Fall in Love With New York Before You Ask Someone Else To
By Mood Magazine NYC
There is a strange habit many of us develop when we live somewhere long enough.
We stop seeing it.
The restaurant everyone is talking about?
We’ll get there eventually.
The museum?
Next month.
The concert?
Maybe.
That beautiful hotel fifteen minutes away?
Why would we stay in a hotel when we live here?
The neighborhood we’ve been meaning to explore?
Someday.
Meanwhile, someone has just landed at JFK with three suitcases, a 14-page itinerary, and enough enthusiasm to experience more of New York in four days than some of us have experienced in four years.
Perhaps the tourists know something we don’t.
Maybe living in a city and experiencing it are two entirely different things.
So this month, Mood has a proposition.
Date your city.
Take New York out.
Give her your attention.
Get dressed for her.
Spend an afternoon getting reacquainted.
And before you start wondering whether this requires a romantic partner, it doesn’t.
Take your husband.
Take your wife.
Take the person you’re dating.
Take your best friend.
Take your mother.
Take yourself.
The relationship we’re interested in today is the one between you and the place where your life is happening.
And perhaps it’s time you put a little romance back into it.
FIRST, MAKE A RESERVATION WITH YOURSELF
We schedule everything except joy.
Meetings enter the calendar.
Appointments enter the calendar.
Deadlines enter the calendar.
Work enters the calendar.
But somehow the things we claim we really want to do remain floating around under the category of “when I have time.”
You won’t.
Time rarely introduces itself politely.
You have to claim it.
Choose a day.
Put it on the calendar.
Saturday: Date New York.
Now it’s real.
GET DRESSED
Yes, this matters.
You know the outfit.
The one you bought because someday there would be somewhere appropriate to wear it.
Congratulations.
Someday has arrived.
There is something psychological about getting dressed for your own life.
Not for work.
Not because somebody important will see you.
Not because there’s a dress code.
Simply because you decided the evening deserves your effort.
Wear the coat.
Put on the shoes.
Use the fragrance.
New York has seen stranger things.
TAKE YOURSELF TO BREAKFAST
Not brunch.
Breakfast.
There is a difference.
Brunch wants to know who you’re meeting.
Breakfast doesn’t care.
Find a beautiful café.
Order the coffee.
Sit by the window.
Bring a book if you need emotional support for the first ten minutes.
Then put it away.
Watch people.
Let the city wake up around you.
You don’t need somebody sitting across from you to justify taking the good table.
GO SOMEWHERE YOU’VE NEVER BEEN
Here’s where the date gets interesting.
Choose a neighborhood.
Not yours.
Not the one where you work.
Not the place you always go because you already know where everything is.
Somewhere else.
Take the train.
Get off.
Walk.
That’s it.
No elaborate plan.
Let curiosity make some decisions.
We spend so much of adulthood optimizing our lives that we’ve accidentally removed surprise from them.
Efficiency is useful.
It is not particularly romantic.
Get lost occasionally.
WALK INTO A GALLERY
You do not need to understand art.
We cannot stress this enough.
Enter.
Look.
Find something you love.
Find something you hate.
Find something that makes absolutely no sense.
Stand in front of it anyway.
The purpose of art isn’t always to give you an answer.
Sometimes it exists to make you notice that you have a question.
Chelsea gives you entire afternoons of this for free.
BUY YOURSELF SOMETHING SMALL
Not because retail therapy is the answer.
It isn’t.
But objects can become markers of memory.
A book.
Flowers.
A postcard.
A record.
Something handmade.
Something from a neighborhood business.
Something inexpensive that six months from now makes you remember the afternoon you decided to stop waiting for somebody else to make your life interesting.
That’s worth twenty dollars.
TAKE YOURSELF TO LUNCH
Here’s where some people panic.
A table for one.
Relax.
Nobody is looking at you.
And if they are, let them wonder.
Ask for the table you want.
Order what you actually want.
Don’t stare at your phone through the entire meal.
Taste the food.
Look around.
Take your time.
There is tremendous freedom in discovering that your own company is enough to have an experience.
It doesn’t mean you don’t need people.
We all need people.
It means companionship becomes something you choose, rather than something you require before you’re allowed to live.
NOW DO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING
We have become suspicious of empty space.
If there is an hour between lunch and the next activity, we reach for the phone.
Don’t.
Find a park.
Central Park.
Riverside Park.
Morningside Park.
Marcus Garvey Park.
Prospect Park.
Sit.
Watch the city.
Let an hour belong to nobody.
This may be the most luxurious part of the date.
LISTEN TO SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL
Now we’re getting dressed again.
Tonight deserves music.
Maybe it’s Groupmuse, with musicians performing close enough that you can watch them breathe between phrases.
Maybe it’s Harlem Collective Opera.
Maybe it’s the Harlem Chamber Orchestra.
Maybe it’s jazz.
Maybe it’s somebody playing in a room you’ve never entered before.
Maybe it’s an artist whose name means absolutely nothing to you.
Go anyway.
You don’t have to know the composer.
You don’t need to recognize the piece.
You don’t need to understand the rules.
Sit down.
Listen.
