anti-simpatico

More of the same: Dating, dating, dating. Furiously, sweating in the spring-almost-summer heat, sniffing armpits on the metro and checking reflections in the dirty windows before ducking into another bar-restaurant-whatever to say hi to another face. Part of the problem is that I feel like I’m scamming these women; I’m new to town and I’m already on the dating apps, that must send up some red flags, right? My date basically articulated that tonight. Is it selfish to already dive in like that, especially with some of these women who’re 30+ and have been here for years and are potentially looking for their future husbands? It’s not to say that I’m not that guy, but I’m fresh out of a relationship and using my little body as some incentive to draw in company and explore the city with me; is that wrong? Just hang out with me, cmon, don’t overthink it, get a bite, have a drink, dance a jig, laugh at my dumb jokes, flash a smile in the neon light, take me home. It’s great, furious, throbbing, erotic, but also so alienating and categorically different from my dating life previously that it makes me feel like I must be an entirely different person. I check the mirror to make sure sometimes because it’s just that weird. I’m not being particularly picky or choosy or anything, and in fact, some dates I’m a bit embarrassed about, but who the fuck cares? Embarrassed by what, in front of whom, and does it matter anyway when we all just blend back incognito into the masses of people who leap in and out of your life like darting shining fish?

So I guess that’s been going well, and I’ve been making my peace with the various various many pages I’ve written about my poor decisions and indiscretions in my ~political~ life. That was then, this is me now, still political, but also, more aware and slightly-actually-pretty-embarrassed about the unnecessary tattoos and zany idealistic journey that brought me out here. I’m not embarrassed about that at all, but I do feel my youth shined especially bright and the deflated and sad disappointing result makes it all look a bit silly and naive now. Whatever. I’m just eating, drinking, fucking, throwing up, dancing, sweating, blah blah blah in a frenzy of fomo brain-destruction-grey-matter-mortgaging. I used to be a smart guy but no longer, but actually, I was never a smart guy, everyone’s a smart guy, I just got there more easily than others. It just feels good to consume myself into a whirlwind haze and just take these crapshoot shots at romance sex friendship some elusive glimmer of something fun before I’m too old and it all slips through my hand like such fine-grained sand. I’m probably already on that beach, unable to hold on as the tide comes in and the undercurrent begins tugging me away. Sheesh, what a heavy-handed metaphor that was eh?

Besides all the dating I guess I’ve been putting out tentative feelers and attempting to reconnect with friends I haven’t seen in a while. That’s been really nice, actually, since people do want to hang out, especially after being socially deprived and cooped up due to the pandemic for so long. I’ve entertained this though a bit, but I think a true demarcating line between the “millennial” and “zoomer” generation is the former’s relatively greater resilience; compared to our ancestors and earlier generations we were definitely nothing at all, but it does feel as though the millennial set may have been the last generation to take a chance and risk some social capital or dignity in some embarrassing public way without over-calculating and hedging and analyzing everything beforehand. What happened to the willingness to completely embarrass oneself? I guess in a constantly surveilled and spectated world it’s harder to take a shot if you think the humiliations will stick forever and ever and ever. I’m drunk and I’ve ordered some food, but it’s good to know any embarrassment from my decadent current behavior is least voluntarily memorialized on this blank screen. Cheers.

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This is such an incredible Miles Davis album – Bitches Brew – that I had to share it with you all.