Someone Told Me He Wanted to Live in Times Square.

It's literally all I can think about now.

Hanging in Lower Manhattan in the nineties with my mom and sister.

I rejoined Raya a while ago. Raya is the dating app that was supposed to be an exclusive app for fancy people to date each other but ended up as an app for a bunch of hot wannabes (me included) to match with each other then never chat or meet. I’m convinced the only dating app that works for gay men is Grindr, because it’s the only one where users actually try to meet each other. Tinder? Just a collection game. People just collect matches then ignore them.

I must have joined Raya four years ago and back in those days people actually messaged and wanted to date. But now it’s mostly just a way of seeing if that hot guy from your gym also thinks you’re that hot guy from the gym. I’m guessing there’s something vaguely problematic with the vetting process on Raya, because I have seen very few people with bigger bodies on it (meaning it seems like the app is weeding out fat people, which is an issue). Like I know it’s a stupid and problematic app but HONESTLY WHAT ELSE AM I GONNA DO BEING SINGLE IS BORING AND COMPUTER GAMES ARE FUN.

I’ve pretty much given up on dating apps for the summer because I’m in this prolonged and perhaps never-ending holding pattern with renovating my kitchen and getting the place ready to rent out and honestly I have no idea when I’m going to be able to leave this beautiful-yet-stressful construction zone and enter back into a more normal version of my life. Also, it gets super tedious to keep matching with guys only to have them ghost you for the rest of time.

The type of guys who tend to be on Raya are Soho House Guys. Anyone who knows me knows I think Soho House is stupid. If you don’t live in a city that has one, Soho House is a social club that charges members thousands of dollars to go to their generically fancy clubs in major cities around the world. I’ve never applied for a membership and I’d never want to because the whole vibe screams High School Popular Club. And the West Hollywood club is in an dated high rise. If I wanna spend too much money on food in an eighties building there’s plenty of other places to do that in LA.

Much to my surprise, I matched with an adorable man who has a PHD in psychology AND teaches at Equinox in New York. Equinox is another brand that I think is stupid but is a necessary evil sometimes if you want a gym you know is going to be a certain level of clean and have a certain variety of classes and services. I think I just hate things that are “fancy” without a perspective. Like luxury solely because they say they’re luxury. The concept of someone aligning themselves with something glaringly upscale like Nobu or Goyard makes me think that person is not inherently sophisticated (Nobu is the McDonald’s of fancy sushi IMHO). Learning brand names does not make you a sophisticated person. Understanding the diversity of influence that creates fashion and culture does.

Kellen, the adorable aforementioned man, has a few things going for him. Firstly, he’s got a cute face, with a mischievous smile that tells you he’s seen shit. Second, he has a PHD and is doing his licensing to be a therapist. Third, he teaches Best Butt Ever at Equinox, which, you know, speaks for itself as to what he’s working with. He and I have really similar senses of humor. He’s about eight years younger, which I think maybe works because I don’t really identify with elder millennials anyway (I hated the early 00s, sorry).

We’ve been chatting for about a month, the way you do when one person is an insane woods-dwelling pioneer man and the other is a plucky “I just moved back to New York and want to experience everything!” thirtysomething. I’m hoping to actually meet him once my cabin reno is done, but in the scheme of these dating apps you never know. I’ve had extensive text chats with guys before that never go anywhere. You just have to enjoy the process and keep your expectations to a minimum.

I think the main joy of dating for me is just the learning element. It’s fun to chat with new people from places you never thought about before. A gay person? From Texas? Who knew!?! NOW I’VE SEEN EVERYTHING! I have no idea if anything will ever happen with Kellen but I have been having a fun time chatting with him every day. I’m dumb in so many ways but one way that I wish I was more dumb is in how I process new people. I’m pretty good at diagramming and figuring people out pretty quickly, so when I meet someone I can’t categorize quickly, I get excited.

I think it has something to do with how weird my background is. When people meet me they normally have a hard time putting the pieces of the puzzle together. From the woods? (Rural poor?). Lots of degrees (Poor but smart?). TV shows (Hollywood connections?). Latinx name (Wait not white?). My biography makes no sense and it’s always fun to watch peoples’ brains malfunction as they try to do the same categorizing I’m doing. Should we be doing this? No. But there’s only so many gay guys you can meet from Shaker Heights, Ohio before you start recognizing similarities between people from specific regions.

Kellen has been a mystery, however. Like a stupid party boy (hot) one moment and a studious PHD boy (HOT) the next. But recently he texted me something that I cannot stop thinking about and it brought me so much joy that I simply cannot keep it to myself. The other day he texted me:

And my brain exploded.

I don’t think I’ve ever met a person who likes Times Square. For me, “Times Square” is shorthand for SQUALID HELLHOLE FILLED WITH PEOPLE VORACIOUSLY NOSTRIL BREATHING AND EATING HOT DOGS IN YOUR FACE.

I just kind of assumed that literally everyone hated Times Square. Is that not right? Like I don’t think I’ve ever talked to anyone, especially New Yorkers, who liked Times Square.

