Elections and Fidelity

Are New Yorkers, collectively really that isolated? Or lonely? Or held hostage by a city and a lifestyle that just leaves no time for quality time with friends or relationships? Well I for one say no, but that hasn't stopped me from reading article after article after article to the contrary. I mean isn't it enough already? Also, these are just the articles that I've found recently. Over the summer I read a number of similar pieces, the most memorable of which chronicled the insular nature of Manhattan. In the author's scheme, no matter how connected one was to a vast network of friends, these networks often lacked social cohesion and overlap, leaving the one in the center all alone at the end of the day. Now that's some depressing stuff for you. At least in the Intelligencer's day-in-the-life series I can laugh at the idiots that they are supposedly profiling. That said, Niedzviecki may well agree with that article, hell 700 "friends" and only one girl shows up? For most people reading this post now, we're all of college/young professional age and all most surely (hopefully?) have more than one real friend, much less a real facebook "friend". Finally, the fidelity article is shocking in that, with all of the technology available to us, we can be socially isolated from a spouse while utilizing that same technology to form meaningful relationships with other people. It is amazing how the routines of everyday life can just put people in situation in which they cannot, and do not, find someway to communicate with the people that are important to them, while at the same time cultivating new relationships to fill the void. Did the thought ever occur to them to call home? Or text? Or email? Or anything? We'll never know. Not only that, but it seems people cannot even commit to a candidate to vote for next Tuesday! In the words of Gob Bluth, "Come on!"

In any event, my response to all of the above? Life is all a state of mind. Concentrate on everything above and it'll just bring you down. Focus on the parts of yourself you hold in common with the stories above, and you may experience their remorse. But be honest and true to yourself, your friends, and those important to you? Last time I checked that can't steer you too wrong. In the meantime, go out tomorrow night, enjoy the costumes, and make a friend.

I apologize for this accidentally substantive subject matter. Here is a clip of Will Arnett/Gob Bluth on Sesame Street to make up for it.