CITY Issue 54

CITY LIFE THE CITY LIFE Living the Good Life in the Big City Tunnels of Love On your way into work, an attractive stranger catches your eye. So are you brave enough to strike up a conversation or will you let the opportunity walk out the closing doors? Tom Teodorczuk chats up his dream girl. LET’S PLAY THE NAME GAME: PATRICK MOBERG AND CAMILLE Hayton. Recognize them? You don’t. Okay, one was a Brooklyn illustrator, the other a magazine intern from Melbourne. Still doesn’t ring a bell? Then let’s reset the scene: It’s early November, the twentysomethings are riding in the same car on New York’s No. 5 subway, Patrick looks up, spots Camille, and, ding!, an instant crush the size of her native Australia. Twenty-first century Don Juan that he is, Patrick then heads home, draws a picture of a brunette wearing blue shorts, black leggings, and a red flower in her hair, and—of course—creates the website nygirlofmydreams.com. Cue a reunion on Good Morning America, the Gawker jeers, the interest from Hollywood. It’s a cute story and even if you think they were both immature nonentities elbowing serious personalities like Paris and Britney off the media agenda, well, as Oscar Wilde said, there’s no such thing as bad publicity. But here’s the kicker: the relationship didn’t last much longer than that four-minute segment with Diane Sawyer. How different things may have been if Moberg had actually struck up a conversation with his antipodean goddess on the train. Sure, fellow travelers not engrossed in their Sudoku or lost inside their iPods might have rolled their eyes … okay, grimaced … okay, thrown up a little bit in their mouths. And initially the conversation flow, as between any two strangers, would have been terribly awkward, but their encounter would have been considerably more natural than in the glare of the TV camera or the reporter’s notebook. It’s much more fun to meet your paramour on the subway, on the street, even at a coffee shop than in a bar, nightclub, or on some Internet site. Conventional pick-up settings dilute the randomness and delirium that falling in love should entail. I know this because I’ve been there. I met my wife on the London Underground. While waiting for a train late one Thursday spring evening, I was mesmerized by a girl who was talking to a guy. The bloke turned out to be a work colleague and luckily for me, he didn’t do the gentlemanly thing and wait for my future wife to board her train before getting on his. I’d had a few drinks and was gregariously intoxicated, not drunkenly obnoxious. We talked about family, England, and America. I invited her to a party I was throwing but she told me she would be in Germany and gave me her business card instead. Every morning I thought about calling her. Almost a fortnight later I did. We met up and here we are now, taking the No. 5 subway ourselves with our son in tow. At the time I met her, I was a London gossip columnist—if she had told me to fuck off, it wouldn’t have been all that dissimilar to working at a film premiere and receiving a brusque brush-off from Heather Graham or Paul Bettany. Three years of going to several jampacked parties a night—“a venue too far” is how we described it—and I meet my soul mate courtesy of public transportation. MEETING SOMEONE THE MUNDANE WAY THROWS UP THE LIBERATING NOTION THAT SUCCESS OR FAILURE ULTIMATELY RESTS ON YOUR SHOULDERS. Strange? Other people reckon it is but I don’t think so. I’m obviously not advocating ripping up your glittering social calendar in favor of spending Saturday nights scanning faces on the cross-town bus. But meeting the object of your affection against the humdrum backdrop of a train carriage or a grocery store provides a swift setting for evaluating whether there’s a connection. Both parties are starting with a blank canvas and neither will be burdened by the constraints of being in a social situation—it’s so much easier bonding with someone traveling from A to B than at a party surrounded by plastic posers decked out in Agnès B. So you’re good at spotting your ideal mate at social occasions waiting for your vodka-soda and can close the deal? I’m happy for you, but you’re in the minority and play the lottery while you’re at it. For the rest of us, meeting someone the mundane way throws up the liberating notion that success or failure ultimately rests squarely on your shoulders. No blaming your best friend for setting you up on a disastrous blind date with a girl who has “a good personality” or encouraging you to chat up that guy who turns out to be not a million miles away from American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman. As for the Internet, forget what the TV ads tell you: when was the last time you attended a wedding and heard the father of the bride announce, “I’d like to toast Craigslist, where Joe and Paula first met?” The online lies we regale about our appearance render Pinocchio an honest broker by comparison. So the next time you’re on the subway and you’re intrigued by someone riding solo, take out your earphones, put down your sketch pad, and talk to them. Say anything polite but do it fast before the doors open, they’ve reached their stop, and out back into the chaos they go. Still not convinced? Don’t take my word for it; watch the greatest movie of all time, Citizen Kane, and listen to Kane’s business manager Bernstein: “One day, back in 1896, I was crossing over to Jersey on the ferry, and as we pulled out, there was another ferry pulling in, and on it there was a girl waiting to get off. A white dress she had on. She was carrying a white parasol. I only saw her for one second. She didn’t see me at all, but I’ll bet a month hasn’t gone by since that I haven’t thought of that girl.” Patrick Moberg knows how he feels. 40 CI T Y P H OTO I L LU S T R AT I O N B Y A L E X A N D E R W O L F. http://nygirlofmydreams.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CITY Issue 54

CITY Issue 54 Contents Letter from CITY Our Friends Action Wanted City Moment The City Life The Amused Bouche On the Rocks Fast Food City Insider: Austin Fit How We Live: The Bedroom City Insider: Warsaw In Rogue The Value of Vintage Taking the Plunge Raising the Bar The Science of Scent Changing of the Guard The New Fashion Cities A Cut Above Chrysalis What Dreams May Come Dawn & Dusk Will o' the Wisp Where To Buy It Socials Icon

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