I knew he was new to New York when he picked the bar. It was on a street that had felt cool and exciting to me in 2014, when I’d first moved to the city, and probably was, before the Australian café that does matcha art opened around the corner and women who could afford a uniform of Miu Miu bags and Alo sets moved into the fire-escape apartments. My date was older than me, and though I’d seen him on Instagram, he was more like a walking, talking Myspace page: bright hoodies, obnoxious gold jewelry, with a preference for passé hipster bars like the one he’d chosen.
“Washed” is what I would’ve called him to my friends if I’d been feeling honest and not just looking to get laid. Not get laid in the way men do, to quickly satisfy a physical urge — Lord knows I didn’t think there was any chance he was exceptional in bed or likely to make me come (besides, even if that were a possibility, I could do that at home in three minutes and experience the same mind-numbing seconds I would with him). What I wanted was his attention: I wanted to feel a man’s desire and to be reminded that I was a sexual being, not just a mother of a toddler. The lame bar would have to do.