The first time I remember going to Times Square was 1994. I actually don’t think I remember going, but I remember looking at photos of me and my siblings there. And this was dirty, pre-Giuliani Times Square. Like trash everywhere, analog mega screens, etc. It seemed at the time a good place to get stabbed by someone in a clown costume. And I guess that’s how I still see it today.

My main issue with Times Square comes from my deepest and most heartfelt fear: walking behind someone who is walking too slow but then you try to get around them then another person who walks to slow blocks you and then you are still trapped behind the person walking too slow and you never get around them and they just walk slowly in stupid middle American bliss while you're breathing down their necks, panicking about how you can’t walk as fast as you NEED to walk and yet you’re trapped, the smell of hot dogs and misery permeable in the thick-and-chunky midtown Manhattan air.

Not being able to walk as fast as I want is why I could never live in most of Manhattan. Chelsea, fine (the avenues are wider). Brooklyn, yes (it’s calmer). East Village? (I’d rather die).

Growing up in a place like Yosemite National Park give you an intense hatred of tourists. They walk off trails and then need dangerous Search and Rescue retrieval. They feed bears then the bears have to be euthanized. They tromp all over fields for Instagram pictures, destroying the same habitats they’re pretending to advocate for.

When you get a lot of people all having an individualized experience BUT THERE ARE MILLIONS OF THEM, it fucks things up. You can’t really act like an individual in these places because that’s destructive. You have to act like four million people are going to do the exact same thing you’re doing because that is what actually happens. Is it fine for one person to rip at the bark of a tree? Maybe. Is it fine four million people do that? Definitely not.

My disdain for tourists has led me to an adult life where I pretend to never be one. I remember years ago when paper maps were still a thing wandering around Manhattan with my mom and being MORTIFIED when she pulled out a giant map on the street. There literally could be nothing more humiliating than being a tourist.

Now that I’m reaching Grampa Simpson age, I am softening on tourists a bit. I think there’s something really cute about being curious and going places where you don’t have the lay of the land. Being open to new experiences. But I stand by my disdain for tourists who act selfishly or as if they’re the only person who’s going to do what they do.

Here’s a short list of things I found annoying that tourists in Yosemite did:

• Scream their heads off at the Lower Yosemite Falls at midnight (I can hear you, bitch! And other people have done this. SHUT UP!)

• Feed deer (and get kicked in the face).

• Ask “How much does that cabin cost to rent for the summer?” (That’s our house you butthole)

• Attempted Snow White moments with animals (Cool, you’re desensitizing them and leading to their deaths. Dick).

• Stop in the middle of traffic to take a photo on a curvy road with no visibility. (I nearly rear-ended you AND IT’S YOUR FAULT!).

A lot of dumbness happens on vacation and as the product of a place where I grew up surrounded by tourists from around the world, I have a zero tolerance people people acting like dumb idiots on vacation.

And where else on planet earth can you imagine more dumb tourists in one place than Times Square? New York is the number one tourist spot for international and domestic tourism in the United States. And what place in New York do you think is the most visited? TIMES SQUARE BITCH! You have to take a boat to get to the Statue of Liberty.

So in short, Times Square is my literal nightmare. Too many people walking too slow being too dumb.

Which brings me back to Kellen. Does he really want to live there or is he trying to be so norm-core that he’s alt? Is this what Younger Millennial Subversion is like? Is wanting to live in Times Square a joke meant to challenge me? Or does he really think it would be fun to be trapped behind people walking too slow on their way to the M&M Store for the rest of his life?

It’s moments like this that make me question reality. In my brain, we were literally all on the same page about Times Square being a hellhole. I just assumed everyone thought that. Even people who had never been there. Is that not true? Is Kellen fucking with me to make me feel insane? (Because obviously everyone bases their actions and desires solely on me).

Or am I just a hater and this is the dose of perspective change that I needed? Like is the assignment to take something that is inherently horrible and find a way to love it?

So here’s my conundrum. I believe in my heart that Times Square is a terrible place. But a hot guy said it wasn’t. SO LIKE WHAT IS TRUE?

One thing I find attractive about Kellen is that he seems to be really excited to live in New York. Like he’s not over it yet. I think sometimes when you live in a city it’s really easy to take it for granted, especially after you’ve lived there for a while. I love LA, but I definitely have not been taking advantage of being there. Partially because my life has been really all over the place and unpredictable the past four years. But also for financial reasons - most things that are fun to do in cities cost money unfortunately. Which isn’t great when you’re trying to save to do as much house shit as I am.

I still don’t know if Kellen was joking or not. Like it seems obvious that he is, right? How could he not be? But also if he’s not, how cute! I guess I like the idea of trying to see the beauty in a place like Times Square, the history. In a weird way we’re able to see the beauty in international monuments like the Eiffel Tower or the crowded streets of Shibuya more than we can see the beauty in our own storied spaces.

So I guess I’m taking this as a challenge to see if I could find a way to not hate the part of New York I’m always mad to end up in. Is there a way to see the beauty in this place? The wonder of people from around the world coming to stare at majestic high-res screens that rise high into the sky? The beautiful kelly green of the Olive Garden marquee?

…On second thought, he HAS to be fucking with me (?). There’s no way a New Yorker could walk that slowly and not go totally insane.