We met at The Cock, a seedy gay bar in the East Village known for its raunchiness and dim lighting (which is a godsend sometimes during those drunken hookups, let’s be honest). It was around two in the morning when we locked eyes. It was getting to the point of the night where gay men actually just go up to you and grab your penis to see if you’re down to bone. You have to swat them away like bugaboo flies while asking yourself why you came to this sex parlor in the first place. Oh, right—it was to hook up with someone.

You were insanely tall, which was a physical trait I craved after having been with a string of shorties. You wore basketball shorts and a white t-shirt and I remember being O-B-S-E-S-S-E-D with that look. Your vibe was so “I’m leaving the GF at home while I get my David Gest on!” and I was definitely picking up what you were putting down.

We said hi and I tried to make small talk because I’m shy and like to pretend that I’m always looking for a boyfriend rather than just a hot random guy to make out with in public. You were just like, “Yeah, no. We’re not even going to do a song and dance.” and went in for a kiss. I admired your aggressiveness but was also slightly terrified. I mean, it’s jarring to taste someone’s tongue juices before you even know their name. Oh yeah, YOUR NAME. Wanna know what it was? It’s so #dark. Sergio. SER-G-OH. Wow. Anyway, you were making out with me and it felt good but also sort of desperado. Your tongue was going in deep and like Angela Chase once said to Jordan Catalano on an episode of My So-Called Life: “I don’t even open up that wide at the dentist!”

From what I can remember though, everything felt good. Your body was so long! And your butt felt nice, which is an essential thing for me. Occasionally we would come up for air and ask each other questions like “What’s your name? Are you a serial killer? Did you have pizza for dinner? It tastes good!” I learned that you went to Bard for music (?) and were a caterer on the side. In fact, you had just come from a catering job. You were nice and had kind eyes. The fact that you went to Bard made me feel better for some reason. Like, “Oh, you’re just a horny gay liberal arts boy like me. What are your thoughts on Judith Butler?!”

It was getting to the point where we had to decide whether or not we were going to have sex with each other. You were the one who suggested going home together and even though it freaked me out a bit, I couldn’t think of a valid excuse to say no. Why not? NEW ADVENTURES! I’m 22!

This is when things got weird. When I said yes, you immediately stiffened up and took a step back. Meanwhile, I was just like “K, we can walk this way to my apartment! Hello?” But you stood still.

“I have a boyfriend.”

“WHAT?”

“Yeah, I’m sorry. I can’t do this.”

“But-but you just said-”

“I’m really sorry.”

And then as quickly as it started, it had ended. You ran out the front door, leaving me solo star wasted at The Cock, swatting away gross men again. The whole thing felt like some weird dream. Had someone slipped me Peyote in the bathroom and was I hallucinating? Was Sergio real? He was. I knew it. I knew it while I was standing on that disgusting floor in that disgusting bar. You can’t just pull these tricks on a drunk person. They’re not of sound mind to deal with anything sudden. They’re going to stare at a wall for ten minutes in deep shame, thinking, “Wait. What? I had someone’s penis and now…it’s gone? Where’d it go?”

I’m writing this to see if you’re still out there, Sergio! I can imagine you playing the clarinet and having anonymous sex in the woods at Bard. DO YOU EVER THINK OF ME? What about our potential children? Is nothing sacred anymore?! Also, why are you going to The Cock if you already have a boyfriend? It’s a bar reserved for single horny men and freaks on leashes. You are not welcome there! Go home to your boyfriend and walk your dog and go to the flea market, okay? Get out of my world!

Full disclosure: I had somehow managed to get Sergio’s number during our make out session and texted him three times. First text: “???” Second text: “!!!” Third text: “WTF.” He responded with “i’m really sorry. you are really cute. i just made a mistake.” And then he EMOTICON’D me. Look, you can make out with me, tell me you want to sleep with me, only to abruptly jump ship. But you cannot apologize via emoticon. We’re done. I mean, I know we’re already over but now we’re, like, really over.

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Every day I wear a scarlet letter on my chest and it’s “M” for “{I live in) Manhattan.” Whenever someone asks me where I live, I feign a coughing fit and say “East Village” in between severe wheezing. To those of you who don’t understand why living in Manhattan would ever be considered shameful, I’ll tell you. Even though rents in neighborhoods like Williamsburg and Brooklyn Heights can be just as high as the rents in Manhattan, living in a neighborhood like the East Village is seen as an instant signifier of class and, in a way, elitism. People judge and think you’re a clueless diva who refuses to go to Brooklyn on some misguided principle. This might be true for some. Manhattan is overrun by NYU trustafarians, people who come from the richest families in lame places like Arizona and Iowa, soulless bankers, and old people. It’s basically a borough comprised of rich uncool people. Even indie celebs who can afford a sprawling apartment in Manhattan decide to move to Brooklyn because the culture is perceived as being more vibrant and young. In many ways, they’re right. In the past three and a half years I’ve lived in Manhattan, I’ve noticed it lacking a certain kind of energy and youthfulness that exists in Brooklyn. By the way, I should mention that I go to Brooklyn a lot. Only three of my friends live in Manhattan and the rest live in places like Bushwick, Park Slope, Greenpoint, and Williamsburg. Every time I get on the L train, I think to myself, “Most of my life is in Brooklyn. Why don’t I just live there?”

