New York New York

Hopped on the Bolt Bus to NYC at 4pm. Didn't get to the city until close to 9:40PM. Normally, the commute is about 4 hours give or take a few minutes. Funny thing is, I don't remember there being much traffic out of Boston or into NYC, so I have no clue why the heck the drive took so long.

Took the subway and touched homebase (aka Chris' apartment) at around 10PM. The dude had been drinking whiskey on the rocks with one of his college buddies while waiting for me to arrive. Normally, the longer than expected commute wouldn't have agitated me, but because Chris and his friend, Jessica, had not gotten dinner and were waiting for me arrive, I felt pretty shitty.

With a slightly tipsy Chris in hand, we all headed off to El Malecon , a Dominican Restaurant, on 97th and Amsterdam. Being a huge fan of ethnic cuisine, I was more than willing to try something different. This is New York City after all. I mean, how often would I be able to go out and get really good ethnic food in Boston?

Turns out the menu wasn't quite vegetarian friendly. Figures. Like most Latin American food, Dominican food relies heavily on the meat dishes (i.e chicken, beef, etc). But luckily for me, there was one dish called Mofongo, which is basically panfried Planktan mashed with garlic and served with rice and beans. Sounds simple and light, but boy was it filling. I literally had to roll out of the joint. Haven't felt that full in some time.

The next stop took us to Avenue A down in the Lower East Side. We were joined by Chris' "tall, Jewish" friend, Mike, who guided us to a sketchy dive bar down in the Lower East Side called Cheapshots. As the name implies, liquor and beer were dirt cheap. Pitchers of beer went for as low as $7, and shots were as cheap as $3-4. Thank goodness my drinking days are over, or I would've totally gone to town with these cheap drinks.

Closer to 1am, we decided to switch locations and walked down to The Continental, another bar that served cheap shots. ($10 for 5 shots anyone?) For a Friday night, the place was relatively packed, but not bursting to the brim with drunk bros and bro hos. Not being much of a drinker, I spent most of the night with my eyes glued to the giant screen in the back where they were playing "The Wizard of Oz" - one of my favorite films that I enjoyed watching as a kid. Funny how addicting those classic movies can be especially that late at night. Had I been buzzed or drunk, the Wicked Witch of the West would've totally freaked me out. Thank god I was completely sober.

While I was taking a trip down memory lane, Chris was making great conversation with two young girls sitting next to us while Jess and her friend downed shot after shot of Jameson Whiskey and Tequilla.

Not before long, we decided to switch locations for one last time before calling it a night. We ended up walking past a really, really sketchy and grimey bar called The Odessa. In front of the bar were a group of hipster looking kids, one of whom quickly caught Chris' eyes. She was a medium-height brunette with dark sleepy eyes. Totally his type. He wasn't sure whether he should go and talk to her, so as his wingwoman and friend, I decided to walk over and start a conversation with the said girl.

Turns out she is a student studying at the General Studies School at Columbia. Originially hailing from Rhode Island, she went to College in Colorado before transferring to Columbia. She was friendly and social enough, although she said she didn't know that many people at school. After exchanging our names and bidding adieu to Allie, the said girl, Chris and I headed into the bar where I asked him how he felt about the girl, to which he replied: "Something's sort of off with her. She's hot, but I don't know. Told her I'd facebook her...we'll see."

Later on once we were back at Chris' place, we looked her up on facebook. What we found was semi-disturbing. She had an open profile, an open everything...no pun intended. There were dozens of semi-disturbing photos borderlining porn that completely threw both of us off-guard.

Disenchanted and disillusioned, Chris reaffirmed his belief regarding the number of dateable people in NYC, citing that regardless of how large the city is, the number of girls who are both pretty and dateable is in reality quite small. I was sort of taken aback by his statement. NYC is, afterall, one of the biggest cities in the world. To say that out of the millions and millions of people living in the city, the pool of eligible people is that small, was quite a bold statement.

So where does that leave people like Chris and me? Not entirely sure, but definitely not among the pool of desperate souls looking or searching for the ever elusive thing called “love.” Like I said so before, the best things in life happen when you least expect them to. So this is an instance where putting forth the effort doesn't really pay off. You just have to let things happen - let the chips fall into place or not. It's as the Beatles sang, "Let it Be." Just let it be.