-It’s been almost two years since I moved to Manhattan following graduation.  While I grew up on Long Island and therefore the city has always been close to me both in spirit and proximity, you never get to know the true meaning of Gotham until you’ve lived here for a while.  While the rent is high, the drinks expensive, the winters freezing, the summers sweltering, the cabbies rude, the women uninviting, the streets dirty, the bars smoky, and the subway confusing, New York is somehow still the best damn town in the world.  How is this possible?  Let’s, once again, examine life in the big city.

-You can’t survive in Manhattan without a cell phone, at least on the weekends.  It’s all a game of meeting up, getting together, going out, and getting smashed.  Since the bars don’t close until the wee hours of the morning, the next day I find myself hungover and confused.  I’ve found that by examining the outgoing and incoming call logs on my cell phone, I’m able to piece together where I was and who I was with between the hours of 10pm and 5am.  It’s kind of like CSI: New York.

-Back in college, you used to worry about hallcest, or hooking up with someone on the same floor as you in your dorm and then running into them awkwardly all the time.  In the city it’s even worse.  We have buildingcest, whereby if you hook up with someone who lives in the same apartment building, you run the risk of uncomfortable elevator rides for the rest of your lease.  And it gets worse.  We’re so on top of each other here that I’ve even experienced windowcest.  This girl I hooked up with lives in the building across the street and we can see in each other’s bedrooms.  Now I have to walk around with the blinds closed all the time.

-Of course, everything being so close to each other does have its advantages.  The other night I was at the bar, felt the urge, told my buddies I had to make a phone call, ran down the block, went up to my apartment, took a dump, and was back before anyone even knew the difference.  I love New York!