I stay in Manhattan because I’m weird. Since I can remember, I’ve always enjoyed living in neighborhoods that I don’t go out in. I like being separate from the “Drunk Me” who’s going to bars and getting his rocks off. I don’t want to walk outside my door and be faced with the mistakes of last night. I don’t really go out in Manhattan. I go to wherever my friends are in Brooklyn and even though I get annoyed by the commute, I like being the solo star who’s going back to the East Village at the end of the night. And to be honest, I am kind of obsessed with Manhattan’s vibe. As alive as Brooklyn is, it still shuts down at the end of the night. I need the sirens and the constant noise outside my window to lull me to sleep. Like I said, I’m weird.

It’s odd to think of Manhattan as dead. It’s not nor will it ever be. But it has undergone some changes in the past fifteen years. My stepmother lived here in the eighties and told me that no one went below 14th street because it was too dangerous. Today it is the exact opposite. Going above 14th street means you’re entering a boring world full of strollers and couture. Sick!

One day I will move to Brooklyn. One day I will tire of paying obscene amounts of money for a small apartment with no oven. I will join all of my friends on the other side of the bridge and I will be oh so very happy. But that day is not today. Today I live in Manhattan. Today I rip the scarlet letter off and live free of shame!

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I have a nasty little habit of walking into bougie East Village bars or large gatherings of NYU students (I feel conflicted about calling them parties), having a drink and then leaning over to a friend to say, “this place is too American/white.” What I mean is, regardless of the predominant nationality in the place, everyone is standing around, screaming over the loud and possibly very good music, trying endlessly to talk and talk and talk to each other. And let’s be honest here, situations like this tend to happen mostly with white people.

A guy will come up to us and crack a joke about my t-shirt, and I’ll smile nicely, because I’m a nice person, and he will inevitably take this as an invitation to keep going. He’ll ask me how I ended up at this party, where I live, what I do and he’ll buy me a drink. And the next thing you know, I’m nodding a lot while scanning the crowd, desperate for a 90-degree escape to another person, because I just can’t hear him and at this point, we’ve already lost too much between us to go back. The only way to go is out but some variation of the following hellhole always ensues:

He says: “I live in Midtown, just moved here from Minneapolis to become an account manager at McGarryBowen. What do you do?”

I hear: “’I see you drivin’ ‘round town with the girl I love…’” Wait, they’re playing ‘Fuck You’? It’s not even midnight! Shit, bartender, hurry up with my beer.

I see: I turn and look at him, looking at me with anticipation and a slightly creepy smile, which informs me that he just asked me something and, fuck, I’m expected to answer.

So I scream: “WHAT DID YOU SAY?”

He says: “What do you do?”

I hear: “Woud eksl wketo akla?”

I think: What an asshole, talking in a normal tone of voice and not even extending the courtesy of leaning in and screaming into my ear. I still have no idea what he said. Where are my friends? Is something wrong with my hearing? Why can he hear me?

So I say: “Oh, I live downtown, we know the DJ!”

He thinks: Huh? What does that have to do with anything?

He says: …Look, I’m sorry but I’m not sorry, but I have no idea what he says. But he definitely is saying something.

I think: What kind of fucking friends do I have, who would leave me here all alone with this guy, when I’m itching to bust a move?

I see: The bartender hands me my beer. His lizard-like lips are moving again…seriously, are you really still talking?

I say: “Do you want to dance?”

He says: “I don’t dance.”

I say: “I’m going to find my friends.

He says: “What?”

I shout: “FRIENDS! MINE!” As I scurry away, head already banging.

When I go out, there are only three things I want to do: drink, get laid and dance. And dancing is the most important on this list. I always, always want to dance, because there’s something wonderful about expressing how much I love my friends when we’re jumping around to Arcade Fire or how much I am down to take you home when I’m grinding to “You Can Do It,” a kind of something that words just cannot convey. I lose interest in someone as soon as they say, “I don’t dance”, because to me, it conveys a denial of an act that is intrinsically human, something that babies know how to do, and don’t think I didn’t catch your fingers tapping out this beat. If you can tap out a beat, you can dance.

I want to dance because I want to relax, I want to shed the week of sitting in front of a computer by feeling the motion of my arms, my legs, my fingers, my hips. I want to sway to a gentle beat, the melody drifting from my heart out to the tips of my fingers, and pretend as if I’m swimming in a deep blue ocean. I want to laugh at my friends and have them laugh at me, as we experiment with ridiculous, ridiculous dance moves that make us look as if we’re the Geico cavemen. I want to complete a spin, in perfect rhythm, and slide quickly into the next move, the exhilaration of the combination lingering in my center. I want to hit the break, punch the air, stomp my feet, whip my hair, pop my ass and feel the body that I’ve been blessed with.