Let somebody make something beautiful in front of you.
HAVE A DRINK SOMEWHERE WITH A VIEW
There are nights when the skyline deserves to be included in the conversation.
Go upstairs.
Find a rooftop.
Find a beautiful hotel bar.
Find somewhere with windows.
Order something.
Then look outside.
People travel thousands of miles for this view.
If you live here, occasionally remember to appreciate it.
OR DON’T GO HOME
Here’s an idea New Yorkers almost never give themselves permission to consider.
Stay in your own city.
Book the room.
Turn your phone off.
Check into The George Manhattan.
Spend the weekend in Harlem.
Go to dinner.
See a performance.
Sleep somewhere different.
Wake up and walk through a neighborhood you thought you already knew.
You don’t need an airline ticket to travel.
Sometimes distance is psychological.
A night away from your routine can feel farther than a thousand miles.
IF YOU’RE IN A RELATIONSHIP, THIS STILL APPLIES
Being partnered doesn’t automatically make life romantic.
You can love someone deeply and still fall into routine.
Same restaurant.
Same television show.
Same Saturday.
Same conversations about what needs to get done.
So date your city together.
Take turns planning.
One person chooses the neighborhood.
The other chooses dinner.
Neither person is allowed to say, “Whatever you want.”
Curiosity is attractive.
Use it.
Ask each other questions you stopped asking because you assumed you already knew the answers.
Walk somewhere.
Hold hands.
Get dressed.
Stay out too late.
Remember who you were before the grocery list became a recurring topic of conversation.
IF YOU’RE SINGLE, STOP WAITING
This may be the most important part.
Your life is not the waiting room before a relationship begins.
Read that again.
You do not need to postpone restaurants, travel, concerts, museums, beautiful hotels, flowers, good wine, adventures, or Saturday afternoons until another person arrives.
Romance is larger than romantic partnership.
Romance is attention.
It is noticing.
It is anticipation.
It is deciding something matters enough to make an occasion of it.
Give some of that attention to your own life.
DATE THE BOROUGH YOU NEVER VISIT
New Yorkers are territorial.
We say things like:
“That’s too far.”
Usually about somewhere 42 minutes away.
Meanwhile, we’ll fly six hours to walk around another city.
Go to Queens.
Spend the day in Brooklyn.
Take the ferry to Staten Island.
Explore the Bronx.
Come uptown to Harlem.
Cross a bridge.
Take a ferry.
Use your MetroCard like a passport.
New York contains worlds.
Visit one.
THE BEST DATE MAY BE THE ONE THAT GOES WRONG
The restaurant is full.
It rains.
The gallery closed early.
The train stops running.
Your carefully constructed itinerary collapses by 4:15.
Good.
Now you’re in New York.
Turn the corner.
Find somewhere else.
Go inside.
Change the plan.
Some of your favorite memories probably began with something not happening the way you expected.
Leave room for that.
FALL IN LOVE WITH WHERE YOUR LIFE IS HAPPENING
There is a dangerous fantasy that life is happening somewhere else.
Another city.
Another job.
Another income bracket.
Another relationship.
Another version of ourselves.
And perhaps some changes really do need to happen.
But while you’re working toward them, this life is still happening.
Today counts.
This afternoon counts.
This Tuesday night counts.
You are not practicing for your real life.
This is it.
So take the walk.
Make the reservation.
Wear the outfit.
Buy the flowers.
Hear the music.
Go to the museum.
Sit beside the river.
Check into the hotel.
Cross the bridge.
Eat dessert.
Stay out late.
Come home tired.
Wake up with somewhere new in your memory.
Maybe you’ll fall in love with New York again.
Maybe you’ll fall in love with someone else.
But somewhere along the way, you might discover something even more important.
You became interested in your own life again.
And that may be the best date you’ve had in years.
QUESTION OF THE DAY
If you were taking yourself on the perfect date in New York, where would you go?
Breakfast?
A museum?
A bookstore?
Dinner?
A concert?
A walk through Harlem?
Drinks overlooking Manhattan?
A hotel staycation?
Or somewhere nobody else seems to know about?
Tell us your perfect New York date.
Someone reading your answer may steal the idea.
STAY IN THE MOOD
Stop waiting for something interesting to happen.
Go find it.
Let Mood Magazine NYC be your cultural concierge to New York, helping you discover where to eat, stay, wander, listen, think, celebrate, and occasionally disappear for the weekend.
Listen to WHRL Mood Radio and give your day a soundtrack filled with music, culture, conversation, and stories from Harlem to the world.
Watch Mood Television for original programming, interviews, performances, and conversations with people shaping our culture.
Experience the arts through Harlem Collective Opera, Harlem Boys Choir, and Harlem Chamber Orchestra.
Discover intimate live music through our partnership with Groupmuse.
Turn a night in Harlem into a weekend through our hospitality partnership with The George Manhattan.
Take yourself somewhere.
Take somebody you love.
Discover somewhere new.
And whatever you do, stop postponing the life you keep saying you want to live.
Read. Listen. Watch. Experience. Go.
Live Your Mood.
Mood Magazine NYC
Mind. Body. Spirit. Culture. Harlem to the World.
