Forget, the Rankin-Bass puppets and Mickey Mouse direct-to-video Christmas flicks, the greatest way to spread Christmas cheer for all to hear is to watch tinseled rom-coms… Or Elf since I kind of walked into that one.

Rom-coms are a curious choice though seeing as holiday-seasonal depression is certainly real for singles. I may or may not have PTSD from spending the holidays last year not getting texts back from guys as I rubbed salt in the wound by listening to Ariana Grande’s Christmas and Chill EP, only to numb that pain by binge watching Jessica Jones on Netflix.

So, why is it that we go running back to Love Actually each year to force ourselves on that roller coaster that sobers us with the image of that guy holding up love proclamations outside Keira Knightley’s door while we sit on the couch in our PJs dunking our mothers’ cookies into some 2 percent milk?

There is some actual validity to the dual between this British ensemble romp and The Holiday. Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz are actually therapeutically exercising self-care. Plus, Jude Law with hair and Jack Black being a far more realistic standard for the man we want and deserve are just icing on the gingerbread house.

And yet, my family’s Christmas movie tradition is neither. Instead, each year we gather to watch the underrated comedy masterpiece that is The Family Stone. Sarah Jessica Parker plays the girlfriend that gets taken home to meet the family for a festive stay that includes, but is not limited to disastrous rounds of charades, tearful support of the gays, cheating, and space cakes.

But despite SJP rightfully getting a Golden Globe nod for her work here, I prefer Rachel McAdams as the bitchy perspective sister-in-law Amy. Amy lives in Boston and is a bitter singleton who throws cold-hearted, resentful shade through gritted teeth. I relate. #AmySolidarity

I totally get where she’s coming from in her mistletoe-less misery. The holidays truly used to be the most wonderful time of the year for me until I got old enough to bring home a significant other with whom I could squeeze the hand of while dodging bullets from extended family members’ snide comments. Alas, I have yet to have one candidate eligible, or willing enough, to participate. Instead, I’m the reason the hostess is told an odd number for our party when we go out to eat as a family. Chicken tenders and a double Jack and Coke, please.

It is depressing and I am already scheming for which blood-and-guts television drama will be splattered across my parents’ plasma in order to get through it all. But in the meantime, it would seem the island of Manhattan might just be an almost-safe space for singles during the haul between Thanksgiving and January.

One of those zones within the zone would of course have to be the gay leather bar mecca The Eagle, located deep in Chelsea where your best mode of transportation home would be one of the yellow cabs lined up out front. Ideally, they beckon to the patrons and their one-night-stands who stumble in a tow that was convinced because of sad fellow patrons’ offering to pay the cab fair in an effort to get laid that night.

Inside though are two, three including the seasonal rooftop, floors of the dive bar aesthetic on testosterone and steroids. Beer is nearly the universal beverage within these walls lined with photos of BDSM/kink title holders, TVs playing jock and chamber porn, license plates from the Midwest, and Harley memorabilia. It’s an obvious escape for gay and discrete men looking to drown their sorrows and set their bodies on cruise control; so obvious that perhaps it reaches a fault where men slump their way east to the 1 train in defeat, rats threateningly crossing their paths between Ninth and Tenth Avenues. Hopefully the poolroom and restrooms at least present some pleasure for them.

When even multi-level, dungeon-like gay bars fail to make you forget that, honey, you are actually alone, the city itself supplies so much solidarity. Ironically, the MTA isn’t the only thing in transit in New York; New Yorkers themselves are as well. Sure, we’re surrounded by hoards of families in full tourist force. But so many of us hail from different places, uprooted from our families and transplanted here together in a town with more opportunities than any warm and cozy one horse town sung about in a 2000’s Taylor Swift album.

Instead we have the bartender at our neighborhood haunt, the barista at our preferred Starbucks that has an acceptable amount of electrical outlets, and random Duane Reade cashiers. Recently that final one caught my distress as I sighed about just how loneliness can harshen during the holidays. She understood and I will never forget her for that.

Really, all I had to do was wade my way through the crowd of families swarming the outside of Radio City Music Hall in order to be grateful for not being pulled in so many directions by a singular unit of good-intended love. I callously thought about how many of these people complained on their way here via train, plane, or UFO that they wouldn’t be able to sit next to a significant other. I, for one, am glad I can bypass this stress by being a party of one who messes up Noah’s Ark pairings.

