Steph Not Stephanie

I decided I wanted to go on a New York Date™ for the blog (sure … for the blog) while I’m here. I hit the Tinders and pretty quickly found myself talking to a dude in Brooklyn. ‘You will LOVE Brooklyn,’ all my hosts assured me (aside from the more cautious of the three, who was worried I’d end up murdered and/or lost). I had already declared my love for the hipstery East Village (while I don’t sit around in parks playing a ukelele while wearing mom jorts, I am into things that could be called hipster-adjacent – my fondness for wearing bows, my tattoos, my cute but impractical classic cruiser), and apparently Brooklyn is some sort of magical hipster mecca.

After making him promise I wouldn’t end up on an episode of Law and Order (and serial killers always keep their promises), we made plans for drinks and a tour of Williamsburg. I took the subway all by myself and didn’t get lost, fully expecting not to like Brooklyn. Yes, I like cool neighbourhoods, but I am a firm downtowner. The trip from the Upper East Side to Brooklyn was surprisingly short … I couldn’t even get from downtown to midtown Toronto in that amount of time. I followed the trail of people with Skrillex haircuts and Mason jars and surfaced in the cutest goddamned neighbourhood ever. For fuck’s sake New York, did you have to try so hard to win me over? Between the fireflies in Central Park, the cheesecake I’m currently eating for breakfast, and now Brooklyn, I’m sold.

We walked around the über-hip ‘hood, and soon discovered we had tons in common. We bonded over our mutual love for HBO prison drama and I’ve decided that liking Oz is now a dealbreaker: any guy I’ve dated who didn’t like it turned out to be a shithead. From the easy conversation to the overwhelming awesomeness of Brooklyn, it was one of the best dates I’ve had in a long time. Just the view of Manhattan from the waterfront was worth the trip, but there also happened to be a random street fair (complete with a trumpet section on a giant towering phallic structure topped with either Jesus or the Pope):

Another thing that made it great was the fact that all parties knew this was a one-night-only engagement. There was no pressure or worry about what would happen next, or making a good impression, since what happens next is my ass gets on a bus to Toronto tomorrow. It was exactly what I needed, and it put the fun back in dating. We actually plan to stay in touch thanks to the power of the interwebz, and now I have four whole friends in NYC.

I also learned that New York really is the city that never sleeps. A 24 hour subway is great (for reasons), and making it door-to-door in 30 minutes at 3am a decent hour (hi Mom!) just solidified my newfound love for Brooklyn. The Toronto dating scene is going to have to try even harder when I get back.