I love the Too Cool act. I love how the Everyday-Joe morning runners pretend to not give a damn while passing Carolina Herrera in her crisp white shirt and red lipstick on a ninety degree day at 8:45 am as they huff and pant (run) around the reservoir. I love how everyone pretends that Matt Damon and his wife and his daughter are not really playing in the sandbox @ 83 and CPW. Leo and his latest supermodel squeeze just breezed past on their bikes all Hollywood-grungy and non-chalant and no one "notices"; Barney's (commission-based) sales clerks snub Fargo actress Frances Mc-? as she browses the sunglasses... The truth is that everyone is looking back in the wakes, and grabbing their i-Phones...but as mentioned, no one gives a damn. Not in New York. We have reputations to uphold.
I heart it, here.
I love how everybody whispers their dramatic or dirty secrets in their apartments (for the most part), but while out on the street or in public or in any vast or significantly large (or larger than a 2-bedroom) space, these same people say things like, "I get swamp ass when I do that, dude" (two seemingly-normal good-looking guys on bikes) or "Let me give you the rundown on my eviction notice research" -- this latter phrase was quoted by a disheveled-via-beach girl who voraciously licked the melted M&M chocolate off the wrapper for several minutes after finishing the M&Ms. Mid-sentence, she began to accost the geriatric merry drunkards at the back of the train (on the LIRR en route to Penn Station): "Hey! Everybody come to my house for free driiiiiiinks!", which was met by silence because M&M girl was a) Ugly, b) had Aboriginal-esque hair, a dangerously-drooping bandeau top and was using a dirty napkin to wipe off last night's eyeliner, or c) Everyone on the train heard her talk about being evicted, so everyone knew that there was no house/drinks/money to buy drinks.
No matter. A little humanity and indecency on a train ride or in a grocery store or on a street at the right moment is all fine and good: we're not robots. And in New York, you're allowed an anonymous crazy/embarrassing or bad moment - most likely, no one you care about will ever know or see it -- or not.
In either case, no one gives a damn in two minutes, or in a worse-case scenario, twenty-four hours, as the best thing about being a put-together asshole, rager or sociopath is complete and utter self-absorption.