I mean, by going alone, I was able to get a better seat to Mariah Carey’s Christmas show at the Beacon Theatre. It was a festive evening of hearing “We Belong Together” and “O Holy Night” tied together with a cleavage-overflowing red leotard, complete with train. As the Elusive Chanteuse herself would brag, it was a pow moment.

After sitting next to a middle-aged gay couple at the show, I headed back up to West Harlem for a burger at my neighborhood bar. Once there, I was seated two stools down from a gentleman of 28 who, as per the bartender’s knowledge, had been there gulping IPAs since at least 6:00 p.m. that evening. Now at 11:00 p.m., he was stumbling and complaining about, of course, an ex.

Hazily catching sight of my Charlie Brown sweater, he asked me if I had been to a Christmas party earlier. I replied with equal parts pride and shame that, no, just a Mariah Carey concert. He then spiraled into indie-cornered pop cultural references— given my own more mainstream interests. In order to ward him off, I told him that I knew Sutton Foster from TV’s Younger, not Broadway, and that I preferred Audrey over Katharine Hepburn. Worked like a charm.

As scrooge-y and peeved as this all may sound, seeing the candy-coated light show, with its almost intensely foreboding soundtrack of urgency, on Saks Fifth Avenue’s façade actually did make me stop and gape as I filmed for my Snapchat story. Even when flying solo in New York, one can stand in a crowd of couples, families, and fellow singletons, and somehow all loneliness melts away. And for the moments where we aren’t numbed into festivities and being less aware, there’s nothing wrong with taking couple photos with a friend over cosmos or being a twentysomething who drops a letter to Santa in the mailbox at Macy’s. I asked for job stability.

And then, just like that the days between Thanksgiving and Christmas blew away and I was back in West Virginia sitting at the end of a table, the odd non-coupled man out. But I knew what was coming next in the Christmas prep: The Family Stone, and #AmySolidarity.

Edited by Demi Vitkute

The post Holiday Blues while Single in New York City appeared first on The Urban Watch Magazine.

So far we’ve gone south quite a few times: New Orleans witches for Coven, a murderous clown in Florida for Freak Show, and now a North Carolina transplant couple being faced with the reckoning of a spectral colony in Roanoke. The second season’s Asylum admitted us to a Massachusetts mental health facility. And, of course, Los Angeles was the backdrop for not one, but two seasons when we moved into Murder House and checked into Hotel. Ugh, #EastCoastBeastCoast, anyone? Yeah, let’s make that a trending topic.

Because I am an adopted New Yorker, and because I’m sick of Murphy staying in his LA backyard, I couldn’t help but wonder what a Manhattan-set edition of AHS would be like. Because of this season’s excellent execution of the real-life Roanoke Colony’s disappearence, the showrunners could pull from plenty of NYC’s haunted past and dark secrets for inspiration and I’ve decided to compile some suggestions…

The Dakota, Upper West Side

Sure, the posh and prestigious co-op building would have some parallels to Hotel. But perhaps the historic Central Park West residence, which was also the setting for the 1968 horror film Rosemary’s Baby, could be connected back to Lady Gaga’s Countess character from season five. After all, she did make mention of having lived in NYC for some time. While there, she could have lived in the storied building and had some run-ins with John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

Of course, Lennon was shot and killed by a fan outside the Dakota in 1980. At the time, he was living there with Ono, who has since reported seeing the Beatle’s ghost sitting at his white piano. He reassured her, “Don’t be afraid. I am still with you.”

But even before his death, Lennon was very much part of the Dakota’s ghostly lore. He was one of many to claim to have seen a spirit that has come to be known as the Crying Lady Ghost. It’s believed that she’s the ghost of former manager Elise Vesley. She was a believer in the supernatural herself and experienced the tragedy of her son getting hit and killed by a truck right outside the building. Add this to the apparition of a little girl that greets residents and Murphy has got himself the perfect menagerie for a full season’s worth of spookiness.

84 and 85 West Third Street, Greenwich Village

Let’s face it, between his birth in Boston and death in Baltimore, more places claim Edgar Allan Poe as their own than Abraham Lincoln. But the American gothic writer did call Gotham home for a bit, too. 85 West Third Street, now NYU’s Furman Hall, was Poe’s humble abode while he penned parts of his poem “The Raven.” Although all that remains of the original house is a banister, Poe has been seen by students climbing the accompanying stairs.

But Poe has otherworldly neighbors, too. Actually, Anderson Cooper now lives at 84 West Third Street and is very much alive. But before the CNN superstar anchor moved in, the building was a fire patrol station. In 1930, a Firefighter Scwartz hanged himself from the ceiling. His apparition has been seen hanging in his final state… American Horror Story: College, with special guest star Anderson Cooper, anybody?

