Or the time I went to a classy gay bar with my classy gay friends, and got hit on for two solid hours. Including one lovely and sassy Asian man who kept imploring me to "ditch the bitch, and switch." (My ex-wife did not find that amusing. At all.) Gay men are awesome for your self-esteem.
But there were some things about life in the Big Apple that just made zero sense to me, and this is one of those stories. And so, here is the next chapter in my memoir Making Sh*t Up: An Improvised Life. I miss you, New York. Let's get together soon.
Chapter Seventeen
New York (Second Interlude)
Every place in the world has its
weird cultural thing (or things), and New York has one that, often as I had
visited, I never knew about until I moved there. Most parts of the world I’ve been to, when
people meet you for the first time they want to know two things: where ya from,
and what do you do for a living? Upon my arrival in New York I found a third
question almost always followed the first two.
Who’s your therapist?
No shit. I could not count on fingers and toes how many times I was
asked that question during my first month living in New York. Every time I was
introduced to someone new in my expanding professional or personal circles, I
got asked that. Who’s your therapist? The
way somebody would ask what I gym I worked out in, or whether I preferred
boxers or briefs. And every time I responded that I didn’t have a therapist, I got this by way of reply:
“Oh. Okay.”
I quickly learned that, in New
York, “Oh. Okay,” is the Northern
counterpart to “Bless your heart.” It
started to get awkward. I began to have anxiety. And so, about a month after
settling into my apartment in New York, I was convinced I needed therapy.
I’d had counseling before
that. Never as a teenager, when I really could have used it. After I got
married and successful (a relative term) in television, I thought it might be a
good idea to once and for all put my troubled family history in front of my
adult eyes and deal with it, under the supervision of someone who was supposed
to be qualified and helpful in navigating such treacherous emotional waters.
Now: before I piss off every professional counselor and therapist in the
universe – including some very cherished friends – let me state, for the
record, that I do not believe that all therapists,
counselors, psychiatrists and psychologists are overpaid, overeducated
intellectual and character snobs, with way more degrees and superiority complexes than common fucking sense. Just the ones I worked with. Okay?
I’m told that, in order for
therapy to be successful, you have to be open
to it. Maybe that had been my problem back in Texas; I wasn’t open to it. I had two or three counselor
types before moving to New York, and felt like they had all been a colossal
waste of time and money. I’d had drill sergeants that were better at
understanding people, and they didn’t charge me $115 an hour. After a month in
New York, my fear (which I developed in the course of making new friends who
were New Yorkers) was that living in the city would, in short order, drive one
bat-shit crazy unless one had a competent therapist to act as a bulwark against
the daily tide of shit and misery that was (supposedly) part and parcel of
living in New York City.
So I got an appointment with a
therapist, based on a recommendation from one of my agents in the city. I
decided to be as open-minded and truthful as possible, which is never a bad
decision, I believe. I arrived at her office at the appointed time, shook her
hand, sat across from her in a reasonably comfortable chair, and she began.
“So, Larry. What brings you here today?”
Me: “I have no idea.”
Her: “Well, something must have motivated you to make the appointment.
Let’s talk about that.”
Me: “Okay. I’ve been living
here for a month now, and every time I meet someone new, the third question I
always get is, ‘Who’s your therapist?’ And
every time I say I haven’t got one, people look at me kind of queer and say, ‘Oh.
Okay,’ which sounds a lot to my ear like ‘Bless
your heart,’ which is really a Texas
Christian’s way of saying, ‘You poor fucking bastard. Better you than me.’ So I figured I better get a therapist, so I
can at least stop making the natives so uncomfortable when they ask me that
question.”
Her (long pause): “Um, okay. (another pause) Was there, maybe, any other
reason you made an appointment with a licensed professional therapist today?
Me: “I guess I could regale you with my dad’s suicide when I was
thirteen, and my mother’s ongoing alcoholism. I’m a pretty frequent masturbator
– not, like, in public, or anything, but I do jack off a lot. None of that
really is why I’m here today, though. Truth is, I now believe that some of my
New York friends collect and try out therapists the way other people do wine,
or Scotch, or cigars or jewelry. Seems like a status thing to me. Not that they
don’t get any real emotional benefit from it, mind you. At least, I’m sure some
of them do. It’s just that I don’t think I need a therapist just because some
people find it awkward – or even downright strange – that I don’t have one.
Because I don’t really give a shit what people think about me. They can choose
to like me without a therapist, or they can fuck themselves.”
Her (long, thoughtful pause): “Well. Sounds like we’ve made some good
progress today.”
I swear to God she actually said that.
I did not go back to her, or
any therapist, after that day. I did, quite by coincidence, run into her a
month later on the subway. What I mean is, I saw her. And she clearly saw me.
And then she spent the next several minutes of the train ride studiously
avoiding seeing me, which was funny because I was standing right in front of
her. I don’t know if there’s some rule, written or unwritten, that therapists
are never, ever supposed to talk to clients (or former clients) outside of the
office with the reasonably comfortable chair. All I know is that she was doing
eye acrobatics to avoid looking directly in front of her. I entertained – just
for a second – the idea of opening a conversation, that would begin something
like, “Hey, Doc, it’s me! Larry! You
know, dad’s suicide / mom’s an alcoholic / raging masturbator from Texas? No?
Doesn’t ring a bell?” I managed to keep my mouth shut, and she jumped off
the train three full stops from where I knew her office was located. Maybe she
was out on errands, and she meant to get off there all along.
But I don’t think so.
Next Week, Chapter Eighteen: Boo.
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