nimh wrote:kickycan wrote:I watched a really dumb movie (which I enjoyed immensely), then I went for a walk around midnight. At the stroke of midnight I was at the Plaza hotel. I walked back home up Fifth avenue along central park as the fireworks went off in the park near me. Pretty cool.
Early in the night, I was thinking, "screw it, I'm alone on New Year's Eve--I'm going to get drunk by myself and wallow in self-pity!" But, I didn't drink at all, which is good. I'm sure it would have been a suck-ass night if I had gotten drunk alone.
Have you got people walking around or drinking on their own on NYE there? It's such a group thing here, I didnt see anyone on their own out on the street (I mean after the half hour of fireworks or something). I think it would really kinda take guts to go out to some pub or club by your own at/after midnight (specially since you dont get in anywhere without expensive ticket, & all the good places are sold out in advance too).
I ended up going dancing last year after I'd spent walking round town with a friend an hour or two and she'd gone home to bed - but by then it was four something, so nobody really noticed anymore. But still I musta been pretty much the only one.
Perhaps its a mindset tho. I remember I was out on my own all night one night, eh - (god) - twelve years ago? My then-gf and I were gonna meet up in either Place 1 or Place 2 after midnight (back then you just lined up outside, no presale), and of course she ended up at Place 1 and me at Place 2, but we still both had a great night. Both got hit on by a girl as well, funnily enough. So back then it worked fine ... huh (dunno).
I guess in NY (or Amsterdam or something) you get lots of foreigners and visitors tho, out there for business or just holidays, so that already must make it different ...
New York is filled with people walking around, alone and in groups, almost all the time. You are right that last night there were a lot more groups and couples, but that's NYE. I did feel a little bit self-conscious about being by myself though at certain times, especially when I got to the Plaza Hotel and the crowd that was gathered there, but that was only because I figured the police might mark me as a suspicious character, just because I was alone. A few years ago, that might have just been paranoia, but with the way things are in NY now, I don't think it's much of a stretch. I started to feel a little bit like Travis Bickle in "Taxi Driver."
But as for the everyday regular people walking around, usually nobody pays any special attention to anybody else in New York; probably because everyday you see such a diversity of people here that you get used to it, and one guy walking alone is not different enough to get anyone's attention. You see tourists, businessmen, crackheads, religious nuts, people from all four corners of the globe, and if you listen, you can probably hear at least three or four different languages being spoken just on one subway ride. So no, I didn't really feel self-conscious about whether people were noticing me, the quiet loner walking around on New Year's Eve.
