Sex and the Upper East Side

Shortly after declaring my newfound Catholicism and deciding to abstain from pre-marital sex for the Lenten season, I found myself sitting with four of my dearest friends discussing dating and relationships over burgers and cottage fries at J.G. Melon’s. Three of the five of us were currently in serious, long-term, monogamous relationships, with two of those three having never experienced the dating cesspool of New York City.As I looked around the table, I noted that my three comrades in these long-term, monogamous relationships had met their most-likely, basically 100% future husbands outside of New York, two being relationships from college, one an instance of miraculousness, as having stemmed from a random encounter on a one week cruise to the Bahamas.That left Kay and me, single and sexless, annoyed and disgusted, and dismally discouraged with the current dating opportunities (or lack thereof) on the 22.7 square miles of this island.“I just realized something.” I declared. Four sets of eyes started at me, wondering if I was going to announce something profound or just that I had forgotten to take my birth control pill that morning.“True love does not exist in this town.” I stated bluntly.“OK, Debbie Downer,” Jenny Saurs started. “Just because you haven’t seen a penis for the past seven days except in the form of vibrating silicone does not mean your dating life is over.”“No I’m totally serious here, and by the way, I’m 100% ok with having my sexual companion as an inanimate object that resides in my nightstand drawer,” I began.“But really, can you name one couple who fell in love in this city and went on to wedded bliss? And I’m not talking about the majority of our guy friends who decided to get girlfriends this past winter solely to have a consistent source of vagina and a warm body to keep their heating bills down—I’m talking can’t-live-without-you, want-to-be-your-baby-Daddy, I-would-never-consider-screwing-my-secretary true love. Name one couple who defies my theory.”As Jenny Saurs, Annie Smalls, Pookie, and Kay went on to name couple after couple who were in happy, blissfully faithful relationships that were headed towards an altar and didn’t involve random drunken hook-up’s when their significant other was out-of-town, these couples were results of either high school, college, or hometown relationships or else another instance that placed them in the non-NYC couple category.After a good fifteen-minute roundtable dialogue on all of the non-city couples that existed within our network of friends and coworkers, we could only name one pair who challenged my theory —a duo of abnormally tall, verge-of-circus-sideshow lovebirds. And I wasn’t even sure they counted, considering they breathed in a different layer of the ozone than the rest of us Manhattanites.So the fact that between five girls listing every couple we knew that lived in the city, we could only come up with one, somewhat weak, example that proved my theory solid. Whether or not my theory derived from the lack of a male touch in the past few weeks or my pessimism regarding my zip code’s dating scene, one thing was for damn sure—I was right.But I sure hope that eventually I can be proven wrong, because let’s face it, all my hometown has to offer in terms of single men is a few mullets, some flannel, and Dairy Queen Blizzards. Oh, and Amish buggies.I won't be going back to find my true love at this point....