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I saw your flyer while walking home from the train (I live in Ridgewood) and I thought it was really funny. I moved to New York nearly two years ago and have met a lot of people I like but very few that I truly “click” with. You seem intelligent and I appreciate the level of boldness/desperation required to pull off a scheme of this magnitude. Perhaps we’ll “click”? Also I don’t say “perhaps” in real life, I just write like a pompous old man.

I have three close friends. One is my cousin, one is a long-distance friend, and one lives in NY.

I do not listen to Billie Eilish because the only music I truly enjoy is very mainstream pop music (the worst thing about me) so I actually find Billie to be ~too experimental~. Sorry.

I am usually up by 9 am and I want to spend the morning reading, writing, and relaxing. It would be cool to go to a museum or park in the afternoon, then to grab dinner and a drink, and then find myself back in bed by eleven.

I am an RN BSN (I wasn’t a bully in high school, I promise) and I had an existential crisis in college after I spent six weeks working in a pediatric burn ICU. While the experience was very painful and traumatizing, I did eventually come to appreciate that pain and death walk hand-in-hand with life and one should “gather ye rosebuds while ye may.”

I love horror—books and movies—so I could probably talk about the personification and romanticization of death in the genre, as it relates to the human death drive in general and to the protagonist’s death drive in specific. This is a recurring theme in pop culture that truly fascinates me. I would not talk about this at a party because I understand how to be normal and know conversations about death do not usually fall within the parameters of what is socially acceptable.

I would consider myself a feminist, though the term has become so diluted today it hardly means anything at all. I have come to an understanding of my feminism through the writing of Audre Lorde, Kennedy Hughes, bell hooks, and Ursula Le Guin (to name a few). My feminism (which I would go so far as to say is the only true feminism) is trans-inclusive and seeks freedom and equity for all people, regardless of race, gender, class, level of able-bodiness, and sexuality.

Probably smoking. I’m asthmatic but smoking looks cool and it would be great to have something to do with my hands + take smoke breaks.

My dream is to become a published author one day (I am working toward this goal). Other than that, I would love to go on a bunch of luxury cruises, possibly to Antarctica and Alaska, even though I know these boats are polluting our waterways.

I think both viewpoints can be true. If we’re speaking in terms of actual real world good that can be achieved by ethical consumerism, a single consumer has very little power. Ultimately, it probably doesn’t matter if you or I choose an ethical option when we make a purchase, except of course that we have given a (most likely small) business a little bit of money. However, I do believe ethical consumerism is a moral imperative. One should always strive to make an ethical choice whenever possible. Within reason, obviously. I’m not going to beat myself up over occasionally buying a Snickers bar.

I recently ended a ten year friendship because I felt that this friend secretly disliked and resented me. I expressed this feeling to my friend multiple times and she always denied it—while continuing to make passive aggressive jabs designed to imply that she was a better person than me. Eventually, her negativity and borderline cruelty proved to be more than I could handle. I failed to respond to two texts from her and she retaliated by sending me a two page, single-spaced diatribe in the mail. The letter outlined all the things she hated about me (and had indeed hated for years) and accused me of being “Ted Bundy.” As you know, Ted Bundy is infamous for being a bad friend. Anyway, this letter proved my suspicions correct and I am much happier without this person in my life.

On a lighter note, I have a very fulfilling friendship of an equal length with a woman I met in high school. I believe this relationship has been successful because it is based on mutual like and respect. We enjoy each other’s company, and, though we do not have much in common, we never run out of things to talk about. In a word, we “click.” We have had conflict in the past but always quickly resolve it because we are committed to our friendship—not committed to being “right” or “wrong” in a disagreement. Sometimes we make life choices that the other person does not agree with or would not choose for themselves and we can freely express this sentiment to the other because we know there is no judgement between us. We are separate people living our own lives and we come together and share our thoughts and feelings about those lives. In the process, we have a lot of fun.