Preliminary Questions
Do you live within a thirty-minute radius/are you comfortable commuting to Murray Hill or elsewhere in Manhattan to hang out with me?
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Are you crazy?
Can you supply a personal website or social media profile?
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Once I review your application, I will reach out to have a more formal, sit-down interview to be my friend in Manhattan. This interview will be videotaped and I will be posting the footage on social media. Are you able to report to Manhattan and spend at least an hour for the interview?
Open Questions
Why are you filling out this questionnaire?
Because the world is made of snow. (Schulz)
How many "close friends" (by close friends I mean people that you see more than twice a month if they live in the tri-state area or if they are a long-distance friend that you speak with at least twice a month) do you have?
3, although I consider high school friends who I talk to twice or thrice a year to be close. Thief-thick, as they say.
Do you listen to Billie Eilish? If so, why?
No.
It's Saturday morning! What time are you up and what do you want to do with the day?
I work Saturdays so I'll use Wednesday instead. Lately my accumulational is recording full-length MTA bus routes from a rear window seat. It requires planning, some luck, and I often have to give up with nothing recorded. But I try.
Have you ever had an existential crisis? How did it come about and what was your ultimate takeaway from it?
I've had dark times. I always come away reminding myself that I am different from most.
You are at a party and a topic comes up that you could go on and on and on about that nobody else knows anything about. What is the topic and would you talk about it or not talk about it?
Payphones. Seriously. Don't even get me started. Also, LinkNYC, Franz Liszt, Alex Hill, The Apology Line, and more recently the AI inflection point reached late last year.
What do you think about feminism? How did you come to that conclusion?
My mother considered aborting me, saying it was her right and privilege as a feminist. Between that and my father being gay my very existence is an existential quagmire. Maybe that answers your earlier question about existeniæ. To me "What do you think about feminism?" is like asking "Any opinions on God?"
If there was an alternate reality in which you had a debilitating, life-altering addiction, what would you be addicted to?
This seems to presume I would desire the addiction? Asking, not making a comment. I could live eternally addicted to mediocrity and the minutiæ of daily grist, temporal grit, the continuous struggle and conflict of being alive. There is no peace.
What are your dreams?
They mostly involve sprawling communities of garbage dumps, shopping malls, coffee shops, swimming pools, black holes. I have dreams within dreams. They strain my brain but I wake to my body feeling extinguished. Days are long.
Do you believe in ethical consumerism or is it a drop in a giant well that has already been dug by multinational corporations so it doesn't matter?
Um, that's a tainted question. And you know it. Are you another AI adverbot that has wasted my time as your Buddha belly thribs?
Multiple-Choice Questions
What qualities are most important to you in a friend
What is the worst thing on this list
Work is:
Which poet's writing do you most connect with?
Do you feel like you've lived one life or lots of lives?
How do you feel about answering all these questions:
Aristotle once said; "my friends, there are no friends." How do you feel about that:
Essay Question
Please describe a friend breakup you have gone through. If you haven't gone through a friend breakup, please explain why you think you have never gone through a friend breakup. Outline a major friendship in your life and explain why it is successful.
She said she craved creative thinking. I gave her all the creative thinking I had. She objected, calling me a creep and a loser. She wanted creative thinking that was crystal clean-perfect. No room for mediocrity or mistakes. Everything had to be spot perfect, every time, hallelujah, pass the biscuit.(with honey). I don't care if we never talk again. We were awesome for ~11 years.