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November 16, 2003
Self-knowledge is a great thing.
Self-knowledge is a great thing.
Continuing on the theme of playing the wannabe game in Manhattan last night, after dinner we went to one of the more well-known New York clubs - Whiskey Blue. From the moment we walked in, I was miserable. I mean, really, really unhappy. But - not like I would have been a few years ago. Even for the last couple of years, I would have gone to a place like that and wanted *so* much to fit in better, to be one of the young and fashionably thin and trendy. My unhappiness would have been out of envy of a scene I just didn't fit into but wanted to.
But now... I don't know if it came from spending time in south Florida this year; or whether it's just come with age and time. Whatever it is, I have finally reached a point of self-awareness that tells me that this scene isn't for me, and I no longer want to be a part of it. I was miserable last night not because I was envious of the club and the people inside, but because I was seeing it in a new light - a bunch of pretenders hanging out in a place designed for pretense. There wasn't a genuine human being in the place last night - just a bunch of people pretending to be something in order to be counted among the "cool." Not only is that scene not me, but I no longer even *want* it to be me. That self-knowledge is calming, even if it did make me miserable last night.
I stood there (as opposed to sitting, because the only seating areas available were not really available - they were roped off for some imaginary "VIPs" who may or may not ever have been planning to show up), and I watched people in outfits that only the anorexically thin or the surgically enhanced could pull off... shouting at one another at the top of their lungs because they had no other way to hear themselves over the din of the mindless, lyricless techno that pulsed from speakers throughout the place. I watched people buy $15 drinks that were made no differently, nor contained a different kind of alcohol, than the $6 drinks one can get at less trendy places. I watched a bunch of people who work on Wall Street, or Madison Avenue, or more likely the suburbs of Westchester County or New Jersey, pretend that they belonged in a place set up for the beautiful people. I saw a dance floor made of squishy film with psychadelic colors that shifted as people stepped on it... and realized with a sudden peace that I just didn't want it. I felt a combination of pity and disdain for the people around me. And all of a sudden, I wanted to be anywhere else in the world but there. A day later - and I'll bet you, for the rest of my life! - I still want to be anywhere else but that scene.
Not sure what it says about me that I am more comfortable in a beach bar where everyone's wearing tiki prints, shorts and sandals than I am in a place where everyone's got the latest Versace, DKNY and Tommy Hilfiger outfits. I don't know what it means that I would rather find a place with some good old fashioned blues (Albert Collins or the Allman Brothers or Stevie Ray) and maybe a little country thrown in there, in a jukebox hanging on the wall... than go somewhere with euro-techno being piped in through a massive speaker system... or that I would rather the volume be low enough where I can actually hear my companions speak than have the decibel level rival a jet engine. Maybe it means I've gotten old.
Or maybe - just maybe - it means that I finally know who I really am, and I've grown comfortable with him.