St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery, East Village

Would St Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery really be Manhattan’s second oldest church without at least one ghost? Not only is the church built on the former farmland of Dutch colonial governor Peter Stuyvesant, his remains are also buried in the churchyard. All of this adds up to peg-legged Stuyvesant’s ghost disturbing the peace as he’s been known to ring bells and disrupt church services. Oh, and don’t forget his singing hymns in Dutch for all to hear. Maybe musical numbers didn’t go over so well on Freak Show, but I don’t see Stuyvesant making it on The Voice so let’s give him a musical season of AHS.

The House of Death, Greenwich Village

I don’t know about you, but the ghosts of 14 West Tenth Street are feeling 22. Or at least that’s how many supposedly haunt the townhouse. One of them is yet another historical figure, writer Mark Twain.

But more gruesomely, the house is the site where attorney Joel Steinberg beat his six year-old, illegally adopted daughter, Lisa into being brain dead and eventually physically dead. When Lisa was fond unconscious, another baby was discovered covered in filth and tied up to a playpen. That baby survived, but the horrific history of the townhouse remains.

12 Gay Street, West Village

Apparently Manhattan ghosts prefer townhouses over apartments. But this West Village site has scarier elements than its creaking floorboards.

During the Prohibition Era, the picturesque townhouse was actually a speakeasy called the Pirate’s End, as if the establishment foreshadowed its own haunted future. A specter wearing a top hat has been seen in the windows and many believe it to be the ghost of former NYC mayor Jimmy Walker, who used to live in the house. But Howdy Doody puppet designer Frank Paris also called the now haunted house home so it could be him, too. Regardless, AHS has proven a penchant for men in top hats: see the voodoo gatekeeper of the spirit world Papa Legba in Coven and the ghost of real-life man-with-two-faces Edward Mordrake in Freak Show

The Morris-Jumel Mansion, Washington Heights

This Washington Heights mansion has plenty of historical significance, even housing George Washington for a bit after the Battle of Brooklyn. But the real eeriness surrounds Eliza Jumel, the widow of Stephen Jumel. After Stephen died under mysterious circumstances, Eliza went on to marry none other than Aaron Burr, the former vice president who killed Alexander Hamilton. Rumor has it, Eliza still haunts the mansion so beware… Especially if you’re in a group of school kids, whom she’s been known to scold to quiet down.

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I just graduated from Emerson College in Boston. Emerson is so liberal and LGBT-friendly that it has a half-joking, unofficial slogan of, “Gay by May or your money back.” With that being said, there was a wide variety of gay men to choose from. I just wrote that as if I actually took advantage and dated within the Emerson community while there. I didn’t.

New York is supposed to provide an even larger pool of gay men, scurrying between Westside bars on any given Friday or Saturday night. A new episode of Scream Queens is reason enough for us all to congregate and scream YAASS! in unison on a Tuesday night. These are social events in safety zones where we can be who we want to be. Actually, a man could wear a dress through the middle of Harlem and no one would raise an eyebrow nowadays.

For some, these streets and bars are far safer spaces than their own homes– especially if they’re still living with their parents. One would think I could sidestep this by pulling up a barstool and finding fellow cocktail enthusiasts for dates. But no, I have to go on the internet so I can find project men who just want to gulp a good ole IPA.

Once upon a time a guy named Lance and I matched with the magic of mutual right swipes on Tinder. The utter romanticism of it all started with flat messages to each other while I stood in line for three hours on Bowery to acquire access to the Drake pop-up shop and a sunburn. He would punctuate messages with the zest of, “Thanks, man.” Talk dirty to me.

I screenshotted his Tinder profile and sent it to a girlfriend: 27 years old, St. John’s grad, 6’0, and a cosmopolitan balance of Venetian vacay shots and shirtless bathroom selfies. Find you a man who can do both.

Not much gets past my sleuthing gal pal as she pointed out, “26 miles away?!”

Yup, Lance lived on Long Island.

Now, Manhattanites catch a lot of flack for not being open to dating off of our little island of perfection, the very axis on which the entire universe revolves. We may have to pay double for it, but we don’t even need to leave for Olive Garden! Of course, exceptions can be made for some Brooklyn exploring: a night of industrial pub-hopping with hipsters in Williamsburg here or a concert at Barclays Center there. Otherwise, no dates from Long Island, Jersey, Westchester, or… shiver… Connecticut.

