I was walking up to Grand Central from my office after work, avoiding the 33rd street stop on the 6 to get on at 42nd and Grand Central, when I stopped at a red light and observed all these other commuters rushing to get home. Everyone is doing their own thing, on their phones, talking or texting, hurriedly rushing to get somewhere after work. Amidst all the noise, I thought about how anonymous you can really be in this city. There are so many people here that if you died, no one would really care that much. You’d probably be forgotten.

I looked on at the usual homeless guys who stand or sit around near Grand Central Station as they said the same things over and over again to people passing them by, hoping to get a few extra coins for their food or drugs or whatever it was that sustained them day to day. No one really pays them much attention. No one pays the people who walk around them on the street very much attention. And it made me feel so sad. I’ve been in this city for almost eight years now, yet I really haven’t made that many good friends here. I guess I am a lucky person in that I actually met my now-husband here; it’s hard to be single in a city like this that presents so many options and almost encourages a short attention span. New York is a really easy city to be lonely in.