being 20, I look so young that boys my age probably think I’m in high school. Sonia says that’s not true, but she is also my biggest hype woman so I’m not sure I believe her. Carrie Bradshaw would have invited him to come with us on the alcohol hunt and then to our apartment to join the fun. We were inviting our other friends and everyone would have loved having him there. I felt guilty that I hadn’t and regretted just walking away from him.

There was also another reason I felt guilty – I knew what it was like to work in finance and feel isolated from the rest of the world. It was 9pm and he was still wearing work clothes and his backpack and was buying a frozen meal from the CVS to eat on his Friday evening after working way longer than a 9-5. He probably doesn’t have much time to make friends, or see friends, and spends his day basically doing admin work that will look good on a resume. I got sad thinking about him going back to his apartment by himself, eating his dinner alone watching TV, thinking about those art school kids he met in the CVS and how they seemed like they were having fun. I get really protective over people like this, and I wished I had some way to contact him to make sure he had friends in the city, plans over the weekend to see people, and other finance people who could commiserate with him.

As we continued on with our night, I kept thinking about that boy from CVS. Even later in the week I still yapped on to my roommates about him and how we had this kind of connection and how he could have been my fun NYC summer fling and I didn’t even know his name. I miss him very much. I refer to him as “the CVS boy who is the love of my life.”

As the summer continued, I looked for him every time I went into the CVS, although I couldn’t exactly picture what he looked like. I knew if I saw him again, I would know it was him and I would ask him to do something and take the initiative. But I never saw him again.

Instead of getting a boyfriend who was the love of my life, even if it was just for summer, I just got another lesson of how I need to move past my insecurities and be more outgoing to people, especially boys. I’m going to need a lot of practice to actually ditch my ideals that boys have cooties.

UnHinged

I originally started this column to exploit all the American boys on dating apps in Madrid, but after I realized that I was subliminally using Hinge to network, I decided to delete it. Carrie Bradshaw never had to worry about interacting with boys on dating apps and for that I will be eternally jealous of her. Maybe she was a single girl in her 30s, but at least she never got a Hinge message saying, “Can I go down on you tonight?” Like seriously, what ever happened to a simple “hello”??

Back in the ‘good ole days’ when there were no dating apps, people actually talked to each other at bars, clubs, and maybe if I wasn’t so used to online communication I would have been more forward with the CVS boy who is the love of my life. Now, there is just an understanding that every person below 30 is on a dating app and that is just how you have to meet people. Who am I to not follow tradition?

I redownloaded Hinge shortly into my time in NYC, pushed by my June roommates to do so. For about 30 minutes every evening after dinner, I would hand my phone over to Sonia and she would go through and respond to every message I was sent throughout the day responding with something incredibly outrageous. My favorites include:

BOY: Fun fact: I hate chocolate. It’s genuinely bad in every form.

“ME”: it’s clear you’ve never been a girl on her period before.

–

When one boy had a picture of him at 7 years old standing next to Miranda Cosgrove she sent, “who is the random boy with you?”

BOY: idk he just follows me around, I think he’s a fan.

Extra points for going with the bit.

–

BOY: I’m a photographer too

“ME”: can you take action shots of me doing scooter tricks?

–

There was one boy that I ended up giving my number to because it was the end of June when my first set of roommates were leaving and I was going to be in Brooklyn for two weeks by myself, not knowing anyone else in the city. He was funny and his first text read, “hi hello did someone order a cute hinge boy?” And when we were making small talk to get to know each other he told me he was on vacation for a week, I asked him where he was, to which he responded “Breezy Point” and sent me a pin of his location, “in case you were wondering”. He was either really weird (which I liked) or knew the female gaze very well. He was out of the city for a whole week though, and the conversation just kind of dropped off after a few days. I’m not sure if I would have met him, but I wasn’t as good of friends with my roommates during the second term, so maybe I would have. 

The best Hinge experience I had in NYC was when I used the prompt “I’ll fall in love with you if…” and typed my response as “I’ll get you a job at Bain.” This boy named Kevin liked the response and sent, “Are you free Friday? I got invited to this rooftop dinner where everyone brings a Hinge date. There will be people that work at BCG there.” If you’re not up to date on consulting talk – first of all, I am jealous of you. Second of all, Bain and BCG are two of the biggest, hardest ones to get a job working with. I saw the message on Thursday and was scared. I ended up not going. Coincidentally, that was the same Friday night where I met the CVS boy who is the love of my life. A couple days later after the Friday had passed, I wished I would have gone with him. It would have been a fun little night that would have made such a good story. I think that if I would have had more time to think about it, and Sonia would have had more time to convince me, I would have gone. Not even for the networking, just for the story of it all. The networking would have just been a bonus. I would have left that dinner with 50 new LinkedIn connections.

