Social Interaction with Other People - Cupcake Gives it a Thumbs Up!

Some background will be necessary for today's post. Prior to moving into the Prospect Heights Neighborhood, I joined Daily Heights, an online website devoted to that community. It's a place to go to get the news in the hood, local crime stats, classifieds, apartment listings, and so on, but the big draw is the message boards where neighbors go to discuss such fascinating topics as, "What's that smell?", "Did anyone lose a cat?", "Did they catch that guy who was jerking off on the subway?", "I could kick your ass at air hockey", and "Seriously, Dude, what's that smell?". Needless to say, it has become a big part of my day.

So last night, people were getting together for an impromptu meet-up at a local bar. Now, I don't know anyone in my new neighborhood. Granted I just moved one neighborhood over, so theoretically I could go and visit my friends in Park Slope anytime, but we all know how lazy I am. Besides, it's nice to see familiar faces on your street, and bump into friends as you're waiting for your washing machine to finish a cycle, and so I was starting to dig the idea of having friends right here in Prospect Heights. And besides, I actually like meeting new people, which explains my sometimes aggressive party behavior. I think it's the writer in me, I like hearing new stories and meeting new characters. You know my motto, it's all narrative fodder, baby. So I decided to go out and meet the locals.

Now, let's think about this. Essentially what this means is that I decided to go to a bar where I would not know anyone, find a group of people of whom I had never seen a single one before, and be able to identify myself and the others only by our stupid made-up blog names. Good thinking. So I got there about half an hour after the night started and I just planned on finding the large group of people, but when I arrived at the bar there was no large group of people, just many small groups of people. Shit. I contemplating the humiliation potential of walking up to small groups of strangers and asking, "Are you one of them?" when I was rescued by a kind looking guy who asked "Are you from Daily Heights?"

"Yes," I said, relieved but noticing that the current group consisted of three people.

"I'm SterlingGuy," he said. "What's your name? Your blog name."

"I'm uh, wow, okay, if I ever knew that someday I would actually have to introduce myself like this I'm not sure I would ever have started this whole crazy thing but, um, I'm Cupcake." And introductions all around. By the end of the night, it was rolling off my tongue and I no longer cared that introducing myself as "Cupcake" made me feel like a Drage Queen. "Hi, I'm Cupcake!"

"Oh, Cupcake, sorry, I've forgotten your real name..."

"Whatever! Cupcake is fine!"

It turns out, two of the people I was sitting with were Wesleyan and Mount Holyoke graduates although they were about ten years older than me. They were very cool as was Mrs. SterlingGuy and we were chatting and laughing and they seemed rather impressed, or perhaps politely terrified about my body of knowledge regarding cupcakes in the city. They encouraged me to talk about my personal life and I'm pretty sure, after getting some things off my chest I shouted "You guys are my best friends! I've forgotten all of your actual names, but can we do this every week?" You may think that's embarrassing, but for a person whose typical party gaffe is something like, "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize he was your boyfriend since he is so obviously a homosexual," I was doing rather well.

Soon we realized that more of us were in the bar and just failing to recognize each other for the reasons stated above, namely, no one knew what anyone looked like and we were too embarrassed to ask but finally we got it together and had a nice little circle of ten or so people. I met Candicissima, who is Wes '03 and was editor of the Yearbook. I asked her if she knew TheGoldStandard. "I think so," she said. "Was he a Deke (sp?)?"
"I don't know what that is," I said.
"It's a Fraternity."
"Okay, I can't be a 100% certain, but I'm leaning towards a big no." I described him.
"Oh yeah. Is he kind of preppy?"
" Um, I guess so."

Turns out, she knows TheGoldStandard and all the Wes kids I met at the karaoke party from a few classes but mostly through a good friend of hers named Aaron, who she wants to set me up with. I don't know anything about him, but he meets my criteria for a set up.

"Is he single?"
"Yes."
"Is he straight?"
"Yes. Why would I set you up with him if he wasn't single and straight?"
"Girl, please, you have no idea the kind of luck I have."

I left around 11:30pm with the following take homes:
1. Met some very cool people
2. Met some young people my age
3. Might babysit for Medusa?
4. Might get set up by Candicissima

And of course on the Message Board today I somehow found myself volunteering to coordinate a neighborhood wide Bake-Off this Fall. Because my name is Cupcake and I am 100% woman.