<p>I'm a guy, I've lived in Manhattan several years now....and I'm lovin it.</p>
<p>Also, wall st. mostly has guys working on it...and we're all fans of NY. This city has a lot to offer for males of every type.</p>
<p>-NYU class of '00</p>
<p>yeah matt, i eventually joined myspace, still tweaking it and gotta find some good pictures...</p>
<p>Since this is about girls...I thought some might find this article interesting. Guys can have a fun time at NYU.</p>
<hr>
<p>Stern junior Shreya Patel is all too familiar with the stressful situations that promiscuous friends can create. </p>
<p>While on a two-week vacation with a group of friends in Europe, one of them, who had a boyfriend at home, spent most of the trip hooking up with random guys. Seventeen random guys, to be exact. </p>
<p>She wasn't sure if she should be angry or concerned. </p>
<p>"It was totally inconsiderate because we spent the whole vacation making sure that some foreign guy didn't rape her," she said. </p>
<p>Patel's friend is not the only one hooking up these days, it seems. Dr. Beth Paul,the College of New Jersey's psychology chair, has been studying the hooking up behavior of college students since the early '90s. She defines hooking up as a one time sexual encounter that includes anything from kissing to intercourse and occurs between acquaintances who have no plans to even speak afterward, let alone repeat the experience. </p>
<p>While Patel's friend had more partners than average in a short time span, Dr. Paul said hooking up is normal for college students.
For some NYU students, it's just simpler. </p>
<p>"Hooking up with someone you don't know is easy, because afterwards, you don't have to deal with the whole awkwardness of the situation," said CAS junior Jeff C., who declined to use his real name. </p>
<p>Most young people want the physical aspects of a relationship, but not the commitment that accompanies it, Paul said. </p>
<p>"Many of the students I talk to say that too much baggage comes along with having a significant other," she said. "At a college level kids might feel like they don't have the time to call everyday. Some even express feeling like a relationship might not make them happy." </p>
<p>CAS junior Debbie Shellmer admits she has had plenty of random hook ups, but none too serious. </p>
<p>"It's fun and it feels good," she said. "You just get caught up in the moment and can't help yourself." </p>
<p>Paul believes that young adults can't restrain themselves from hooking up because of societal norms. </p>
<p>"We live in an instant gratification society, where if we want something we get it," she said. "Quick is the norm." </p>
<p>Since our culture is saturated with sexual images, we don't recognize sexual behavior as being something special, she said. </p>
<p>"It's always sex, sex, sex, everywhere we look, so naturally once you reach your 20's, sex is no big deal," she said. </p>
<p>Oftentimes, the temptations are too strong to resist, Shellmer said. </p>
<p>"Sometimes I just see someone and want them and I don't really care if they ever call me again," she said. "I had a boyfriend for a while, but it was too much stress. I would rather just have the freedom to be with whoever I want." </p>
<p>Marilyn Anderson, a Los Angeles-based writer, dating expert and author of "Never Kiss a Frog: a Girl's Guide to Creatures from the Dating Swamp," said that this laid-back attitude is likely to impair the ability to form meaningful relationships. </p>
<p>"It is very easy to mistake a good hook-up for love or even like," Anderson said. "A physical connection may feel great, but a full sense of intimacy cannot be reached by two people that hardly know each other through sex alone." </p>
<p>Patel said she can't understand how people can hook up without knowing the person. </p>
<p>"I had a boyfriend for a while," Patel said. "We developed more of a friendship so that going further, I feel safe and connected both in mind and body. It baffles me that people can just 'hook up' and have no feelings for someone that they kiss. I truly believe that kissing and sex are just as intimate even though they are very different acts." </p>
<p>But, Shellmer disagrees. </p>
<p>"The thought of only sleeping with one person from now until the day I die is so scary," she said. "Even when I was with my boyfriend, I used to hook up with other guys. I just felt like maybe he wasn't the one and I should see what's out there before I settled." </p>
<p>This hooking-up culture is detrimental to self-esteem, Anderson said. </p>
<p>"If he/she doesn't call or you see them with someone else at a party, you start to question yourself," she said. "'Am I not pretty enough, was I not good enough?' You feel that there is something wrong with you because that person doesn't want you again. When you are just an object being used for pleasure, you can feel that and it hurts." </p>
