Admit it already, winter in NYC sucks.
Your favorite things about the city, like free kayaking at Pier 96, outdoor yoga classes and concerts, picnicking with your friends and playing basketball at the park, have all become distant dreams of a future you're not sure will ever return.
The holidays are way over, but the cold persists-- so you're holed up in your apartment watching movies on your computer for days on end. Which gets old quickly. If you recognize yourself in any of the scenarios below, you're totally over winter in NYC. But that was already obvious. Because winter's terrible.
1. You haven't seen your friends in several months
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Even though you text about plans all the time. Your recollections of fun nights out in the East Village are getting blurry. You don't even remember what your friends look like-- except when you stalk on Facebook and summertime nostalgia crushes you.
Memories of free concerts in Central Park and long walks on The High Line bring you physical pain. You used to be able to walk anywhere during summer and the air wouldn't even sting your face.
You miss warm weekends. You miss laughing and splitting pitchers of beer. You long for the days when you used to get hit on by creepy guys and get mixed drinks spilled on your clothes. bBut when Friday night comes and it's dark outside, leaving your apartment just feels like too much to take.
[anad]
2. You spend more time with your snuggie than other humans
Who needs any other humans when you have a snuggie, anyway?
Your snuggie never complains it's too cold to come over. Your snuggie has no Snapchat, so you don't have to wonder why your snuggie didn't watch your story. Your snuggie doesn't even have a cell phone, so you don't have to worry whether it'll text you back.
You never have to worry about playing “the game” or “coming on too strong” with your snuggie. Your snuggie will never make out with other girls. Your snuggie loves you even when you haven't worn anything but sweatpants all weekend, even with those five extra winter pounds. Your snuggie will never leave you, or beg you to have sex, and it'll cuddle with you all night long.
3. You've gone more than one consecutive day without leaving your apartment
Netflix and Seamless are winter lifelines. You're a Netflix watching creature who wears the same pajamas all the time and dwells in blanket caves. You've watched just about everything on Netflix.
You've smoked a blunt to the face and watched Neil Degrasse Tyson's The Cosmos, which was fascinating sh*t. Your mind was blown. You never knew humans caused wolves to evolve into dogs
You've also exhausted the entire radius of restaurants surrounding your apartment on Seamless, which is cool with you. Seamless was just as fabulous an invention as the light bulb. You haven't exited your apartment in over 24 hours, but it's cool. You live in NYC, so you can get most of life's essentials delivered right to your door.
4. You've unfollowed vacationing friends on Twitter and/or Facebook
Seeing your friends clad in bikinis with glittering, blue water behind them, watching the sun beat itself on their skin causes an ache in your stomach.
Did I say friends? I meant ex-friends. You're angry enough to ask your newsfeed to please not show you any information about these particular friends anymore. You unfollow them on Twitter. You do not want to read about their excursion to the beach while you're wrapped in so many puffy layers you hardly look human.
Maybe once spring comes and you can cross the sidewalk without soaking your feet in an icy puddle, you'll consider speaking to them. But for now, you just can't.
5. Christmas decorations make you furious
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The euphoric days when winter was beautiful (!), and Christmas decorations got you excited (!), and filled you with holly, jolly cheer (!) are long, long over.
Christmas and New Year's came and went. They both passed before your eyes sparkling with presents, indulgence, and a New Year's make-out sesh with your hot friend. Now they're gone, and you're still stuck in winter doom. The whole notion of “the holiday season” must have been invented as collateral for having to endure the freezing cold, but what's your consolation for January and February?
All you have to look forward to now is the depression of not having a date on Valentine's Day. But hold out hope, yet, winter warrior. Someone might still buy you one of those big, heart-shaped boxes of chocolate at Duane Reade. If not, there's always Tinder.
,6. Your nose is perpetually running and your lips are perpetually chapped
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You never considered chapstick and portable tissues as integral accessories.
Now, they're hands down the most essential items in your purse. You never realized a runny nose could be an emergency situation until you were stuck on a crowded subway with a snotty nose and no tissues. That's a mistake you'll never make again. You never imagined you'd be the type to stop in a drugstore with the sole purpose of buying chapstick, but your lips were so chapped they were bleeding, so... chapstick was necessary.
Your skin is so dry you're worried it'll fall off, so you've started applying lotion like it's your job. What did your ancestors do before all these products? You have no idea, but you guess that's why they call it evolution.
[anad]
7. Your clothes don't really fit anymore
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This is the most depressing item on the list and I'm sorry to even bring it up. You haven't eaten vegetables in months. You don't even really remember what vegetables taste like.
Easy mac and dollar slices are your diet now, and so are instant mashed potatoes and gooey, warm soup
. Summertime you loved going for runs and being active, eating healthy and taking care of yourself, but wintertime, you are too busy hiding under blankets and mentally-willing the earth to turn back toward the sun.
The last time you weighed yourself was last week at the doctor, and it was awkward. You told the nurse how much you thought you weighed, and she said “...let's weigh you anyway.” Then, you weighed fourteen pounds more than you thought. Your jeans are pretty tight, but buying new ones would be giving up. So... sweatpants it is.
8. You take so many showers
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Showers in the winter are amazing. When you're so cold it's echoing from the center of your bones, the only thing that will truly warm you up is an hour with hot water pounding on you.
Hot showers are your only hope that summer may one day return. You've never been this clean in your life, but since your radiator sucks and it's freezing in your apartment, the only way to really get warm is to take another shower.
Getting out of the shower, though, is another story. Basically, it's difficult. And depressing.
9. You're celibate
http://coub.com/view/4w379
Which is a giant bummer. It is easier to look flattering in winter clothes.
They're certainly less revealing than summer ones. But you're too busy being trapped inside with winter blues, so it's difficult to motivate yourself to get out there and meet people. You're in the midst of a burgeoning relationship with your snuggie anyway. The you of summer, the one that flitted around and went on dates and fell in love, she's a mirage, she's buried in the past.
You haven't hooked up with anyone in weeks and you're starting to get desperate, but you still won't make out with that creepy guy in your building who's crushed on you all year. You do still have standards, after all.
10. Peeing in the middle of the night is a nightmare
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Because sleeping is the only thing that brings you joy anymore, and because it's so perfect to be snuggled in a warm cocoon under blankets, having to pee in the middle of the night quickly escalates to an existentially-wrought internal struggle.
You're cuddled next to the guy who lives in your building (yes, you gave in and hooked up with him) and he's surprisingly warm. You wonder if you could just go back to sleep without peeing but that seems risky, not to mention impossible.
You forfeit ten minutes of sleep just lying awake bumming out about the fact that you have to get up, which is actually way worse than just getting up, facing the cold, and heading to the bathroom. Which you eventually do.