I know the night is going to be trouble when I see she’s wearing three-inch heels. She can’t walk in heels. She totters down the stairs to the PATH. She doesn’t have a QuickCard, so I hand her mine and use the Metrocard I got free from work.

“You’ve become such a city girl,” she remarks at the way I juggle my purse, and wallet and cards.

We are both dressed to “go out,” black pants and tank-tops. We pick a place for dinner solely because she can’t walk more than a few blocks in her shoes.

I feel like a snob when I think that this is the difference between rich suburban girls and those who live here; she is used to taking cabs. She’s used to bars where the drinks are $10. She’s used to a string of boys who pick up the tab. So she wears the heels, because she wouldn’t think of walking, and still thinks the subway is dangerous at night.

She’s a good person and I love her and so none of that matters. I roll my eyes at her, but throw an arm around her shoulder and tell her I missed her – But I still let her pay for the cab to the Upper East Side, because she’s the one who wants to trek out there to see some of her friends.

The bar is playing decent music, and she introduces me to Kevin. I’m shy around new people, and he appraise me, and sneers “You look like you’re going to be a barrel of fun tonight.” The smile I had plastered on my face wavers. I’m slipping into awkward. Freezing up. I chug the rest of my beer. Classy.

I have a few drinks. Relax. The female bartenders are dancing on the bar, Coyote Ugly style. They grab patrons, tilt their chins up and pour shots down their throats from bottles of a mix of leftover cheap liquors. Xina pushes me forward, and I do a shot, because I don’t care about looking like an idiot.

I’m finally having some fun. “Uptown Girl” is playing, and we sing along. I chat with some random people whose names I’ll forget. It’s very New York. This is what people do. They go out and meet friends of friends of friends and have fun with them, and they forget them.

And then it hits, and then I’m ready to go home. This is how it goes with me, especially in these settings. I have my share of fun, but then I just want to go home. So I tell Xina I’m going to leave, I can get back to Jersey City myself, she should stay.

She turns to tell Kevin that I’m leaving. He makes fun of me, but then places a hand on my shoulder “You’re taking a cab right, not a subway?”

“It’s 2 Avenues and 4 blocks, I think I can handle the subway, I’m not the idiot in heels.”

“You look like you can handle yourself, but…” He hands me $20 for a cab. Even with my independent streak I’ll admit that I’m into occasionally being taken care of, but not by rich assholes who are so proud of themselves for looking out for my well being.

Xina follows me out “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m fine. I’m just ready to go home.”
“You didn’t have fun?”
“No, I did. I had fun. I’m just ready to go home, you know that.”
“I know,” she says, she’s seen me pull this a few dozen times up at school.
“I had a good time, I’m just done now.”
“Okay…well call me to let me know you got home safe.”
“I will” we hug, still a little tipsy and exchange the New York kiss.
“Love you,” she calls after me.
“Love you too.”

I lean back in the seat of the cab. I want to cry, for no good reason, but I don’t want to be one of those girls who cries in the back seat of a cab. I give the driver the address of the nearest 6 stop, tip him generously, and pocket the rest of the cash.

Get home. Strip off my clothes and step straight into a cold shower, because it’s hot as hell.

*************

I’m ashamed of how female Michael catches me being. We have plans to meet for brunch. He calls around 10:00 being vague about plans. I’m exhausted, and a little hungover, but I haven’t seen him in a year, so I’ve dragged my ass out of bed.

It’s the kind of thing where we make about a dozen back and forth phone calls. “We’ll meet up later, say, 2 or 3,” he offers.

Then he calls back again. “Can we maybe meet up for dinner?”

“That’s fine,” I say, even though by now I’m frustrated, and tired, and near tears, and I just want to see Michael.

“Are you okay?”

“Of course.”

I’m a selfish bitch, and my voice breaks on my words. “Are you sure?” he asks.

“What do you want me to say, Jesus Christ,” I snap,. Evenly though.

We hang up. He calls back ten minutes later. “Be at your place in an hour.” I argue with him, but he doesn’t relent, and an hour later I meet him and his friend at the PATH station. I immediately apologize for my insanely female behavior but point out it speaks well for how he’ll handle future long term relationships – he already knows that when a woman says “it’s fine” though clenched teeth, it means you’re already in trouble.

I didn’t realize he had an entire posse of Hampshire friends up here, and was looking forward to some quality time catching up, as well as meeting just one of this friends, who I’ve spoken to online and liked. Instead, I wound up sitting silently in a SoHo living room, feeling incapable of contributing to the conversation. My words would not make sentences and I grew more self-conscious by the second.

And then I was eighteen years old, and back in a classroom in FPH. And when I’m alone in a group I suddenly feel as if nothing has changed, if I’m still that stupid eighteen year old girl who alienates everyone she meets because she comes across as aloof when really, she’s just a deer in headlights.

I hate that I’m shy, and that I freeze up, and wind up making terrible first impressions. It really doesn’t speak well for my future social life in New York. I screwed up, and I feel like an idiot. I screwed up, and I feel incredibly guilty.

The tears start as we’re leaving the SoHo partment, and I’m choking them back, and then we hit the street, and I start to cry. I’m very good at calming tears, so Michael and I just stay a few steps behind and he rubs my shoulder as we walk and reminds me to breathe.

I’m not sure why I’m crying exactly, but he understands well enough to know why I just want to go home, and don’t want to go to a movie, and then go to a bar with a dozen random people.

At Houston, they’re going East and I’m going West. We have to say good-bye in front of his friends.

Michael hugs me, and I’m losing it “I just don’t want to be in a room full of Hampshire people…and” I don’t have to continue. He already saw sit there and watch a conversation.

“It’s okay, babe, relax.”He pulls me closer into the hug, kisses my cheek. “I’ll call you.”

I nod. I smile and say polite good-byes to his friends. One of them, I’d talked to on AIM before, and liked, and thought it’d be nice to know one more person in the city. Clearly, that’s not going to happen. I am a screw-up, and so I’m crying. I’ve been on one of my freakish no-crying streaks, and this little outburst isn’t much of a catharsis, but I simply cry, and then stop without trying a few blocks down.

When I hit Hudson, someone stops me, asks how to get to Christopher Street, where I’m headed. I point them in the right direction.

This is my city.

I get home, strip off my clothes, step straight into a cold shower, because it’s hot as hell.

Later, I’m curled up with a biography of Stalin I’ve been looking forward to reading, Law and Order SVU on in the background, and it serves as another reminder, that living here does not change the type of girl I am.

I am still not one of those girls who can go out with a friend, and meet all his friends, and happily chat with them all evening. It’s exhausting, and that’s why I have a little bit of fun, and then there’s a break and I realize how tired I am, and that I want to go home.

I will never be one of those girls. I never have been. I’m fine with that in small doses, fine with that amount of fun.

I am a girl who comes home and puts on pajamas at 7 PM on a Saturday night, sits down with a book and a pen, and is happy with that.

I’m not one of those girls in heels and a skimpy outfit, because I know I can’t pull it off, and I’m not one of those girls who wants to be the center of attention.

I’m just not like that.

And despite what HWSNBN thinks, despite the fact that he’s right across the river, probably with his “real” girlfriend, I believe that I’m worth coming home to. And god damn him for making me think otherwise.