“I can’t dance” is one thing. “I don’t dance” is just unacceptable.

Dancing is about not giving a fuck. My favorite person to dance with is one of my best friends, not because he’s the best, but actually because he’s one of the worst, technically. He’s goofy, sometimes stiff, sometimes weird, but goddamn, he will get down on the dance floor and whenever we go out together, people start dancing around us, because if we’re already embarrassing ourselves, what do you have to lose by dancing next to us?

Dancing is like everything else, if you’re going to do it, do it with confidence, complete that move with conviction. Dancing is visceral, full of emotion, of energy, of life. Stop talking, stop listening and starting feeling. Stop wanting to show off the move you came up with at home and finding excuses not to and just show it off. Stop trying to deny the rhythms that move you, stop trying to hide your insecurities with dancing by shouting niceties over the noise and just let go and boogie. There’s are countless reasons humans dance but the most important is that it expresses euphoria in the most honest, purest way we know, when “Dog Days Are Over” or “The Way You Make Me Feel” comes on and you can’t stop moving your limbs because you’re so goddamned happy you decided to come out tonight. It’s dancing that reminds me that, not only am I at this party, but man, I am here and I am really at this party. Simply put, it reminds me not that I’m alive, but rather, I live.

For me, I will dance anywhere, anytime, white NYU gathering or not. I’ll put my iPod in and dance until everyone is dancing with me or until everyone is staring at me and I understand if this isn’t for you. But don’t hold me back with your words when you see my leg twitching because in the battle between talking to you, Stranger, or dancing on my own…I will always choose to dance.

So, dance on.

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Move to New York directly after graduating from college with a triple major and a slate of extracurricular activities from re-building pueblos in Santa Fe to hosting Thai culture night at your college filling your resume. Bright-eyed and sure that all of these accomplishments will wow any employer, apply to several companies who will ultimately never even acknowledge the receipt of your resume. Three months later, when your parents will no longer support your $400 a month bedroom in a 16 person house in Bushwick, finally settle in as a hostess at the Olive Garden in Times Square. Resign yourself to the cold hard truth that you won’t even be getting the extra tips for pushing the appetizer sampler because you have no previous serving experience. Sigh each night as you throw your apron on top of your diploma, abandoned and collecting dust in your corner. At least you’ll always have an unlimited flow of breadsticks. Comfort yourself that this is much better than the unlimited coffee pods your friends with 9-to-5s complain of.

Once upon a humid Manhattan night, after a long shift where every guest seems to order the all-you-can eat pasta bowl, jump for joy as the clock strikes midnight, setting you free to truly begin your night. Throwing your regulation black water resistant restaurant shoes caked in clam sauce into your too small clutch, strap on your 4 inch F-ouboutin heels, the red paint cracking off the bottom and sprint onto the N train to meet your friends in the East Village. On the train, make eye contact with a young man dressed in a perfectly-tailored suit who, surprisingly, isn’t furiously typing away on a Blackberry. Get so lost staring into his deep blue eyes that you don’t even worry about the homeless man’s pants grazing your leg as he walks by or the creepy overhead announcement about sexual harassment. Moved by this Prince Charming’s good looks or maybe it’s just the lack of oxygen in the swampy summer air…skip off the train with a wink to show this Winkelvoss doppelganger just how spunky and loveable you are.

Spend the rest of the night knocking back vodka shots and pretending you can moonwalk and/or teaching people how to dougie. When the bartender offers you a shot of Limoncello at 4 am, insist on taking 3 just to show the Olive Garden who knows Italian. The next two hours are a blur of cabs, meat lover’s pizza, and a failed attempt to scrub off a thick layer of eyeliner.

Three hours later, wake up to the blaring of your alarm. Follow the scent of stale garlic and meat sauce to the corner of your room to find your bag. Tearing through the stale breadsticks and crumpled receipts to find your ill-fitting regulation black khakis and polo, you’re startled to find you only have one shoe. Rack your brain. Did you wear shoes at work yesterday? Did you use your shoe as a prop in a dance move last night? Coming to the conclusion that although likely possibilities, neither of these clues solves the case of the missing shoe, it slowly dawns on you that the extra hop in your step as you winked goodbye to New York’s most eligible bachelor most likely bounced your shoe out onto the crusty floor of the subway. As you’re updating your Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr accounts to mock yourself for the loss of your shoe with posts like “OMG, crazy night! Anyone find my shoes?!?!” and “Going to be a one shoe wonder at work today #embarassing,“ it dawns on you that your social network’s step sibling, Craigslist, could offer a glimmer of hope for a rescue. Log on to the lost and found section for New York with trepidation. As you scan past headlines like “^~!#**~~**LoSt KiTTy KaT**~~**#!~^“ and “Found Ur <3 ,” a beacon of hope screams out to you when you see: “Prince Charming Seeks the N Train’s Cinderella.” As the page opens, the photo becomes visible line by line (you can’t expect speedy internet when you’re “sharing” it with the coffee shop at the end of the block). When half the photo is loaded and you see the signature stain on the toe of your kicks from when you knocked a vat of shrimp scampi on the kitchen floor, you jump for joy.

