There are, if you’ve lived in New York long enough and have made a number of friends, but really they’re the majority of them acquaintances, those for whom you would always choose to cross the street to say “hello” to if you spot them and those that, for whatever reason or mood or judgment call made in the moment, you choose to ignore, hoping that they didn’t see you, at the very least didn’t see you see them. But when you notice someone for whom you’d cross the street apply the studied ignorance routine to your existence, it tends to topple the relationship pyramid you’ve constructed in your mind and disorder your sense of place; it can send you into paroxysms of self-doubt, and so immediately you begin to over-examine the particulars of that relationship, and to have that terrible feeling of the shoe and its snug fit on the other foot.

(This perception is probably why I need to move back to a place where the preferred mode of conveyance is a car.  No one cares in cars.)