“ NYC, more than any place I’ve been to, seems to be an environment in which metaphorical dick sucking is a recognized and valued currency; ‘accomplishments’ determine order, ‘friendships’ are strategic, and status is as cut and dry as a corporate ladder. It’s an environment in which the people are angular and impenetrable, rather than… bloblike and permeable (seriously). There’s something both highly respectable and highly disingenuous about it all; respectable for the transparency by which it’s all played out, disingenuous for the fact that this is how it’s all played out.