Picking up from last time –
And it’s weird, because a way that I’ve been trying to meet people is to go to volunteer events, or athletic events…
At the event I went to in Long Island, people were very receptive. But at the ones in Manhattan, people have tended to go with groups of friends already. No one is going alone (or at least no one I’ve seen).
And there’ve been multiple occasions now where I’ve tried to go over to a group to ingratiate myself (again – am I using that word (ingratiate) correctly? What is with me and words today?) – and people have said, “When you first came over here, I wondered what you wanted.”
And it’s like, “Why is everyone so suspicious in New York? Aye aye aye!”
I think it didn’t help that this year, this is the first time I’ve ever really felt ostracized-ish… even though I was a whooooole bunch doing it to myself! Seeing everyone else being friends in BMI as I slowly faded away, it was tough. And now, now being able to have friendly interactions, as it seems pretty easy to do in Los Angeles… it’s just been kind of hard, I suppose.
(I mean, I can’t super dwell on that, because I can’t do anything about it now – except for try to do better next year… And it exhausts me and probably you to talk about it or think about it to much :-P)
Anyway, I don’t know. I mean, maybe that’s silly to say. I just – I never ever thought of NY as a lonely city. I always thought, “It’s soooo much easier to meet people in NY.” But now that I’m here, it doesn’t so much seem that way to me…
I was talking to one of my friends from NY the other day, and he said, “If you want to not be lonely, you need to get outside of your apartment.” That’s a great point (and also a point of advice from Avenue Q.)
He said apparently the thing to do here is to meet people in bars – that in LA it’s expected to meet people at events, but out here, not so much. Out here, it’s expected that you meet people at bars.
[Edited to add: I have found that if you hang out at the bar at The Pit, that’s a good place to meet people. Also, one of my closest friends now in the city is a bartender I met while celebrating my promotion. So, there you have it. Apparently, as the Simpsons said, “alcohol – the cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems.”]