<p>Hooking up can feel like fun, but in the end it will catch up with you, Paul said. </p>
<p>"On TV and in the movies hooking up is so glamorous and fun that we never see the heartache that goes along with it," she said. "We are tricked and when we realize this, it might be too late. You might just be a body with no emotions."</p>
<p>Well I grew up in Brighton Beach (Brooklyn) and I can't understand the appeal of my neighborhood to any outsider. Its a hour ride out of lower Manhatten, its unattracive, one of the few spots where its still dangerous at night and no one here speaks English.</p>
<p>But like it or not Brooklyn is New York, Queens and the Bronx is New York. Most of the places in Manhattan where students hang out are more comparable to Vegas or say West Hollywood...a glossed over product of what New York used to be.</p>
<p>Giulliani has sucessfully turned this city into an extension of Boston. Now people from Minnesota and Idaho come to NYU, camp out there for 4 years, and go home with their stories of "life in the big city." They got the Sex and the City version of New York, but never got the true New York experience. Its pathetic.</p>
<p>Illmatic,</p>
<p>It all depends on just exactly how you define the NY experience. I've lived here over 8 years (in NYU dorms for 4 of them), but I've only lived in Manhattan because its the best place to live in New York. Myself, and most other people from NYU would consider Manhattan to be New York (yes I know there are 5 boroughs, but Manhattan is the "city" to most people). </p>
<p>As for Guiliani, I don't think more people coming to NY from other areas of the country, and less crime are bad things...so I applaud him.</p>
<p>Actually I think people coming from other areas of the country is a bad thing. So is the drop in crime...New York isn't New York anymore, its a cross section between extensions of Boston and Disney World.</p>
<p>what the hell is wrong with you, how the heck can you say a drop in crime isnt a good thing. You need help buddy . No wait you're right, you never have had the NY experience unless you were gangbanged</p>
<p>Illmatic,</p>
<p>Again it all depends on how you define New York (to me its Manhattan mostly). Also, no true New Yorker, would ever compare THE CITY, to Boston (a place that in my opinion represents everything thats wrong with America--the Red Sox, John Kerry, etc.)....so I question how New York you actually are on the basis of that statement alone. </p>
<p>Please do humor me on how you think a drop in crime is a bad thing. Also, there are ghetto areas in the Bronx and Harlem (up by Columbia...HAHA) where you can find plenty of crime, I suggest you move the to some of housing projects there and leave your doors unlocked if you love crime so much.</p>
<p>Serious crime in New York has dropped by more than 70% since 1990. Its very hard to argue thats not an immensely positive thing for all...unless you happen to be one of the scumbag criminals who can't around doing no-good anymore since the cops have gotten tougher. </p>
<p>This is a great article on the subject:
<a href="http://www.city-journal.org/html/15_1_ny_crime.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.city-journal.org/html/15_1_ny_crime.html</a></p>
<p>Be advised that when you say "tougher" in reference to the NYPD it means a consistant berage of brutality against random individuals who "fit the profile"...i.e. if your skin is dark, don't bother pulling out your wallet in public because as history has shown, there's a good chance your going to be shot 41 times...and an even better chance that the cops who did it will walk free.</p>
<p>Either way I hope you got the PM I sent you jwblue. I'd still argue that New York is not an entirely safe place to be at night, at least where I grew up, and where I grew up was a pretty good neighborhood by New York standards. I think the crime would keep the people who don't care about the city from flooding into it and acting like its their own.</p>
<p>I usually don't even check the PMz that people send me...too many admissions/chances questions....but Ill, this was hillarious. Now, I'm normally not one to kiss and tell, but I'll post your PM anyway, I asked you to humor me and you did.</p>
<p>Ill's PM:</p>
<p>"will become Boston in no time.</p>
<p>And please, don't bother to give me a run down on where the bad neighborhoods are...remember, I'm actually from New York. This is my home and always has been...I'm not a transplant so spare me the lecture on the neighborhoods you've HEARD of, I've actually been there, had friends there and have been going there since I was a child...so please, show me a little respect...Harlem is a place you've heard of, the south bronx is a place you've heard of, you've never even been so don't speak on these subjects you know nothing about. This is the very same ignorance that I was referring to earlier...you hillbilly's come here and think you're a part of this city. Your not and won't ever be.</p>