Although you’re unsure if the poster will be the man of your dreams or the star of Lifetime’s The Craigslist Killer, as you stare at the milk crates you’re using as a dresser and your mattress on the floor, you decide saving the cost of a new pair of shoes is worth the risk of meeting the star of True Life: I Have a Foot Fetish.  Agree to meet your mystery shoe-saver that afternoon. When you arrive, breathe a sigh of relief when you spot your prince charming smiling in the corner holding a Morgan Stanley tote bag, you’ve picked a winner!! As you walk over, he gets down on one knee to slip the shoe onto your foot. When you step in and it feels a little big, his eyes are crestfallen that you’re not “the one”…until you bashfully admit you had to buy your shoes in a size too big because your feet swell up from running back and forth refilling those god damn unlimited pasta bowls.

Ride off blissfully across the Brooklyn Bridge as the sun sets behind his Aston Martin, happy to follow this prince wherever he goes…as long as you’re back in time for the dinner rush.

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You should never date someone because they’re nice. As far as qualities go, it doesn’t hold much weight, requires no discernible skill.

You know this now but you didn’t know it then. You didn’t know it on that night of the dinner party. You and your friends used to have those often because you were twenty-one and drinking too much. Making lentil salad, wearing dresses and blazers, and pouring glasses of warm white wine were all clever devices you used to make yourselves feel normal and productive.

At the dinner party, you’re talking about mature adult things with your friends when the nice boy comes in.

“Wicked spread.” He says in a stoner drawl, surveying the courtyard, the booze and the elaborate display of cheese and crackers. His East Coast slang immediately makes you want to run around barefoot in the California sun, eat avocado sandwiches and rub New Age crystals. But you can’t because you’re in a courtyard in the East Village with a boy that says “wicked” and endured hard winters and always knew New York as being a place that was just a train ride away.

As the night progresses, you drink more wine and start to care less about his slang and more about his sweet ass. It’s placed perfectly up high, toned by years of cycling. An ass is the first thing you notice on a boy. It’s the first thing you fall in love with and usually the last.

You suggest moving the party to the rooftop of your apartment. Everyone agrees because they’re drunk and They. Just. Don’t. Care. When you get to your apartment, you grab the Polaroid camera so this night can stick more than the others. While walking up to the roof, you almost fall but you catch yourself. No, the nice boy with the nice ass catches you. Ah, you love men.

You smoke pot, tastes so good. Everyone bathes in the evening warmth and oh my god, you’re just so happy. This boy makes you so happy. You take a Polaroid of him even though you just met. But you’re going to scan it and put it online and tag him in the photo. Everyone will see it and think to themselves, “I didn’t know he was friends with that boy!” But you are because the internet says so and everyone knows that it’s only a matter of time before internet starts imitating life.

This is when things get blurry, stop making so much sense. Everyone leaves except for the boy and you decide to play the movie Factory Girl. It plays for awhile and you try to discuss how Andy Warhol took advantage of Edie Sedgwick and how she really didn’t stand a chance after meeting him (LOL). At least that’s what you think you’re discussing. You’re not sure. Neither is the boy. But he smiles anyway, encouraging your nuggets of wisdom.

He says he has to go and you panic. You say goodbye but you really just want to be sober with him on your bed, talking about music or something else that could lead to a kiss. But that’s not the case tonight so he leaves. The door slams and you want to cry at the wasted opportunity. The wine tells you to chase after him like they do in the movies so you do.

You run down the hallway, turn the corner and see him get into the elevator. You grab him before he has a chance to get away. Kissing kissing kissing. Against the wall, grab his body. Feels amazing. He tastes normal, not like the wine you’ve been drinking. His skin is rough like a boy that’s been out in the sun pulling weeds. Or maybe that’s how you chose to remember it. It doesn’t matter now. He says no to sex, goes home. You really like him, you think, you know.

What happens after that is a series of choreographed moments, a nice relationship with a nice boy. On your first date, you get stoned and go to a midnight showing of The Shining. Afterwards, you make out high with your shirts off and you think this could be for real.

But it doesn’t become real-not even close. “He’s so great, he’s so nice” quickly turns into “He’s so passive, he has pudding for a backbone.” Three months later, you’re ignoring his calls and he’s texting you on Ecstasy to tell you that you’re beautiful. He calls you this after enduring three months of your bad behavior, three months of never going to his apartment, three months of your manipulation and it makes you feel ashamed. You never knew you could act this ugly and it makes you sick.

