Big Apple Love

With heels clicking up 5th Avenue and down Madison, in the hot and sticky summer of Gotham City (feeling like a piglet bathed in honey), Santa Barbara’s own Miss Kitty - with the intent gaze of a hawk scanning for prey - spies upon these Manhattanites. Do residents of the hustle and bustle that is the Big Apple have the same dating and relationship quandaries that our more laid back and mellow Californian brethren do? In a place where pastrami on rye actually is an aphrodisiac and a conversation between two women heard deep in the bowels of the subway starts with: “I was his first date out of jail….”; can love, experienced here, with an accent to rival Joey Buttafucco, also be so different? Like victims of The Spanish Inquisition, each cab driver, concierge and waitress is a verdant source of information. Yes, the man or woman on the street can offer more insight than any exhibit at the New York Museum of Sex!

Within minutes of slamming on the meter, with minimal prodding from yours truly, my cab driver, Vaheed, finds himself pondering if he loves his wife and when was the last time he told her. At $2.40 for the first minute, this is the interview deal of a lifetime. A captive subject and a glass barrier in place in which to make the lab rat feel safe! Careening up the slalom course that is also known as 3rd Avenue at rush hour, he finally answers: “If I told her I loved her, she wouldn’t believe me and would think I was up to something”.

That night, while I close yet another dark eatery, Patty the waitress brings an extra glass, professionally pours herself a healthy portion from the bottle she recommend, and sits to chat. “I really think he’s a nice guy, I mean we’ve been dating for 3 months and we just started sleeping together… I mean.. I waited to sleep with him for 2 months and the sex is really good, but he is just so…so…OK, too nice”. I gaze at her with the knowing look of a portly Rabbi’s pointing out the best, truly the best, don’t go anywhere else (and tell Solly I sent you) delicatessen. And like the Rabbi, I know that she knows that she isn’t with the best - and doesn’t yet believe that the difference between good deli and mediocre deli really matters. Even if she gets a free pickle with the guy, she really wants to (and should) go somewhere else.

A good Chianti is running through my veins and the heady aroma of Mama’s Sicilian pizza wafts through the air, three Soprano look-a–likes, sit and dine al fresco in Little Italy. These Goodfellas are a magnificent opportunity not to be missed and so with the naive charm of a true Santa Barbara girl, and thinking that cement shoes are probably just something new for Fall 07, I approach. Vinnie is the chatty one of the bunch sitting with his back against the wall. Although he vehemently declines the photo opportunity to go along with his manly account of dating in the big A, Vinnie tells it like it is. “Ya gotta be freak’in kidding! It ain’t freak’in hard. I wear my Armani, shave nice and buy her a good dinner. Always mention my ma and how I send her 8 grand every month and I drive a spank’in new Caddy… they come running, I tell you. Never a Friday night alone. Speaking of alone, what cha doing later on cutie?” Even though a ride in that new caddy sounds SOOOOO tempting, in the interest of journalistic integrity, I politely refuse. He grunts and continues. “Love? What the frick is dat?? Bunch of horse you know what. I was married for 20 years and she left me for the numbers guy…punk! Gave them the shoes, honey, gave them the shoes. Now, I only date”. The rest of the bunch were rather silent and fidgety at my inquisitive persona. After several heavily muffled cell phone calls, the well dressed and garlic-scented trio excused themselves saying they had to make a “house call”.

Dear Boys and Girls, finding real love can be harder than making your way uptown on a stalled subway system - regardless of where you are. But even with the 4, 5 and 6 subways trains are down for the count, there is always a bus, a taxi or your good old feet to take you where you want to go. Love likes a detour, now and again, and it is so much the sweeter for finding your way, all by yourself.

Have a naughty day!

P.S. Due to too much cheap Chianti and shoe shopping with Vinnie (don’t ask!) Miss Kitty’s correct answers to last week’s relationship quiz will be provided next week. (You DID answer all the questions, didn’t you?)