<p>I grew near Coney Island, in the shaddows of those collossel public houses...so I know a thing or two about "projects" as you call them. </p>
<p>I just think crime would prevent alot of the people who disrespect my city from coming here. There has been a mass exodus here from the MidWest and Suburban Boston ever since Giuliani publicly declared any imigrant holding a wallet to be fair game for police target practice.</p>
<p>I don't like crime, but there are too many people coming to this city who don't love, respect and appreciate it."</p>
<p>Ill: "so spare me the lecture on the neighborhoods you've HEARD of, I've actually been there"</p>
<p>*I've been there as well...Yankee stadium and Columbia U is ghetto enough...hehe.</p>
<p>Ill: "you hillbilly's come here and think you're a part of this city. Your not and won't ever be."</p>
<p>*I guess growing up in California and going to boarding school back east, and then going to NYU makes me a hillbilly...yeah that makes sense. By the way, my grandfather and father grew up in NY, so I got some knickerbocker in me. Part of the city?...I pay plenty of taxes to this city, so I guess Mikey Bloomberg & co. begs to differ with your conclusion.</p>
<p>Ill's anti immigration plan: "I just think crime would prevent alot of the people who disrespect my city from coming here."</p>
<p>*Is that what's bothering you....the "disrespecting" (whatever that means)...so whats the amicable solution...no playa hating?</p>
<p>Ill's population analysis: "mass exodus here from the MidWest and Suburban Boston ever since Giuliani publicly declared any imigrant holding a wallet to be fair game for police target practice"</p>
<p>*Funny, I don't ever remember Rudy G. saying that...so this must be an example of the "disrespecting" you were talking about earlier.</p>
<p>Ill's liberal whining: "if your skin is dark, don't bother pulling out your wallet in public because as history has shown, there's a good chance your going to be shot 41 times...and an even better chance that the cops who did it will walk free."</p>
<p>*How many times has this actually happened?</p>
<p>Actually I'm a rebuplican and I despise Giuliani and his turning 9/11 into his own private campaign slogan</p>
<p><em>plane hits tower</em></p>
<p>Giuliani: "Quick! Get the cameras on me!"</p>
<p>I also despise his reaction to the Diallou murder, and then his reaction a few months prior to that Haitian guy who was also sexually assaulted by the NYPD. You don't have to be a liberal to show just the slightest tinge of human compassion...something Giualliani is altogether incapable of. Guy brings up 9/11 in every sentence..."Mr. Giulliani, are you going to run for office?" </p>
<p>Giulliani: "Uh...9/11"</p>
<p>Bottom line: I'd like to see an increase in crime. Theres no logic behind this but I'd still like to see it happen</p>
<p>Bottom line: I'd like to see an increase in crime. Theres no logic behind this but I'd still like to see it happen</p>
<p>well you are correct about the "no logic" part of that sentence atleast...</p>
<p>I don't know...for some reason I just love the thoaght of newly arrived teens from Kansas running through the streets of New York dripping in cold sweat, terrified, trying to escape from the knife wielding maniac thats chasing them</p>
<p>lol, why all the animosity towards the south..</p>
<p>"I don't know...for some reason I just love the thoaght of newly arrived teens from Kansas running through the streets of New York dripping in cold sweat, terrified, trying to escape from the knife wielding maniac thats chasing them"</p>
<p>Maybe that happens in the ghetto, but not in most areas of Manhattan....the real "city" as I call it. These days, the maniac will be beaten or shot...Bloomberg is generally doing a good job on crime here...to your dismay I'm sure. </p>
<p>Also you've got to be the only pro-crime Republican I've ever met, and you whine way too much...you remind me of Howard "screaming" Dean's fans. </p>
<p>You seriously do make me laugh Illster.</p>
<p>I didn't think Kansas was the south...but yeah, I think the south is pretty worthless in its own right</p>
<p>Gee thats funny...because I read this article about this kid blowing this young actress away a few blocks from Washington Square Park. ("what are you gonna do? Shoot us? BANG!) Thats still part of Manhattan isn't it?</p>
<p>Whats your point? There is crime everywhere in the world. NY still has one of the lowest per capita crime rates amongst big cities...and its much lower in Manhattan than the other boroughs. This makes no sense, first you complain about there not being enough crime, then you point to something to prove there is crime.</p>