Love is in the air. Or maybe there’s something in the water. It’s summer and New York City is getting steamy in more ways that one. I have witnessed more flirtation, heard more pick-up lines and stumbled upon more public displays of affection since this heat wave started than I did all winter, when people were supposed to be cozying up. Is it possible that bedposts across the city are earning new notches for every notch the heat index rises?
Last weekend, I was on my way into Manhattan, riding the F-train across from three other passengers. One, the A-Rod archetype, had an electronic gadget half-way between a Blackberry and a laptop open on his lap. He wasn’t looking at the screen, though. An exotic-looking (extraordinarily so, I must say) woman had distracted him. When the person sitting between them got off the train, B-Rod slid down the bench seat toward her and wasted no time striking up a little small talk.
“You’re incredibly beautiful; what’s your heritage?” The woman was blushed graciously and told him that she was Sicilian and Peruvian. She started thumbing through a magazine, but entertained her suitor’s remarks about his own heritage and told him where her parents were from before tilting her head so that her hair draped over her shoulder to form a dark, wavy veil over her face. He tipped forward a bit to get another peek and to offer his phone number, which the woman declined with the coyness that women use when they want to escape without hurting any feelings. She went back to her magazine, B-Rod took it like a man and they just waved and smiled at each other when she got off the train a few stops later.
As I listened in on countless similar conversations over the next few days, I couldn’t tell for sure if I was actually witnessing an increased amount of would-be romantic encounters or not. It’s entirely possible that the hazy heat is not a product humidity and pollution, but a cloud of pheromones exuded by the over-heating bodies of single New Yorkers. It’s also entirely possible that I’m not inhaling any pheromones at all. In fact, I’m downwind of a garbage can, but so hyper-aware of any state of amorousness at all that the festering Happy Meals and copies of this morning’s AM New York smell like a dozen long-stemmed roses and a melting handful of green M&M’s.
Perhaps, then, I had spent the whole week priming myself for my own encounter, which took place at Delancey Street late Friday night. A tall, lanky figure emerged from my peripheral vision to take the last remaining seat on the bench and remarked on impatience and late subway trains. We introduced ourselves and eventually got on the train together. When he disembarked forty minutes later, he was technically little more than a stranger; a stranger named “Lavar…like ‘lover’…I can’t believe I just said that.” As I saved his number in my cell phone, I realized that I had been ‘picked up.’ I didn’t even recognize the motives of the advance behind Lavar’s ironic wit and friendly, effortless humor. He had even teased me about the hickey on my neck, garnered at a previous location from a previous gentleman, but I didn’t feel like he interpreted it as a sign (literally) I would be a sure thing.
My reaction to the pick-up lines and PDsA that people bat back and forth every day is almost always different. Sometimes I’m amused, sometimes I’m impressed, sometimes I’m appalled, and the factors that determine my response are always changing, too. Obviously I’m much more likely to think, “get a room” when I haven’t been in a room of my own for awhile, and when I’m feeling swept off my feet, I’m happy to see someone else get swept. I’m flattered almost as often as I am offended by uninvited and unrequited attention from random guys (and I almost always make a point to interpret cat calls as compliments). No matter what, even in the most sincerely adorable circumstances, I do always find myself wondering: what is it that makes someone interpret a person’s ridership of public transportation as a personal ad?
