Alright so yesterday was Friday, aka Shabbat.
I fucked up and didn't RSVP slash pay for the meal my friends were going to in time so I was assed out. Too bad too, because at $50 I knew it would have good food. This one was Syrian-themed too. Apparently there are lots of Syrian Jews in New York. Go figure.
Oh right, yesterday I only took half a tab. It was boring. I worked and didn't do shit all day. Didn't work out, didn't go to WeWork, didn't trip out by myself at home... nothing. Oh wait maybe I did that last thing.
And to top it all off, I missed that damn dinner and had to fend for myself. Not gonna lie, I love these dinners. It's such a low-key way to socialize with people. Plus there's food and cute Jewish girls.
Anyway... what's the point of this story? I don't even know. I've had the weirdest day ever and I'm not even done talking about Friday yet.
Okay, so instead of going to a nice meal I figured I'd just go buy some food and be reasonably healthy. I was sick of going to Whole Foods so I thought I'd go to Trader Joes...
Yo I just realized this has nothing to do with microdosing. Whatever. I swear the only reason I decided to do this little experiment was so that I could write about myself every day.
Anyway, the point of my story is that I didn't eat good food on Friday. I didn't even make it to Trader Joe's.
I was on my way there, fully intending on buying grass fed beef and some pasture-raised eggs like a good boy. On the way I passed this place called Artichoke Pizza, who everyone and their fucking mother has been telling me is like this magical pizza or some shit. $6 a slice and like $35 for an entire pizza, I thought I should probably check it out.
I told this chick I'd wait for her to go try it but I decided not to. We can try some other place together.
Still, even after I saw Artichoke Pizza I kept walking towards Trader Joe's. But then I kept seeing these other delicious fast food places on the way. Before you know it I was buying some chicken and rice at a halal food cart. That shit was pretty good, but I could already tell I was at the beginning of a decadent binge that my stomach would punish me for later.
After that I headed to Artichoke Pizza to try this fucking six dollar pizza and see if it's even any good. TLDR: it wasn't.
I got the meat lovers and as I was eating it, I wondered why people I'd met over the years always made such a big deal about New York pizza. I still finished it though.
So then I did what any self-respecting loser with no plans on Friday night would do: I went to get some frozen yogurt.
They have this place in the East Village called 16 Handles. I always get the tart flavor to make myself feel better, so I can pretend that all the M&Ms and chunks of Snickers that I add afterwards actually aren't that big of a deal.
Needless to say that after this binge I went home and ate some crackers. I seriously think I might have some kind of eating disorder or something. I can eat so clean for most of the week and then every once in a while I'll just pound three meals worth of unhealthy trash.
Probably the worst thing about missing this dinner is that I wouldn't be able to coordinate plans with my best friend here in the city. Let's call him... Billy. Anyone who knows me and reads this is probably gonna know that his name isn't Billy. But it's all for plausible deniability anyway.
Not that he would actually do anything bad. The guy is super nice in general, and since moving to New York he's been nice enough to take me under his wing and introduce me to all of the people he knows here. And this guy knows a lot of people. This is the one who used to throw parties in New York and Tel Aviv. Every time we go to any event he knows literally like at least 20% of the people there.
I'm definitely not a religious person, but my friend is. So on Saturday he goes to synagogue, or "shul" as they call it here. I would never go on my own, but I go with him because they do a lunch after the morning prayer service and sometimes it can be pretty good. It's also like a social thing, so people get together and mingle and whatnot. It's pretty fun.
And since I literally don't know anyone in the city other than who I met through Billy, I just go with him. I want to be social too, and if I have to stand around awkwardly while people pray and sing for an hour a week in order to do that, then so be it.
But since my friend keeps Shabbat and doesn't use any sort of electricity from Fri-Sat night, I had no way of getting in touch with him to see which shul he was going to on Saturday. I say "which one" because this is New York and there are a ton of different Jewish communities here. Tons of little subgroups that have different special-ish events every week. So some weeks it's better to go to different places than others.
None of this matters anyway because if I didn't go with him, there's no way I'm about to rock up to a synagogue on my own. It's just too awkward for me. Even though at this point I would probably see people that I knew at any random place that I'd already been to, I just don't believe in the whole religion thing. I always feel like a faker every time I go.