Taking the French to frat parties

During the second session, I lived with two girls from Paris (Leala and Raissa), a girl from Brazil (Aurea), a girl who goes to NYU (Harlow), and another girl that I don’t even remember the name of because she never once spoke to me (Unknown). But I think she was from UCLA. I turned 21 before the second session started, so it was easier for me to get into bars and clubs with my roommates. 

One day, I was trying to describe to Leala what frat parties are like. She was especially interested in what I had to say, as I go to school in the south and she thought that all southern Greek life was like Bama Rush. Aurea came in, just as intrigued with hearing about the sticky floors, non-brothers who aren’t let in the parties, and the things the pledges had to do that Harlow said, “there’s a bar in downtown that NYU students basically use like a frat because we don’t have houses, we could go there tomorrow night.”

Aurea and Leala were so excited. When Raissa came home and they told her the plan, she was just as excited, which was surprising because she hates everything about America and frats are definitely very USA-core. I wasn’t particularly fond of being in NYC and still reverting back to a frat party I could just go to in Oklahoma, but I did want to see the look on the French and Brazilian girls' faces when they experienced it.

The next day we all got dressed. Leala and Raissa still dressed like they were going out in Paris. Harlow and I made them go back into their rooms and change. Aurea refused to change out of her floor length black skirt and crochet black top, no matter how out of place she may look.

I don’t remember the name of the ‘club’ now, which is probably for the best as I don’t ever plan on going back. But if you went to college or grew up in NYC then you probably know the one, because they don’t really care if you’re 21 or not. When you first walk in, it’s a pizza restaurant. One time when Harlow was here as a freshman, it was 2 a.m. and the pizza workers brought out 10 boxes of free, freshly cooked pizza for the kids in the club to eat.

As soon as we walked in, you could smell the pizza. Definitely not a smell that I have previously associated with clubs but also I didn’t really have any complaints. Leala, especially, looked scared when we got into the main club area and saw all the sweaty people dressed in “horrendous clothing” jumping up and down to a Kesha song and ferociously making out with each other.

At one point a boy who was just a couple inches taller than me, walked up to me cockily so that we were looking each other directly in the eyes. He had this confident look in his eye and was getting close to me in a way that taller guys do so that you have to look up at him. Except he must have been 5’5” because I am quite short. He stuck out his hand for me to shake it, telling me his name. I shook it, because I support a good weird-timed handshake just like Lady Bird, and told him my name. He held it for a moment too long and said, without his confidence shaking at all, “Wanna make out?” 

I took my hand back. Once again, what ever happened to “hello”?? I let out a little chuckle and said, “no”. He shook his head at me and walked away. The five girls I was with all leaned into the circle and giggled over the interaction. Harlow said we would be lucky if that only happened to us once.

It had to have only been two minutes later, because it was during the very next song that was playing, someone ran into Harlow and I. We turned around and saw that the boy’s handshake and directness must have worked for someone else, because he was making out with a girl right behind us. We made eye contact as he was doing what I suppose he calls “kissing” but I would definitely call something different, and he saw Harlow and I grab each other’s arms, absolutely cracking up.

The girl must, too, have come to the realization that Handshake Boy was not a very good kisser, because less than a minute after we turned back to our group, we saw the girl sprinting out of the room into the bathroom, grabbing her friend on the way there. We turned back around to see what had happened, but Handshake Boy was just wiping his mouth with his sleeve, scanning the crowd of people for his next victim.

I never went back to that club, but Leala and Raissa did the very next day. I suppose the only thing Raissa likes about America is the very worst thing America has to offer. I always thought she had pretty bad taste.

Eat at Bodega, Go to Sex Shop

Sonia had two things on her bucket list when she got to New York City – eat a sandwich from a real bodega and go to a sex shop. Not that she was having much sex, or even that she had seen her boyfriend’s dick before. But Sonia was always full of light and energy and had the best ideas, so we all went along with them.

