NYC: Fittest city on Earth?

Do you see what I've done there?
New York continued its charm offensive, today.

Coming out of Sean's place I was greeted with blue skies dappled with the occasional fluffy cloud, and 29 degrees tempered by a soft breeze. I ambled down the street and headed into Dunkin' Donuts for breakfast. Purely for the cultural immersion, you understand. It's an American institution, right?! A cup of coffee and two donuts later (Vanilla Surprise, and Brownstone Creme), and I was on my way. Destination?

Central Park.

Try and spot the non-athlete
Here is where NY really begins to shine in comparison to other cities. The Park is clean, and unfouled by man or beast. There are thousands of people running, cycling, skateboarding, and rollerblading around the curved avenues that cut figures of eight. I even saw a couple of folk running while pushing their kid's pram. And they're doing it regularly, not just on nice summer days, because they look HEALTHY. Let's face it, globally the USA has the reputation of leading the world in the obesity/consumption stakes. That's unfair on NYC. In the developed world, I can't think of many places where people look in such good shape. Can you recall many people jogging around Hyde Park in London? I can't.

Breakdancing's just excercise for the hip kids
The knock-on effect of this is that everyone looks pretty good when they show some skin. Yep, sunbathing is another popular activity in Central Park. God bless America! A few places to swim would be nice, but you can't have everything.

All I Really Want is Girls
Another observation: every other person is reading the new Harry Potter book. On the subway, on benches, on the grass, on the sidewalk. I can't imagine this magnitude of readers is occuring anywhere else. Anyone got any hard data from other cities? Not only does this lend to a weird but encompassing atmosphere that allows strangers to converse about magical happenings, it also means that all these people must've read all the previous books too. That's a substantial amount of reading, and can only be helping to make NY one of the most literate (in the loosest sense of the word) places in the world. Perhaps this series of books will, when viewed in hindsight, be seen as a turning point away from lazier forms of entertainment such as television and video games. We can only hope so.

And Harry woke up. THE END.
Yesterday, Sean and I were comparing notes on our online dating lives. One aspect of this that we'd both experienced was the qualitative difference between meeting someone online (I mean through pics and email/IM exchanges) and meeting them offline. It's probably fair to say that no matter how many words you write, how many pictures you send, while the relationship remains online, you cannot replicate the experience of meeting face-to-face. There's something very visceral about who we choose to like in a romantic way. All kinds of channels of information such as the myriad aspects of speech (tone, delivery, register), body-language, smell, behavior etc which get lost when online can be decisive in determining who we like and who we don't like. The interesting question is: do these instinctive reactions matter?

Hoops: Fun Game or Mating Strategy?
Let's say you meet someone online and you get on well. A couple of weeks later you meet up. You get on fine, having good conversation, laughs, and finding shared values. However, in your heart you know this person isn't the one you would've approached in a bar -- purely from a physical POV. Can you get over this? I hoped it was possible, but in my experience things only get harder and not easier if you persist. When someone asks if you think them beautiful do you bullshit them or be honest? I like to think we're able to overcome our biological tendencies -- or, more precisely, that we must overcome our biological drives if we want to be happy in the long term. Otherwise, we're on a path to sleeping around, salivating over younger, healthier potential partners, and lying about, or exagerrating, our own qualities. I don't want to be a cynic, but is love just biology in disguise?

Shopping on Fifth Avenue under God's Eye