You wonder how this meanness could have lived inside of you undetected for all of these years. Gee, a heads up would’ve been nice. “Just so you know, I have the capacity to act completely evil. It’s in your best interest to start running from me screaming.” In prior relationships, you had been the nice boy. You had been the one texting sweet nothings on Ecstasy and laying there like an open wound. How could roles reverse so quickly? Which one feels better? Does it feel good to be shit on or do you prefer shitting on someone?

Eventually the relationship with the nice boy evaporates and you are overcome with a sense of relief. After awhile, you start to think about what dating the nice boy with the nice ass taught you. You think real hard and discover that he inadvertently taught you how to be cruel. And what about you? You showed him that everyone has the ability to act contrary to who they really are and that by being the nice one, you’re surrendering yourself to the asshole. You wish you knew all of this then but you didn’t so here you are.

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I know that my Coming-to-New-York story wholly betrays my Garden State roots.

My excursions to The City began when I was a restless Central Jersey teenager. I spent those euphoric evenings sidling into dimly-lit jazz clubs, mustering up the courage to order “whatever was on tap”, and letting it go unspoken that I had derived my working knowledge of the East Village from the album notes of Rent.

During one of these breathless, northeast-bound visits, I made a resolution. I would get myself into NYU, find a studio on Second Ave, get a gray cat named Edward Albee, play mistress to a professor named Neil or Richard, work in a painfully hip coffee shop, and ultimately win the day.

Three years have passed since I relocated across the Hudson. Since then, I’ve managed to pass the gauntlet of NYU’s drama program, meet and write off a dozen men before finding a keeper, and resist the siren song of the blogosphere. But still, that coveted barista job eluded me. I tried desperately to get my foot in the door of my favorite cafe haunts, but they all demanded years of “New York experience.”

Then, about a month ago, I found an opening. My roommate had recently relocated to Red Hook in the hopes of “New-grass” stardom, and my new cohabitant was an old friend who rolled into New York with impressive take-no-prisoners chutzpah. Upon arrival, she immediately landed an internship, a volunteer post at a feminist bookshop, and, most enviably, a coveted barista position in the East Village.

I eagerly applied to the same cafe, which was still hiring, and was overjoyed to get an interview. Affecting my best ambivalently hip, pageant-girl smile, I went to meet my potential employer. I arrived early, peered over the counter, searching for the manager. I tried to ignore the barking of what must have been a customer’s disgruntled rottweiler, until I realized that said beast seemed to be calling my name.

“Are you Katrina?”

I spun around and collided with a wall of man. He sported matching sleeves of generically masculine tattoos and a crewcut. He looked, for my money, like a poor-man’s East Village version of Charlie Sheen. He was also clutching a copy of my resume. He was, I gathered, the manager of the shop.

He was not pleased to meet me.

The interview was quick and vicious. The manager, Buddy, quickly disregarded my previous cafe experience as bridge-and-tunnel-bullshit, cracked a couple of prostitute/ junkie jokes at my expense, and informed me that my wages would come under the table. I walked away shellshocked, but not for nothing. Buddy had offered me a job.

After an anxious night of celebratory Yellowtail and mixed feelings, I returned the next day for training. The rush of reclaiming my hallowed post of latte goddess was swiftly extinguished when a coworker scoffed at my casual uniform, all personality glasses and smoky-eyed disdain.

“You need to be wearing a hat,” she chirped.

She thrust a headpiece my way— one of those multicolored knit numbers with ear flaps to boot. Horrified, I scanned her blank visage, waiting for the whole thing to be exposed as a joke— but no such luck. I’d come to know this sensation of nauseated disbelief very well during my brief employment.

Towards the end of my first shift, one vetted coworker gave me a scathing once-over.

“You better watch it,” she hissed.

I racked my brain, trying to recall any transgressions I may have unknowingly committed against this hipster harpy. She rolled her eyes at my befuddlement.

“You’re very pretty,” she drawled. “Buddy’s gonna try and hit that. I’m just sayin’.”

I fought to keep my deeply-ingrained feminist ire in check. I was fine, I reasoned; I toiled during the evening shifts while Buddy worked in the morning. I would just do my job, collect my off-the-record earnings, and make fast tracks. I would not let this two-star cafe become my center of gravity. It was, after all, just a job.

After three weeks, I had learned the ropes. My coworkers showed me the blind spots where Buddy’s armada of security cameras wouldn’t catch me sneaking a coconut water from the cooler, pointed out the customers who would tip better if treated to a little cleavage, and told me countless explicit stories about Our Captain that literally kept me up at night.

Unsurprisingly, it seemed that Buddy (a man hovering somewhere north of forty) had a little habit of sleeping with his barely-legal baristas. Fine, I thought, par for the course.

But then there were the anecdotes about Buddy showing up to work drunk and/or coked out, propositioning his workers via emoticon-laden texts, taking out his roid-rages by grabbing, rubbing, groping, and fondling those under his employ. I met these stories with nervous laughter and muffled outrage. The new flow of tip money appeased my hysterical conscience, for a spell.