But that's a story for a different time. The point here is that I'm not about to wait outside homeboy's apartment for him to come home to ask him which shul to go to tomorrow. So not only did I lose my Friday night opportunity for socializing but I also lost my Saturday day one as well.
Maybe that's why I binged so hard.
Came home, smoked a bit, played a bit o Dotes and went to sleep.
I had this strange dream where I was walking around my old condominium complex where I used to live in Pacific Palisades. My mom was there and she was walking some of our old dogs, these two boxers who unfortunately both died a few years ago. There was something wrong with the way she was walking them, I don't remember exactly what it was, but it was something that I needed to speak up about.
So I called her on it, but when she turned to answer me I could tell she was on some hard drugs. She looked like she popped some quaaludes or something. And she gave me some retarded answer like, "I can't do that, then I'll catch HIV."
I remember hearing that answer and then thinking, "Okay, this bitch is definitely on some shit and can't be trusted with my dogs."
Strange because my mom is actually a super healthy person who eats healthy and hits the gym all the time. And I've heard that LSD can make you have strange dreams, but this whole time I've been taking it this is the first vivid dream that I remember.
I woke up today and did my usual coffee and work routine. At around 11 my phone buzzed and I saw that I had gotten a text from Billy. Strange because as I mentioned before, Billy keeps Shabbat and doesn't use electricity. So for him to break that to text me must be something important.
"Hey."
I replied, "Bro what are you doing breaking Shabbat?"
All he sent was: "Meet me at the Avalon Lounge at 11:30." He sent an image of a flyer as well for the event.
I told him I'd see him there and started getting ready. This is going to sound super gay, but for him to break Shabbat and text me is very meaningful. I don't think he'd be able to forgive himself if I missed two Shabbatot in a row.
The week before, he invited me to dinner at one of his other friend's house for Friday night. You know how sometimes you meet people and you instantly dislike them? That's how this guy feels about me and makes it very obvious every time we hang out by trying to one up me and clown me in front of people. I've been handling it pretty well, but didn't feel like going to homeboy's house for dinner.
And then last week for Saturday day, he invited me to the owner of WeWork's house for the service.
"But like, people go there to pray," he told me.
The implication was that I would have to kind of play along with the whole religion thing, i.e. pray. Or at least hold a book and pretend like I knew what I was doing. Or something. I don't know, it wasn't really clear. But I chose to skip that one too, which is a shame because the dude is a billionaire and it would have been cool to eat lunch with one of those.
So for me to miss two weeks in a row when we've been hitting up these meals and deals every week since I moved to New York three months ago is a big deal. Especially when I'm bouncing to Vegas in ten days.
When I woke up this morning, I told myself that I would only take half a tab. After my less productive day on 20 mcg, I knew that TODAY I was going to get some work done god damn it.
But after finding out I'd be able to go play with the other reindeer instead of sitting in my cubicle, I decided to make things a little more interesting. I popped 5 more tabs in my mouth and walked out the door.
Haha no way, that would be fucked up. I only took another half. Although now that I think about it maybe I should have been a little more adventurous. I mean the whole reason I even decided to take the other half was to have something interesting to write about later. I guess I got that anyway, but whether or not it's because I popped an extra 10 mcg in the morning is debatable.
There were already a ton of people at the service when I got there. Maybe around 80-90. And now that I think about it, I was probably one of the oldest ones there. Definitely the best looking, but also probably one of the oldest.
My friend still hadn't gotten there, so I kept myself busy by standing at the back of the room awkwardly and staring into space.
The way synagogues are set up is that men and women sit in separate areas that have a divider between them so neither of the groups can see the other. I mean, you can kind of see each other through the little gaps and at the front and back, but that kind of adds to the charm. Everyone kind of checks each other out through the corners of their eyes while trying to pretend to be into actually praying.
Since I don't pray, my options are kind of limited. And by the way, praying in Judaism isn't crossing your hands in front of you and closing your eyes. Jewish prayers are read from a book, and there are a fucking lot of them. So the whole thing takes hours.
So I'm standing there, staring at a bunch of dudes in front of me mumble-singing prayers while trying to ignore the girls even though I can tell they're checking me out. Not only am I fresh meat in NY, but I have a different "look" than most of these Ashkenazi Jewish guys. They're more pale and I look darker. They wear fancy dress shoes, and my fancy dress shoes are Adidas Superstars.