Once I rode over the George Washington Bridge from my Harlem abode for dinner, a movie, and dessert with a guy, who paid for everything. That was worth it. But it isn’t always worth it. Part of why we don’t date outside of Manhattan is because we don’t want to go all that way to be disappointed and we would feel bad if they traveled for us.

So, Lance decided he would visit me in Manhattan: score. But other than strolling around Central Park, he seemed like he was at a loss for other things do in the city… Said the guy from a Long Island suburb. Museums! Bars! Restaurants! Shows! Tourist traps! All in Manhattan! But meeting in Central Park it was.

I sat on a park bench near the southwest entrance on a sunny August afternoon. I was numb off of mimosas since this was post-brunch on a Sunday. Lance kept giving me updates as to just how horrendously late he was going to be. An hour and a half later, we met.

He was hot in person, just under my height and his nose wasn’t as big as his unflattering selfie angles suggested. His normcore, monochromatic grey t-shirt and shorts pairing was a sexy kind of lazy. I liked him!

Conversation was a little stiff as we talked about his stable office job and I tried to explain to him what it’s like feeling like the floor is about to fall through a freelance writer and television production assistant. He had a lot of questions regarding moving to a place in the city, seeing as he was trying to escape living at home with his parents.

“How do you move all your stuff?”

“Umm… Packing light and multiple Uber and subway trips.”

We were getting really personal, guys. So much so that he wanted to have dinner over at AG Kitchen on Upper West Side. Actually, he was just hungry and I needed a cocktail to get me through this. After all, I was physically attracted to him. He was just nervous and dull.

He ordered a burger. I ordered chips and guac with a Manhattan. He even tensed up over my drink order upon finding out the whiskey and vermouth contents of it.

Then, as the server was collecting our menus, it hit me. It was an impulsive question and one that just shot right out of my mouth, impaling him to the back of the booth, unable to escape.

“Are you out to your parents?”

Blind-sided, but not missing a beat, he replied with a blunt no. He asked me the same and I repressed an eye roll to compliment my “Of course.”

“They’ve known since I was a child,” I easily explained.

“How? I don’t get how people can say that,” he exclaimed, frustrated.

“I liked Little Mermaid and they took me to my first Lady Gaga concert when I was 16,” I shrugged.

I deflected the tension by making him try a sip of my Manhattan. He couldn’t handle its strength.

In an effort to charge his phone, we next sat at a Dunkin’ Donuts and sipped coffee. At my suggestion of him charging it at my place he froze. Finally, I asked him just why he had swiped right. He said I have nice eyes. I then asked him his type. He said “athletic and masculine.” Ah, of course, and so goes the ideologies of a closeted gay man. #masc #DL

I expressed my wanting to go on a movie date with a guy, objectively. He said he’d be willing to do that as a second date, even suggesting Suicide Squad, a piece of cinematic excellence loathed by many, appreciated by me. I kissed him on the cheek and he returned to Long Island, never to speak to me in person again.

I wasn’t too bothered by it. After all, being closeted is a deal breaker for me. I’ve worked all my life, and have been out since 17, to live comfortably with my sexuality. I expect the same in a partner. Plus, Long Island. Ugh.

But Lance would still Snapchat or text me on occasion on Fridays, with always the same message, “Happy Friday.”

Whenever I would press him about when the movie date was going to happen, he would just respond with, “haha.”

I finally made the mature, millennial decision to delete him on Snapchat. I don’t keep guys from apps on there seeing as my uses of the dog filter and face swap features are my social media at its most intimate. Tell him, “Boy, bye.”

Then, a few weeks after no communication, he texted me, “Hey, Cooper.” I tensed up, but shot the breeze with him. Then, the next morning, I decided to beat him to the punch and apologize for deleting him on Snapchat.

He hadn’t even noticed. Did he not wonder where all of my flawless, first-attempt selfies had gone?! Anyways, I explained I had assumed he didn’t want to see me again and then proceeded to re-add him.

We still haven’t seen each other again. We don’t really talk. But then, out of the blue, about a week ago, on a chilly, fall Saturday night, he texted me from out of the blue that his dog had been diagnosed with a terminal cancer and given weeks to live.

Over the next couple days, I got Snapchats of the adorable Bichon. He told me the pup said hi. I told him to let me know if he needed anything. His response?

“Thanks, man.”

Edited by Brianna Arrighi

The post OUT in Manhattan: Straight Up or With a Twist? appeared first on The Urban Watch Magazine.