His Story

Her Story

Why I can't get laid close to home

I probably *could* get laid in my neighborhood. Let's just say itwouldn't be my first gender preference.

It's my completely dramatic wont to tell friends that I'm like "the lastofthe Mohicans" when I walk around my neighborhood. I feel like the onlystraight man left on Earth. I'm perfectly aware that this is not true,butSometimes I *do* feel like that. I live near Henrietta Hudson's, themostexcellent and most decidedly sisterly bar on my block. I'm a few blocksfrom lesbian hangout Nanny's and about the same distance in the otherdirection from Ruby Fruit. I KNOW that not all the women I pass in thestreet are lesbians, butI feel a lot less like a loser if I tell myself that they're all gay.

Sure, I get cruised by the gay men of my neighborhood, but that's smallconsolation for my battered and shattered male ego. I want to be noticedbywomen. For a few delusional years, I would console myself by tellingmyselfI was doing them a service: I was an example to these dykes of how astraight man walks, how he saunters down the street. That littleequationlong ago outlived its usefulness, though, and now I just feel lonely.

And bitter. I must stress that it has nothing to do with any of the goodpeople in my neighborhood. It's about me, my habitual tendency towardsisolation, and my interminable shyness and wariness about meeting newpeople. I am more scared of rejection than a cat is of taking a bath. Ihave no idea how a strange girl would respond to any kind of overturefromme because I can't even say "hi." Over the course of many years as alonely, isolated, ugly-feeling teenager, I learned to skulk in theshadowsand corners and just fade away and not deal with anyone that I didn'thaveto deal with.

Subsequent years as a drug addict didn't help that. Then I found agirlfriend, or she found me, and I was happily with her for many years,during which we got married, went to rehab together (this was theeighties), then finally divorced, at which point I moved to my currentapartment with my then-current girlfriend, whose tenure just happened tooverlap the last year or so of my marriage.

It wasn't until I broke up with that big kahuna crazy-ass nympho loveaffair/obsession girlfriend that I was finally alone, single, andunattached for the first time in almost 15 years. And even after allthattime and socialization, the old habits came right back. I startedskulkingin the shadows. I couldn't say "hi," I was the lone wolf with the bowedhead who would glare at you if we accidently happened to make eyecontact.

I know, I know, part of me is *choosing* to not get involved withanyone.Part of me is just too scared of getting involved or of my life gettingtoocomplicated again.

It's been almost a year since my last girlfriend and I broke up. She wasafashion model and pretty interesting, too. It was kind fun for a fewmonths, a break in the unrelenting ice age of my romantic life. Shesplit,though, when her ex came back from another continent and they picked upagain.

I didn't even lose a night's sleep over it. I had learned that beingsingleisn't really so bad. My God, I even got some solace from the idea that Ihad dated a woman who's image I saw in magazines and on lingeriepackaging.I mean, how often does one get dumped by a model?

I sometimes think I could spark a new relationship, but how? In *this*neighborhood? I go east and at least I feel as though a lot of the girlsare straight. I know that there are some straight ones in myneighborhood,but I just can't take the chance of risking rejection *and* feeling asthough I'm insulting someone by mistaking her gender preference.

Until I get a sign form the Universe, I can often be found popping intothealt.dot coffee shop in the East Village. I always plan to sit in one ofthose nice comfy chairs and drink some coffee or chai, but alwayschickenout at the thought that some of the cute girls in there might think Iwasactually attracted to one of them and suddenly be overcome withrevulsionthat this thirty-something year old guy was sitting around feelinghorny.Better for me to get it to-go, then stand silently reading and waitingforthe crosstown bus to take me home again.

Chelsea Boys

Girl adrift in a sea of men

Chelsea has many excellent restaurants, two movie theaters, three nonBlockbuster video stores, New York's best food and flea markets, not tomention the Titanic-scale Chelsea Piers Sports Club. I live in a niceapartment with access to a gorgeous indoor pool.

So what am I complaining about? Well, since you ask, I don't relishalways being the forgotten woman, the invisible girl. That's the kind ofmagic power that you would like to be able to use at will, like whenyou're wearing high heels and a short dress and you have to walk past acluster of high school boys. Unfortunately, the cloak of invisibility isfoisted upon a straight girl in Chelsea constantly. Inevitably, it kicksinto high gear as I'm trying to circumnavigate the flood of pumped upDavid Barton gym bodies on their way to check out the scene at Big Cupor Barracuda. My "excuse me's" are as useless as a substitute teacher'sin an inner city classroom.

Then there's the shopping thing. While I'd hate for my 'hood to resemblechi-chi boutique clogged Soho, the rainbow-and-triangle window shoppingon 8th Avenue gets a little boring. What with Barney's in Chapter 11, agirl's got to go to horrid Herald Square to get shod and clothed.

Last but not least, there's the "getting laid" issue. Presently, this isnot a problem, but since my current relationship can be characterized asless than ideal at best, and precarious at worst, I can't help butwonder if the pronounced lack of encouragement from any of the virilespecimens all around me might be keeping me from demanding more orcalling it quits. And I can't help but worry about the potential dryspell (water, water, everywhere, but not a drop to drink!) should myrelationship end. 

At present, there's only one straight bar around in which to drown one'ssorrows (and try to meet a new boy to drown them with). Okay, okay, Irealize that in the grand scheme of things, my complaints are ridiculouslittle beefs that many Chelsea locals would find ironic. After all, itrepresents the norm for them anywhere outside of our neck of the woods.And I have learned to work the advantages of being an invisible girl: Iget to hear the best gossip.