To make matters worse, I was sweating my balls off because the heat was on and this LSD makes me sweat like a bitch. But I was wearing a tight black muscle shirt and didn't want to take off my sweatshirt. I have a tattoo on my right arm that pokes out through my sleeve. I feel like it's disrespectful to show your tattoos in a synagogue. I know most people don't give a shit, but I still feel like it's weird.
So there I am, sweating my balls off and staring into space, mildly tripping on acid while I try not to make eye contact with any of the girls, desperately waiting for my friend to show up so I don't feel so out of place. I started to wonder why I wanted to come to this thing in the first place.
Strangely enough, towards the end of the service I introduced myself to a few random people and told them "Shabbat Shalom," which is basically like saying Happy Shabbat. That loosened me up a bit to talk to a few of the other people I knew there. By the time my friend showed up I was already loosey goosey baby.
I feel like socializing is a little easier on LSD. I found it much easier to pretend to be interested in what people are talking about. Okay that sounds bad. Let's say that I found it easier to be charismatic.
And let's be real, charisma is really just about two things: being loud and making people laugh.
You know how you can identify the alpha male at a party? He's the one having the most fun. Smile baby.
Right after the service ended I saw this girl, let's call her... Jennifer. She had signed up with me to manage her Instagram but decided to cancel a week later. I gave her some shit about that when I saw her but she took it like a champ and we laughed it up.
I don't want to get too in detail about any convos we had there because some of these people are friends with me on IG and even though I'm not directly promoting (or even mentioning) this little experiment, there's still the off chance that I've got a stalker or two who is obsessed with me enough that they'll read this boring ass article all the way to here just to see if I painstakingly describe the conversations that I had at this party in as much detail as I describe everything else.
I'm kind of tempted to do it. But not this time.
Not like we talked about anything particularly interesting, but this is a small-ish community and I don't want to turn into the guy who's posting everyone's conversations on the internet for random Indians to read from their 28.8k dial up connection.
Anyway... I'm very lucky to be friends with Billy, and I say this to everyone. Without him I wouldn't have lasted this long in NY, shit I wouldn't have stayed here to begin with. And when we were in Tel Aviv last month I was also tagging along with him to all kinds of different events that he knew about. Within days I was running into people I knew, just because I was meeting so many people through him.
We crush these events together. Homie is definitely the coolest guy in the room anywhere we go and some of that coolness rubs off on me by association. We're both pretty red-pilled as well, just not in a neckbeard neo-Nazi sort of way, but in the way it was actually meant to be. More like a Jordan Peterson kind of way, just with less conservative propaganda.
There are always tons of cute girls at these things, but the problem is that it's a little awkward to date any of them because they all kind of know each other. It's a shit-where-you-eat dilemma.
Still, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't tempted. Especially being there today after not having gone out in the three weeks since I've been back in NYC.
In the army we used to say, "In the desert, every flower is a rose."
We spent about an hour or so chatting up the different flowers there. Some we knew, some we didn't. Every time I go to these things I always tell myself I'm going to spend my time there talking to new people. I need more momentum I think. I need more events to go to or something.
Normally there are a few of these things to go to. You go to the first service and meal, and then there's always another one down the street that's scheduled just a little bit differently. This time around it didn't seem like Billy had anything else lined up. So we headed over to Washington Square Park and managed to kill a few hours there talking to different street vendors.
If it wasn't Shabbat, I would have bounced after an hour to go home. But since it was just the two of us and I know my friend keeps Shabbat, I didn't want to ditch him to go home and sit by himself and read books or something. After all, he broke Shabbat to tell me where to go. So what kind of friend would I be if I just bounced to go to the gym or whatever instead of hanging out with him?
Turns out we actually had a good time in the park harassing the different vendors. There were these people selling anti-Trump buttons and we were trying to get them to tell us how many buttons they sold in a day. They didn't tell us.
One thing that I'll say I noticed was that my vision felt much sharper. And even though I was getting tired from walking and talking for several hours in a row, I feel like I was able to tap into deeper reserves of energy in order to keep going. I'm making it sound like hanging out with my friend in a park is some effortful activity, but it kind of was. Just because we were standing and walking and talking without any water for so long.
After a brief pit stop at the Hillel at NYU, we decided to go to Barnes N Noble. I'm not sure if it's the biggest one or the last one or what, but we still had some time to kill before Shabbat ended.
