'I want to wake up in a city that never sleeps'

The Fall before I moved to New York, the City and I had our first official date. As with most first dates, I was indescribably nervous. What if the City and I didn’t get along? What if we didn’t mesh well after all?

I mean, I'd done my research online – the equivalent of Facebook stalking any new prospect (I do it, you do it, we all do it. Even if you won’t admit to it). From my experience, sometimes this is helpful. Other times, my preconceived and sometimes entirely contrived notions end up being dead wrong.

Obviously the next step in these situations is to ask your mutual friends to weigh-in, to get their insight on whether or not they think this might work out, or if it’s best not to even try. In this case, the only way to know for sure, they said, is to meet and find out.

So I booked a ticket to go stay with my Heterosexual Life Partner (LP) at her parent’s house in Long Island for a long weekend.

Before I go any further, I have to officially introduce the LP. We met in the Spring of 2006 in another fabulous city, Barcelona. After 8 hours crossing the pond (plus a 4 hour layover in the London airport) I walked nervously into my new home of the next 3 months to find the LP. Phew.

Obviously, it was love at first sight. We spent the next 3 months pretending to speak fluent Spanish and breaking hearts all over Barca. Then she went back to GW and I went home to Texas with promises of reunion in the near future.

After spending my entire life in Texas – growing up there and going to college in that same city – my time in Barca helped me realize that I needed a change. The fact that the LP moved home to Long Island after we both graduated had a lot to do with my decision to stop wishing I could move to New York and actually do it instead.

Before scheduling my first date, I went through the typical wardrobe crisis. Obviously, I wanted to make a good first impression. I spent $100 on a new interview outfit and another $200 on a new coat (we don’t really own those in Texas) which I never really even wore.

Of course, Momma J air-mailed LP’s family about 15 lbs. of Salt Lick BBQ – naturally – as a “thank you” for letting me stay with them for the weekend. Texans do everything big, in case you hadn’t heard. It arrived on the LP’s doorstep shortly after I did. Apparently, that was more than enough to win me an honorary spot in the family as far as LP’s dad was concerned. Good start.

Friday morning, I dressed for my job interview and LP dropped me off at the train station, subway directions in hand. Luckily, the office was right next to a stop on the 4 5 6, so my chances of getting irretrievably lost were minimal.

Reflecting back, I don’t remember much about that interview. I was pretty overwhelmed by the fancy office in SoHo and the movie-worthy view they had of downtown Manhattan. I can say, however, that it must not have gone so well as they never got back to me. I don’t blame them – I didn’t want to be a media buyer, I just wanted a reason to move to the sparkly city.

With that out of the way, I headed back to the subway to meet LP for some tourist action.

We hit the Museum of Natural History, had a leisurely stroll through Central Park, and a stop at Dylan’s to see the rainbow walls of candy before having a pre-dinner frozen hot chocolate at Serendipity. We had dinner in Time Square (I told you – tourist action …) at Carmine’s with the pre-theatre crowd before heading back to Long Island.

We spent the rest of our time terrorizing the island, making ridiculous boyfriends – me and the HLP’s favorite past time. It was Barca in the States and I was in love; first date success!

As much as I loved my steady relationship with Texas, I decided that it was time for us to go on a break.