What I Learned During My First Month In New York City

Image via Complex Original

The City Tests You

Within thirty minutes of being a New York City resident, my right sandal (Yes fashion blog, I was wearing sandals, the footwear of a cool dad) broke in half. I had to walk three blocks home barefoot, which wasn’t a great experience. Mainly because I think of New York City streets as being glazed in Hepatitis C. I could have sat down in the middle of the street and cried. I could have screamed at the person who stepped on the back of my sandal, causing it to break. I could have screamed while crying. But I didn’t. I walked promptly back to my dorm and notified my daddy that my sandal had broke. Two weeks later I got a package from my overly-nice parents containing new sandals. The point is, the city will immediately test you to see if you belong or not. And as long as you have good parents, you’ll pass.

Pizza

Did you know that a few of the buildings in the Big Apple (the nickname that us New York folks call our city that we came up with after doing the simple equation: Size of Patrick Ewing + Apple) contain stores that sell a food called pizza? I do, and I eat in them on most nights because I am a poor college person. I also had to have a fellow roommate teach me how to turn on the oven, and I’m still wary of it. Most of the pizza I’ve had in the city is the worst, which makes sense. I have a terrible eye for discerning which food places are better than others, as well as the tendency to do little research about what places are better than others. Maybe there are good pizza places out there other than 5 I’ve been to, but I haven’t found them. And I probably never will.

Dogs In Sweaters

This city has more dogs in sweaters than any place I have ever seen. It’s amazing. The fact that this isn’t a defining trait of the city really shocks me. If I were the head of the bureau of tourism around these parts, you are goddamn sure that I would be advertising the hell out of this. “If you come when it starts to get a little cold, you will see a dog wearing an adorable little sweater. It makes him look like a tiny human.” Oh man, it would be on stamps and postcards and everything.

Coats

The first day it got “not hot” in New York City, people lost their goddamn minds. I live by Columbus Circle because that is where my dorm is, and as I walked by the shops I was engulfed by a mob of people wearing fur coats and other seasonally inappropriate winterwear. It was about 60 degrees, but everyone else made it look like 15. I was wearing short sleeves, mainly because it rarely occurs to me to check the weather before unleashing myself upon the outside world and I felt like an idiot. You people love wearing your coats and seem to relish at the first opportunity to do so.

Protests

Stereotypically, one thinks of the New York protester as a dreadlocked man in a tattered poncho screaming about a three-headed Level Four mandevil in the White House. But as far as I can tell, some protests are genuinely not the worst! I’ve passed by protests against Glass-Steagall being repealed and Google’s “shared endorsement” policy, which are, like, things that should be legitimately protested against and contained some nuance and intellectual understanding to them! Unfortunately, everyone whizzed past these people, including myself, because we all have better things to do. Like eat bad pizza.

Times Square

When you are a tourist or a dumb child, Times Square seems like a wonderful place. It’s bright, there’s a store that strictly sells M&M’s and there are also lots of lights. But when you become a permanent resident of New York City (the Big Apple), you realize that this place is literally hell on Earth. It is the living representation of the worst possible outcome of capitalism and every part of it feels like an eviler version of what Donald Trump dreams about. Every person I’ve met here says they try to avoid it at all costs because it is garbage. It is too bright and everyone is trying to sell you something you don’t need. (WHY DOES NEW YORK CITY’S ULTIMATE TOURIST TRAP HAVE A FOOT LOCKER? WHO IS COMING TO NEW YORK CITY BEING ALL LIKE, “WELL, I LOVED THE EMPIRE STATE BUILDING AND WE DROVE THREE HOURS TO VIEW THIS GREAT CITY, BUT WHAT WOULD REALLY MAKE THIS DAY BETTER IS A TRIP TO FOOT LOCKER.” NOT THIS REPORTER, THAT’S FOR SURE.) The food is intensely bad and it is the most congested place on the planet according to my extensive research. When you’re in Times Square it feels like every person in the entire world is in Times Square, which brings me into the next thing I learned...

Tourists

Upon signing your living agreement to wherever you are going to lay your big stupid head, you are suddenly overcome with an inherent hatred of the tourist. I first noticed that I was a trash human being with a hatred of my fellow man when I was walking around my neighborhood about a week after I moved in. Throughout the walk I found myself getting increasingly angry at the slow walkers in front of me, deeming them to be “tourists”. This irrational sense of anger I felt toward people who maybe just had health issues that prevented them from walking faster meant I was finally a true New Yorker. I had been living in New York City a WEEK before I was angry at the slow-moving shitheels that visit this great metropolis. During the same walk, a little girl dropped her slice of pizza in the middle of sidewalk and I sort of just walked around it. You know, not like a New Yorker would, but like a jerk would.

There Are Babies On The Subway At All Hours

I can’t really expand upon this anymore, but yeah. There are always babies on the subway, which is pretty cool...for fans of babies on the subway.

Taxi Drivers

New York City is infamous for the omnipresent sound of car horns, but there is really only one culprit for this sound: the taxi. From what I’ve noticed, every taxi driver drives like an insane person and has their hands at 10 and horn at all times. And I love it. When I was living in the suburbs, I always thought that being a pedestrian should have more risk. Now when I cross the street, I find myself bracing for impact, hoping that one day I can glide through the air with a shattered spinal column, my dream finally realized.

Movies

If you want to see a movie here it costs about $100. But, then again, you might be in the same theater as David Cone, so you’re really paying for atmosphere.

"Fuggedaboutit!"

No one actually says this, and it’s a god damn shame. No matter how many times you scream it at your fellow New Yorkers, they never say it back. Some even go as far as to ask you to leave the Museum of Modern Art (AKA the MUoMA).