I managed to avoid Buddy’s lecherous company until what would be my final shift at the coffee shop. He was there when I arrived, wearing mirrored glasses behind the counter, surely warding off a monstrous hangover. I immediately regretted my choice of work attire — a thin cotton shirt and low-cut shorts. I could feel his Mordor-esque peepers zero in on my lady parts as soon as I crossed the threshold into his domain.

He quickly informed me that the other new girl had been fired. Buddy insisted that the “little bitch” had been stealing from the register, and therefore had given her the boot. The girl in question was a painfully shy nineteen-year-old art student who confided in me that Buddy had been hinting at how much he would “like a piece of that” since her first shift. But she had denied his advances, and now she was gone.

The shift lasted twelve tense hours as I skirted the misogynist whirlpool that was my manager. I manned the counter while he helped himself to a few quick lines of coke in the basement. I mugged for female customers as he lamented the cold weather and consequential lack of booty shorts around the neighborhood.

I was preparing some hot chocolate for a beleaguered father and his young daughter when I found that our stock of whipped cream had run out. While I puttered around, looking for a replacement, Buddy bent over the fridge and took a few quick whip-its from the empty can. Flustered, I moved away to restock the tea bags, only to find half of a dead mouse buried among the supply of rooibos.

Buddy departed later that night to “get his drink on,” leaving his lowly baristas to close the shop. My boyfriend arrived to escort me home at three in the morning and found the two of us (five-two, a hundred and five pounds dripping wet, each) trying to lock the front door while keeping an eye out for hostile intruders.

His offer to come at Buddy with a broken Torani Syrup bottle stands to this day.

Before I left the shop that morning, I pinned a note to Buddy’s ever-efficient bulletin board. In words more formal than were likely warranted, I offered my immediate resignation. There was no offer of two weeks notice, and there was no endearing sign off; I couldn’t stomach the notion of either nicety.

I returned to the cafe once more, having quit, to collect my last paycheck. Though I had purposefully dropped by during the evening, Buddy was stationed at his usual post. My roommate was working that night, and I watched from the sidewalk as Buddy cycled between snarling orders and leering at her.

I uttered an agnostic, “thank you, Jesus” that this barista job was not my only option, or even my last resort. While Buddy may be a deluded prick, he’s not dumb— he knows full well that most of his workers depend on their day jobs at his cafe. His manipulative antics are masterful, and paralyzing. I had the choice to get my sweet ass out of there in short order, but that’s a stroke of luck, I know.

And yes, I’ve looked into a Better Business Bureau complaint— but I doubt that the store’s mob-boss owners have any qualms about Buddy’s etiquette.

And yes, I’ve ranted to my every passing acquaintance about these crimes against femininity, but at the end of the day, despite shit tons of negative karma, the shop is still standing— and, as long as it is, his shenanigans will continue unopposed.

I marched through the doors to collect my money that night, putting myself directly into the line of Buddy’s disgruntled gaze. My rattled roommate offered a weak wave from behind the counter, but he swatted her hand back down.

“She doesn’t work for me anymore,” he muttered, just loud enough for me to hear, “fuck her.”

He sent his first mate downstairs to fetch my pay, glancing every which way but mine. As I collected my wages and turned to leave, Buddy raised his voice over the coffee shop chatter.

“That was some unprofessional shit you pulled, y’know.”

I raised my envelope of cash in salute and cheerfully let the door hit me on the way out. If refusing to entertain meat-headed sexual harassment is unprofessional, then consider me a professional unprofessional. Maybe I’ll give waitressing a shot next, despite having seen Waiting… too many times to count. Hell, I’d take a glimpse of Luis Guzman’s balls to my ex-boss’s machismo bullshit any day.

Though to be honest, I’d just as soon let Buddy suck ‘em.

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For the past three years, I’ve been going to the upscale grocery store Dean & DeLuca three to five times a week for a small iced mocha with skim milk and a corn muffin. I first became aware of the store by watching the TV show Felicity when I lived in California. Dean & DeLuca was their version of The Peach Pit—a place where the gang all held jobs and hung out—and I was always under the impression that it was no different from a Starbucks.

Shortly after moving to NYC, however, I realized just how different Dean and DeLuca was when I visited their now-defunct store in the East Village. Instead of seeing frizzy-haired NYU students talking about boys over a latte, I witnessed 80-year-old ladies in Prada paying an outrageous price for a gourmet salad while listening to elegant classical music wafting through the speakers. Um, what happened to Feist? This was not the Dean and DeLuca I had envisioned from watching Felicity. This was some bizarro land for rich people to congregate and graze $5.00 muffins. I had never seen anything like it and, needless to say, I was in awe.

