That's where you'll find me, along with lovers, fuggers, and thieves

With the exception of six very sweaty months living in New York City, I have lived my entire "adult" life in Boston. And I put adult in quotation marks because those who know me will certainly disagree on whether or not I'm actually an adult. Anyway, I digress. I grew up in the mountains of Upstate New York, went to college in suburban Boston, and have lived here (with the exception of the brief sojourn in the Upper West Side and very cold three months in New Hampshire) ever since.


So my decade long stay in Massachusetts as well as my complete allegiance to it has labelled me a traitor in certain circles, mostly comprised of people my age who grew up in Manhattan and can't stop talking about they grew up in Manhattan. All right, get over it, your parents are rich. Big deal. Smack talking about New York in these circles seems akin to antisemitism; I once said "I hate New York" and was actually asked to leave a party. Damn Jews.

"How could you hate New York?"

This question makes me laugh. I consider myself possibly the most opinionated person on the planet, and yet even I understand the idea of personal taste. Some places are just not for certain people. From everything I've ever heard about LA, it absolutely sucks, and yet 20 million people live there, so you figure it out. But since you asked:

It's hot
Last summer I used to change clothes at least twice a day. Inside or outside it didn't matter, something about the combination of steel buildings and souvlaki makes the entire grid in Manhattan a semiconductor. It is disgusting. Morning Subway rides should be used on terror suspects in Guantanamo Bay.

It's crowded
It doesn't matter where or when you decide to go anywhere, you are going to get delayed by a father in jean shorts and white socks and a mother in mom jeans and a fanny pack with sun glasses pointing their fingers directly upwards. Upper West Side, Upper East Side, Lower East Side, West Village, it doesn't matter. Ironically, only Harlem is safe from these interlopers. And Midtown... Oh my god. I think there are two kinds of people in this world: those who like wax museums, and those who don't.

Douchebags
The Douchebag Volume Ratio (or DVR) is nearly at 1:1. Go down to any bar on Second Avenue, any bar in the Meatpacking District, or any bar named after an element of nature, and you're heading towards 5:1. I have vented about these people before (most notably here), but New York is their home base, their Mecca, their Brother Jimmy's. The East Village/Lower East Side is the best you're going to do, but I never really want a tattoo that badly and I don't like bars that have curtains that separate the rooms.

Upwardly gazing women
I don't need to elaborate at all on this. Needless to say, there are a lot of women in New York who are, how you say, interested in how much money men make. This guy breaks it down much better, chronicling experiences with a certain type of girl, native to New York, who I have had some dealings with while attending a particularly Jewish college. We'll just refer to it as Brandeis.

Those are simply some of the talking points. New York has its share of overwhelming positives, like the variety of food, public transportation, shopping, and a nightlife that stays open past 10:00 PM. In all of those categories, it easily trumps Boston. And the Mets play in New York, so that's another positive.

But none of that matters, I hate New York. It doesn't have Anna's Taqueria.