The flavor of this week’s newsletter is sort of a riff on Missed Connections, in which most of these stories are “made” connections that were misses. Not as fun, but fairly entertaining.
Wishing you and yours a very vaccinated summer.
A few days ago, I was frantically flicking a dying lighter outside my apartment building. A man crossed the street toward me and extended his lighter without saying a word. I took it and thanked him with an embarrassing amount of relief—as if he’d just saved me from some sort of premature death.
I rarely need a cigarette, but I had a deadline in an hour that I had yet to meet—a deadline that had already been extended several days per my request. I was hitting a wall, and self-doubt and self-loathing were perched on top taking turns throwing eggs at me. I needed the cigarette.
When I returned the lighter, the man sauntered back across the street just as coolly as he’d come. I knew I found him attractive in our exchange, but could barely remember any of his features as he rounded the corner. I wondered if he lived nearby, if he was maybe the one who tended the community garden behind me, if I should wait to see if he came back, or if he was just another excuse to avoid my deadline.
In the dead isolation of winter, I decided to ride my bike from Flatbush to Bushwick to meet a friend. As I was making a left turn, a cyclist coming from the opposite direction made the same turn, and we evaded a near collision. He yelled back “Sorry!” to which I responded “You’re good!” This exact verbal interaction repeats itself over and over in New York—entering and exiting the subway, rounding corners, sharing bodega aisles.
When we were both stopped at the next light, he struck up a conversation with me. “Sorry about that, I didn’t see you until I’d made the turn. And I apologize if this is forward, but you’re really pretty.” This type of compliment amused me in cold-weather quarantine, when so many of us were in masks, hats, and sleeping-bag-coats, hardly recognizable as human forms, much less “pretty” ones. (Around this same time, a stranger at a Uniqlo in SOHO told me I looked “exactly like his ex, who is a Swedish model” with only my eyeballs to show for it. “Thanks,” I said.)
Feeling emboldened, he turned and said “I’m about to turn here, but would you be open getting coffee sometime?” Surprising myself most of all, I said yeah and put my number in his phone. He seemed more flustered than desperate. He texted me after to see if I’d like to masked park hang sometime. I asked if he’d be cool hanging out as friends. I never heard from him again.
A man around my age was carrying groceries down Myrtle Ave when he stopped in his tracks, looked at me, looked at my dog, then kneeled down and told him “you are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” Without meeting my eyes again, he stood up, picked up his groceries and continued on.
A man yells “I LIKE YOUR STYLE” from a white sedan on Flatbush Ave. I search for a face to smile at, but he’s already out of view.
I pull up to a bar in my old neighborhood while waiting on a friend to get home. There’s nugget ice in the drink I order, which leads to a nostalgic conversation with the bartender about Sonic drinks. When we both realize we’re from Atlanta, we move on to discussing other suburban staples like Waffle House and Cheesecake Factory.
He asks me to write my name and number down on a Covid-tracking form. He doesn’t call to notify me of any other patrons who have contracted Covid—or to ask me out for blue raspberry slushies, an All-Star Special, or hot spinach and cheese dip followed by a shared slice of Oreo Dream Extreme cheesecake.
I met someone from a dating app in the backyard of a dive bar a few blocks away. He tells me his parents don’t say “I love you.” We order a second round.
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