The City of Lonely but Lively People

After a fairly social weekend, I decided to begin to meet more people in New York City. “But wait, Alex. On a P55 budget how did you ever expect to make friends?” you may be asking.

I was hesitant about using online means to meet people, but I figured I had nothing to lose beside some time so I enlisted on this so-called meetup.com. Looking up French language groups, I found plenty in the New York Are, and since I wanted to explore Brooklyn, I decided to join the one based there.

“Berry Park- Come join us for beer and merriment à la francais” The advertisement sounded enticing enough so I RVPed and prepared for my first visit to the infamous Williamsburg. After a short session at the gym, I hopped on a G train, constantly looking at my phone to make sure I was going in the right direction.

As soon as I got off the train, the young voices poured in from the entrance to the metro station. Once I was outside, a disembodied voice I heard just a moment ago became a woman wearing a dark skirt, dark glasses, and a white shirt- a modern Audrey Hepburn. Suddenly, everyone seems to be riding bikes, swerving to barely miss the few cars that trickle in from Manhattan. Each shop is just tall enough to give the semblance of a small western town, where seeing the sky is of the utmost important for business. I walk around lost, searching for Berry St. that at some point is Nassau St. ; you can imagine my confusion.

After asking someone for Berry St. right in front of the bar I was searching for, I take a moment to regain my New York confidence and enter expecting to hear those melodic nasal sounds. Of course, I forget that we are meeting on the roof. I get to the rooftop, from where you can see the city skyline and find a solitary man dressed in a suit with a Pocket Larousse on the table. “Is this it?” I think while introducing myself in French.

After a few minutes, other people arrive. By the evening time twenty people sit around a table, talking in French in small groups of 5. Near the end when the city is ablaze with lights in the distance, a glamorous sight that eases the autumn chill we have started to feel on the roof, I begin to speak to a Parisian who laughs constantly and is not afraid to say a silly thing or two. After everyone beside one other group has left, we still sit there, laughing at his adventures in Greece. When we get up to leave, he asks if I would like to go grab something to eat in the neighborhood. Although I know in my mind, I may never find the G train to return home in this maze of Berrys and Nassaus, I still accept his offer.

As expected, he chooses a French restaurant nearby that resembles a Parisian bistro with its red seats and candle-like lighting. We spend the rest of the night, drinking red wine and eating our medium done hamburgers. There are moments when I feel again in Paris, a city where I felt free and sans soucis. Our conversation ebbs and flows from the fall of Rome to the hermit mathematicians that revolutionized modern thinking to the literary prowess of Fitzgerald.

“What is this long story for-” you may be asking, “a tale with no ending?” There is no doubt about it that New York can be a lonely city, but these experiences prove that, even without a sense of direction, one can find other people that are looking for similar things.