New York City is for sellouts

I love flips flops. I can walk miles in them. But in the city you kind of want to be able to run away.

more like a psychological torture chamber than a city, really

Gotta find the city within the city

blehhhhhhh

there are many people here who i love. there are many places here that are great. but honestly, so much about this place wears on me.

i renewed my lease though

omg, i totally forgot about that Beware the Boys song. I just started playing it and we are dying laughing.

This is what happens when I just skim these threads. I should maybe re-read it at some point.

treeship, what happened?

NA you ought to be glad you're rid of such shallow people.
― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, August 7, 2003 10:03 AM (fifteen years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeeowch

i'm just whining. the proximate cause of my problem is some transit nightmare and then a horrible cab driver who drove in circles for a half hour before finding the williamsburg bridge. but in general, i've felt worn down by the work culture at my job and also i find that when i'm in the city--especially manhattan--i feel this kind of constant, low level anxiety and i'm sick of it

xp

yeah treesh I wish you'd expound. I started a "is NYC dead?" thread a few months ago and I remember you being a bit critical of city life then, too. Genuinely curious which aspects get to you the most.
xp

what's the root of the anxiety?

Manhattan has too many tourists, too many people. I used to get anxiety having to tell a cab driver to take me to wburg so I always preferred to take the train. I like NYC but I never miss it when I am away. (except for the food and being able to pet lots of dogs).

xpost I think this thread started (by NA) right after that big FAP in NYC over the fourth of July. I wonder what happened.

xp i think i just wasn't made to be in that close proximity to that many strangers every day. which is a shitty thing to say, but i think it's true.

obviously weekends in williamsburg, greenpoint and fort greene (my haunts) are great. but even then, i sometimes wish i just lived somewhere more anonymous.

if i could work in brooklyn i think i would be happier. something about subway commuting just feels like i am descending into hell every morning.

You should move to Queens. I felt a lot more relaxed after a decade in williamsburg, even though I was living in a really lowkey area anyway. Some Canadian who had just moved to williamsburg once told me that he loved the L Train because it was like a cocktail party. The trains are terrible.

I worked in Brooklyn a couple of times. For 2-3 years I could walk to work easily. It was soooo amazingly great to never have real need to go into the city.

that's a good tip. yeah, maybe i should just prioritize "working in brooklyn" when i look for new jobs. it seems strange but it might make a huge difference. it truly is manhattan that i dislike--it feels like a giant mall, but like one where they locked the doors at night on black friday so everyone is trapped inside.

I don't even know what you do but quitting jobs is one of my passions.

yerac someday i would like to see a list of all the places you've lived

definitely feeling the nyc tiresomeness lately

Technically my place of residence has been in nyc since the early 2000s.

nyc is for BUYERS

I am outta time here

treesh otm new york sucks

and a lot of my recurring anxieties here are commuting on the subway-related too

morbs, are you really leaving?

The subway is so brittle. I was working last fall for a couple of months with a terrible commute and it distinctly would change once some event like the start of school or a cold snap happened. I would leave almost 45 minutes ahead of time so I could just read and not stress.

NYC sucks for sure. I lived in Brooklyn for a while 25+ years ago and it sucked then. I’m happy as hell living in Jersey and only going into NYC once or twice a month (tonight being one of those times).

Yerac I am literally 3-4 months from running out of money, at which point I will either move into my friend's basement, start living on credit, or go to my sister's in CT.

yeah but is it a new kind of suck, it the old, classic hectic/stressful/loud/lonely kind of suck. did it suck less, say, in the 90s?

(first 'it' should be 'or', sorry)

Some things were bad in the '90s, but you could live here alone if you weren't an investment banker.

The primary new drawbacks (aside from nearly every bar/institution/eatery I liked in 1995 being gone) are the deterioration of mass transit and millions of phone-staring morons impeding my walking.

The cinema choices are better than ever, however.

don't live on credit. It will will be even more impossible after. Take the kindness of friends or your sister.

xpost i just found after the fact that enid's closed. I didn't completely love it but now it makes sense why people have been talking about that camel for the last couple of weeks.

The phone staring morons are everywhere.

but it matters more when the byways are mobbed.

I would die of boredom in CT inside a year.

i remember elvis telecom, some years ago, remarking on how there was less jaywalking in nyc than he'd remembered. but it was Because of the Phones

I’m happy as hell living in Jersey

xpost Nothing is permanent. Live in CT for 3 months, 6 months, 2 years. Regroup, get well. It will be a blip after it's over.

it's hard for me to square my concern for morbs with my desire for him to learn how to drive

Full disclosure: i was lookin to leave this year but i started seeing someone who is incredible. That’s the only reason I’m sticking around for now.

Maybe if I took a job in a less trend-driven industry i wouldn’t feel as aggressively “in new york” as i do now and i could kinda relax about it. There is a sense in which nyc feels like the center of the action, and some people really thrive on that, but i haaaaaaaaaaate that aspect. I just want to be.

However, the universe conspired to bring me here, as it didnyears ago to bring me to ilx, and i’ve met amazing people in nyc and learned a lot of (sometimes painful) lessons and maybe i should just trust

morbs' birthday is coming up

let us fap

it's a lose-lose

I have been maladapted to New England for 14 years now, I still feel most at home and most comfortable in nyc and try to get down as often as possible, as I will next weekend, but I know I could probably no longer endure the kind of loneliness-in-a-crowd that it can impose when living there

how there was less jaywalking in nyc than he'd remembered. but it was Because of the Phones

I wish they'd keep jaywalking, it would cull the herd.

mook if I learned to drive someone would die really quickly.

my birthday falls on Easter Sunday this year, and it's amazing how many of my heathen NY friends are leaving town to eat ham or whatever

i lived in indiana for a decade, depression is much deadlier than boredom

i can also personally attest that it's possible to be a very bad driver for a very long time and not kill anybody

it's been a long time since i've been to nyc, but i've felt that loneliness-in-a-crowd thing everywhere i've lived!

Morbs I had forgotten this! Me

Me too! 4/21

i will put in a vote for non-hipster brooklyn. i get the cemetery and prospect park and some old neighborhood shit and no bars. it's nice.
morbs, you share a birthday with bridget everett!
i would do an ilx hang; it's been a very long time.