Alexander, 22

Where are you from?
I'm from the Bay Area in California, forty-five minutes south of San Francisco. I moved here in August of last year. A few friends of mine came here to study jazz and I visited and it seemed like a fun place so I stayed.

What do you do here?
I don't know [laughs]. I was teaching kids from ages three to seven reading and math, but now the summer program is going on so I have to find something else to do. I guess now I'm a musician and I play in few bands. Kind of indie rock, Radiohead-like.

Does playing a guitar help you get girls?
Sometimes, depending on the context. Sometimes girls can kind of tell that you're trying to seduce them with it, so it doesn't really work. Actually, a girl just approached me and asked me if I know any Beatles songs, so I sang her one and she seemed pretty happy about it. I didn't get her number, though. I just told her to come to my show on Saturday.

How often do you play here in Washington Square Park?
This is my first time, but the other guys I'm with today do it pretty often.

What's your experience with the girls in New York so far?
Wildly unsuccessful.

Why?
I don't know. I saw a girl on the train and I thought, "She's really attractive." And that happens a lot in New York — you see someone on the train and you think he or she's really attractive, but it's not really the right context. I waited for her until she got off and I followed her and I asked her out, then walked her home.

How did you stop her? What did you say?
She got off and she was waiting on a crosswalk, facing the street, so I just tapped her on the shoulder and said, "Hey, we were just on the train together and I think you're really cute and I want to take you on a date." And it turned out that the train had gone express for few stops, so she was like maybe twenty blocks from home. I asked her whether I could walk her, and she said yeah. I called her the next week and took her out. The date was all right, but it wasn't amazing. I took her to Cake Shop, on the Lower East Side, and we saw a few rock n' roll bands. I thought it went well, we made out a bunch, but then a few days later I got a text, "Hey, I think you're a really nice guy and I had really good time. Unfortunately, I don't know if I want to go out with you again." So I was little perplexed. It's been like that for me in New York.

Have you had any one-night stands in New York?
No, not yet. The only one I've ever had was awful, so I avoid them.

Tell us about that one.
I went up to my ex's town for her graduation. We'd been broken up for a while and she actually had a new boyfriend. It was a very weird weekend, and I was pretty anxious, because I was seeing her with another guy. So she set me up with her roommate, this punky girl with short black hair and Doc Martens, who listened to metal — stuff I kind of dig. I knew she was into me, and we spent the whole night getting a little bit drunk and feeling each other out. But my ex-girlfriend and her boyfriend were there to voyeuristically look at the whole situation. I took her to her place, which was also my ex-girlfriend's place, and I had the most awkward sexual experience I've ever had.

What was so awkward about it?
She was acting like she was into it, but she wouldn't stop talking!

What was she talking about?
Herself or what I thought of her. It was very, like, "Please validate me." It was very casual, like we were at a coffee shop. And I was like, "What... we're trying to have sex!" I didn't say that, but in my head I was like, "What the fuck?" She was awful at everything. She thought she was really great at giving me a blowjob, but she was not. She clearly watched a lot of porn. You know when girls try really hard to take you all the way down their throat? She kept trying to do that, but it just hurt! She couldn't cover her teeth. It was really bad. So I just spent a really long time going down on her, because it was the only thing I could get any enjoyment out of. We didn't even get to the fucking part. I was just like, "I'm okay. I'm good." She couldn't accept that as an answer — she wanted to at least finish the blowjob.

Did she finish it?
She did. I had to try really hard to think of something that turned me on, because she didn't. Then we went downstairs and she smoked a bunch of weed. I've never seen her again.

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