We crossed the bodega off the list very quickly. On Saturday after our first week of classes when we took the subway to Williamsburg to go thrift shopping, we stopped at a bodega for lunch. I don’t think she realized they were just going to be cooking and selling food in a store that would be constituted as a gas station in any other part of the city. She was a bit scared, but the food from bodegas is always delicious. One Monday in late June, in between sessions, I was meeting my friend at Bryant Park after her work got out to watch one of the movies they display. She already had dinner, which I didn’t know about, so I stopped at a bodega and picked up a sandwich to eat when we were watching the movie. It was literally the best sandwich I have ever eaten. I missed the whole background of the movie because I was too busy mentally writing my vows to this sandwich. Even when a torrential downpour started and my friend pulled out her umbrella to cover us and everyone else went running for cover, I stayed seated in my chair, continuing to eat my sandwich.

If there is a competition here between bodegas and sex shops, I already knew pretty early on that bodegas were going to win. But that Thursday evening after classes when three of my roommates walked in yelling, “It’s sex shop time!” in a voice so loud that both of our neighbors most definitely heard, I knew I had to give both places their time to shine so I could make an educated decision.

Lucky for us we were in downtown NYC which meant the sex shop, “Pink Pussycat Boutique” was only on the other side of Washington Square Park as us. Before we knew it, we were across the street from the store but there was a large obstacle between us and experiencing a sex shop. A gaggle of teenage boys. I swear, the number one hobby for teenage boys is ruining my day. We loitered around on the sidewalk for a little bit acting like we were talking about something until they left and we walked inside.

The inside was… well, definitely a sex shop. We were the only ones in there besides the young, female worker so we felt comfortable laughing and pointing dramatically to the unusually large dildos. Girlhood!

Once the worker realized that we were literal children, she told us that we should go into the backroom for more ‘beginner items’. Like she didn’t know that Sonia had a boyfriend (who she never saw in person given she was always traveling) and so did Maia (where they acted like they were an old married couple). But we took her advice and went into the back to find things that were harder to make fun of.

The only problem was, as we were looking at vibrators, so was an old man next to us. We kind of shuffled awkwardly around the room until he chose something and left. That also sometimes happened to be at bodegas, but it was never as awkward as this. While we were in that small room, whispering so that the lady didn’t determine that we were so childish that we weren’t even responsible enough to be in this room and needed to be kicked out, Sonia posed the question, “What if we all got matching ones?”

It sounded a little weird at first. But there were four of us and seven different colors, so it wasn’t like we would get the exact same one. And also it’s a machine, so it’s not like we’re all sleeping with the same boy or something. We were going to be in four different counties in the next two weeks, could this be something that keeps us bonded? The answer is yes. I am nothing if not someone who commits to the bit.

The worker wasn’t trying to be mean by sending us to the backroom, she also giggled when she saw each of us check out with a different color and said, “this was a good choice” as she rang the first one up. We were all carrying some kind of bag, so we all stuck the small package into our bags as we walked out. Sloane started holding her tote bag with two hands with a stupid little grin on her face. We walked home through the park and when we were about to leave, we turned to see a lady getting proposed to underneath the famous arch. That’s what the English majors call a “funny juxtaposition”.

Back at the apartment, we all went to work on our separate assignments at the kitchen table as Sloane charged the vibrator in the wall next to us. We were living six girls to a small NYC apartment with three bedrooms so it wasn’t like any of us were going to use it while we were staying there, but that doesn’t mean we weren’t still curious. About ten minutes later she said, “You’re all taking a break from your studying to watch me play with the vibrator.”

We said, “Sloane, maybe that wasn’t the best way of wording things.”

She took the vibrator off the charger and started pressing different buttons, laying the small machine down on the table so that the whole thing rattled. She leaned back and forth covering her face with her hands, laughing. She kept changing the settings until she reached one that made the vibrator fall clear off the table and onto the floor.

“That’s how you know it’s a good one,” said Aadhya, who didn’t go with us to the shop but was watching Sloane change the settings

Sloane grabbed it in her hand and enclosed her fingers over it. “You’ve got to feel this!” she laughed, pushing the vibrator into my bicep so I, too, could feel as though I was being rattled.

“Sloane,” I said. “Never touch me with your vibrator ever again.”

Anyways, to sum up, I’ve had more pleasurable experiences with things I have bought in bodegas than things I have bought in sex shops.

Yours truly,

Calihan