Throughout the next year and a half, the East Village location became my shelter from the NYC storm. Not only did its large size remind me of the coffee shops in California, it was also a great place to study because, unlike college students, rich WASPs don’t yell. I also developed a nickname for the store, which I use to this day: Dean & Delusion. It’s just so fucking appropriate because the patrons of Dean and DeLuca are, in fact, delusional. They wear an outfit that’s worth $10,000 to get their morning coffee  and pay $15.00 for a jar of tomato sauce that retails for $8.00 at a local bodega. When they enter the store, they’re no longer in America. They’re in a bourgeois fantasy land that’s populated by the equally deluded and wealthy and where it’s okay to pay well above market value. Just walking out of there with a grocery bag says so much about where you come from. And isn’t that always the point of expensive places like Dean and DeLuca, Equinox Gym and Barneys—to show that you can afford to be there? Yes, you could go to a cheaper grocery store or work out at the YMCA but you don’t want to. Furthermore, you don’t have to.

Once the East Village location closed, I had to go to the one in Soho, which is essentially just a grocery store that serves coffee. In fact, they don’t even have chairs to sit in. They want people in and out. The store is beautiful though. High ceilings, granite countertops, beautiful displays of food. But their actual inventory leaves something to be desired. Once when I found myself in a pinch, I stopped in to inquire about salad dressing, which they quickly informed me they don’t carry. A grocery store that doesn’t sell salad dressing? Obsessed/I hate you.

Like The Ace Hotel, the people who go to Dean & DeLuca are almost too good to be true. There are a lot of Europeans and rich old ladies; I’m pretty sure EVERYONE is starving. I’m convinced people go to Dean and Delusion on their lunch break to prove they don’t eat. “Have you been to Dean & DeLuca? They have the best food or so I’ve heard. I would never!” Besides being hungry (for food and attention), everyone has more money than God. People waltz into the store like it’s a runway, looking like they just came straight off of a plane from somewhere more fabulous. They’re like weird aliens in expensive clothes and Dean & Delusion is their natural habitat. If they step outside for too long, their skin starts to burn and the panic sets in. “Must get to somewhere chic ASAP. Getting too real…”

When I’m at Dean & Delusion, I’ve never felt so blessed to be an outsider. Observing the lives of people who spend $15.00 on potato salad is a very fun activity and sometimes you even feel envious of their lifestyle. But then as you’re about to leave and you overhear someone discussing their super stressful vacation to St. Barts, you realize you’re just happy to have something to blog about.

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It can sometimes be a comforting thought to know that others experience a version of my struggles. For example, Sam Biddle of The Awl has a four part series “Diary of an Unemployed Class of ’10 Philosophy Major in New York City.” And there’s Alexandra Sharry’s piece “How to be a Successful Post-Grad Failure” published on Thought Catalog. We’re not in this alone, these pieces attest.

But I cannot help but find these stories sobering at times. A part of me wants to be in it alone – not so that I can pity myself all the more. But so that one day I can join the ranks of those who are well-adjusted to post-graduation life and don’t feel like crying every time they think of their commencement ceremony.

At first I was skeptical of Biddle’s piece. Being unemployed and living in the super-gentrified East Village seems like a contradiction, but I guess he’s funded by his parents. If he lived in Bethlehem and received the same amount of money, he could go on being unemployed indefinitely and write all day. Once I got past that, though, I found I could relate to his amusing confusion and indignation over real-world terms like “networking.” More than that, he makes a valuable insight about what kind of community college offers us, where we may be around lots of idiots, but at least we can define ourselves in relation to them. The real world has plenty of idiots, sure, but they don’t really know who we are, we don’t really know who they are, and feeling smarter or superior to them affords us little comfort as far as our own identities are concerned. Bethlehem, for example, is teeming with dullards, but this hardly makes me feel any better about myself. Actually, it just makes me want to stay inside.

These tales, finally, lower my spirits. They do not inspire much pity – I think my struggles win out on that account. Nor do they necessarily make me feel worse about my situation. Well, yes, they do, but I won’t dwell. What they do is highlight the fact that shit kind of sucks even in bigger, better places, and we’re still faced with the same questions. Ah, the Big questions! Eventually, I hope, I’ll be in NYC. I’ll probably write something called, “Dan Hoffman, College Graduate – NYC.” Maybe I’ll meet up with Sam and Alexandra, and we can all commiserate.

Being unemployed is an experience that Biddle humorously addresses. The absurdity and senselessness of the job search. But there is a difference between searching for a job that one actually wants and searching for jobs the one can tolerate. The latter is easier, of course, but invokes a range of undesirable feelings.

For example, the other day I drive out to this restaurant to speak to the manager and fill out an application. Before I leave I notice a thirty-something woman who is also applying. She seems to have a sad expression on her face, though I might be projecting my own malaise onto her. Something about her makes me feel bad about my educated self, as if I might be stealing her job, and she needs it more than I do.

I experienced a similar feeling when I go to a staffing place the next day. I replied to an ad on craigslist about a retail position. They tell me the position is for a cigar store in Easton, and set up an interview for the following morning. I think it’s going to be a legitimate interview, but I get there, looking dapper in a vintage sport coat and a skinny tie, and realize that it’s a normal temp agency. There are a handful of people in the waiting room, the unemployed of Bethlehem. I feel especially bad about myself this time, since I’m over dressed. There is a plasma TV playing an informative video about the agency’s policies. The people in the video look sharp and professional, not like the people in the waiting room. I’m requested to fill out an application, which includes basic addition and subtraction problems. I leave feeling tired out and ready to call it a day.

But my feelings of guilt are misplaced! I’m not an irritating college student taking their jobs anymore. I’m just like them, really – unemployed and in debt. The odd mixture of shame and superiority I feel is no longer appropriate. When I was still in school, I found jobs through temp agencies during my time off. I certainly understood why the people I worked with took their jobs seriously, but I would never deign to over exert myself and work as hard as them. Why would I, after all, since I knew it was only temporary and I’d be back to writing papers in no time?

I still work at Déjà Brew, where I continually find new things that irritate me. I find that I have little inclination to engage my coworkers, but every once in a while I’ll exchange a few pleasantries, to keep up appearances. The other day I ask this guy John how’s it going. It’s not going, he tells me, in a frank manner. I’m rather put off by his blunt response, because I could say plenty of things about how it’s not going, but I at least make some effort to be pleasant. I was already suspicious of his character, since he often comes in when he’s off duty to hang out, so this only confirms my reservations. Later on I make a whole sandwich instead of a half sandwich for a customer by mistake, so I get to eat the extra half. I’m unable to finish it, however, because it tastes disgusting, and this only adds to my general indignation.

The place is busy during the lunch hour, I guess because some people find it charming. There happens to be a German couple who I find out merely stumbled across Bethlehem, and came to Déjà Brew by chance. The man is rather taken with the place, and asks me various questions about the establishment. I struggle to match his enthusiasm. Later, a middle-aged woman comes in and tells me she recently moved back to the area from New York City, and when she cheerfully explains to me how nice she finds it here, I can hardly bare it. Sometime after that, a man comes in and speaks to John about a knife sharpening service he offers. Something about the way his speech is slightly agitated and the way he unceremoniously introduces his services make me suspect that he might be mentally unstable.

The thought of someone whose job is sharpening knives lowers my spirits. Sharpening knives! This man not only labors, but also has to convince people that his service is important, not unlike a door-to-door salesman. He needs to appear earnest, sincere, and above all convey the sense that he really cares. But how can one care about sharpening knives?

But I found a new job, and it’s decidedly better than Déjà Brew, and can even be enjoyable at times. My last shift was particularly interesting, for example. The fun begins the night before. I have a new sleeping pill that’s supposed to work more naturally and not leave me feeling crappy during the day, so, feeling optimistic, I pop one of these and head to bed.

Thoughts circulate. I try to keep up a positive attidue…sleep will come, assuredly…pretty soon I’ll drift off, wake up refreshed…ready for a new day… new non-generic pills ought to work…$15 dollar co-pay…forgot to brush my teeth…ex-girlfried…upsetting memories…panic coming on…a change of scenery should help…a bit of reading will do the trick…there’s ativan over in the kitchen…nothing to read…panic coming on…total insomnia…

Finally I get up and get ready for work in a foul mood, thinking I’ll never a get a true night’s sleep again.

But once at work, my night of total insomnia induces a state of disinhibition; I feel gregarious and facetious, and my remarks take on an ironically self-effacing tone. I’m training to be a busser with Mike, an unintentionally endearing guy with a slightly devious look on his face. He indulges my constant stream of banter, and seems to find me amusing. We periodically take cigarette breaks. When my manager asks me if I can work that night, I have to tell him no because I have plans to leave town. I wonder aloud to the hostess if I’m on the manager’s bad side now, having turned down the shift. I launch into a discourse about how he’s abusing the employer-employee relationship by promoting and favoring those who work when they’re otherwise not supposed to work. And what’s with this business about not sitting! There aren’t any customers around; and besides, many great things have been accomplished while sitting. The host, Joselyn, makes a remark about one of the servers saying “how are you’s” to some customers. I launch into another discourse about the lack of a 2^nd person plural in the English language, and I talk about “vosotros” and “vous” in Spanish and French. Another server, Bill, comes up to the host stand and somehow we get to talking about relationships. Bill mentions another busser who is still a virgin. He does indeed look like he’s not one who gets along well with the ladies, I remark. They ask me if I’m a virgin. “I’ve been around,” I say, but since I’ve been speaking in a half-joking, half-ironic tone this whole time, I’m not sure if they believe me or not. I start to divulge my sexual exploits. I’m on a roll. I impose my personality aggressively but with sombre wit onto my co-workers and show them what Dan Hoffman, College Graduate, is all about.

I feel inspired as I drive back home. Inspired that work can be fun, a place where I can be eccentric and ironic and have my ego reinflated a little. But, I realize, coming to every shift totally sleep-deprived in a state of delirium is unrealistic.

Back at home, my foul mood returns, and I smoke several cigarettes on the porch, calling people so I can complain. I happen to receive a call from the alumni office at Hampshire College, and a current student named Paul asks me what I’m up to and how’s it going. I tell him it’s not going, and end the conversation at that.

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