On the way there we ran into this hot Russian girl that Billy knew. We actually ended up talking to her for like 45 minutes or something ridiculous like that. Talked about all kinds of shit and I think she was into me, but it seemed like Billy was trying to work it so I didn't press for the IG or anything. She kept asking us what we were doing that night, if we were going out, etc but by the time we left my friend still didn't do anything about it. Oh well.
Finally we made it to B&N. By then I was exhausted, somehow managing to survive the entire day without anything to eat or drink since the water I drank to wash down my morning supps. But this bookstore was literally six floors and Shabbat still had another hour and a half before being over, so Billy and I wandered around looking at books.
Suddenly I saw a book by one of my favorite authors, Nassim Taleb. His new book, "Skin in the game," had come out. I read a few pages in the store and decided to buy it. $30 for a fucking hardcover book. I hadn't bought an actual physical book in years. I think the last ones I bought were Robert Greene's first three books. Shows you how long ago that was.
I finally convinced him to leave as I was so hungry I was about to start eating books. We agreed to head to this new kosher fast food place called Falafix which serves, you guessed it: falafel. It also helps that it's like three minutes from where I live and on the way to Billy's place as well.
When we got there I went across the street to a bar to take a piss, and when I came back I see Billy talking to some 50 year old dude. For some reason I felt like this guy owned the place.
Since I was starving, I ordered my food and started helping myself to the little samples of pita and hummus they had on the counter. I was kind of paying attention to my friend's conversation with the old dude but was really too excited about these free pita samples and trying to make the girl working the register - some smokin hot little bleached blonde girl with long fake fingernails and a Pandora bracelet with about 100 charms on it - fall in love with me using dumb jokes and loud vocal tonality.
As I sit down and take a bite of my sabich, I hear my friend say, "Oh that's his specialty. Social media."
My ears perk up and I look over with a mouth full of food as this 50 ear old dude comes over to try and shake my hand. Maybe 5'6" and built like Santa Claus, he introduced himself as Barry. Starts asking me all these questions about my professional background while I'm trying to eat my $5 falafel in peace.
"Who do you work for?" He asked.
"I have my own company," I replied around a mouthful of food.
He goes, "How long."
"How long have I had the company?"
I thought quickly, trying to figure out what number would appease this guy that I could legitimately lie about without seeming suspicious.
"Two years." Seemed like a good number.
Then he goes, "What's the name?"
I go, "Omnifarious."
He's like, "Wha?"
I laughed and swallowed my bite. "Omnifarious. Or Omniloquent. I'll write it down for you."
That little introduction lead to a 30 minute conversation with our new bro Barry where we talked about falafel marketing, the future of the company and what I would do to manage their social media. He tried to bust my balls about a few things but guess what Barry, Papi dish it with the best of em so you best be sure to bring yo A-game sucka.
Homie ate that shit right up. At one point he got up, then turns to me and says, "Did you ever smoke cigarettes?"
Caught me kind of off-guard. I mumbled, "I mean, I have smoked them in my life. But I never - "
He goes, "Good. I don't trust people who have NEVER smoked a cigarette."
Billy and I laughed while Barry walked outside.
"That was a weird question," I said.
Billy goes, "Yeah, he probably went outside to smoke a cigarette."
As if on cue, Barry walks over right in front of where we were sitting (the place has a glass window wall) and held up a cigarette.
While he was outside, Billy and I talked about something. Suddenly he says to me, "I think he's on the phone with the owner talking about you."
I go, "Really?" I didn't have him in my line of vision, so I didn't even know he was on the phone.
Barry walks in and goes, "I got you a meeting at 11 on Monday. Can you make it?" Then he gives me this look like he expects me to say yes.
Of course I did. I just thought it was funny how he was trying to hard to make it work. I think one of the things I do pretty well is exude an air of neutrality towards people that are probably used to having everyone kiss their ass. I think that's why it's so easy for me to make friends with "powerful" people, because I make it seem like I don't care about anything other than what kind of human being they are.
I mean, that's actually true. Maybe I'm just bad at hiding it.
Anyway, we sat around and shot the shit for a bit longer before Billy and I decided to leave. By the time we walked out of there Barry would have been willing to hook me up with one of his daughters. If it was up to him he would have given me the deal on the spot.
But you know what? I never would have gotten that if it wasn't for Billy. I definitely wasn't about to start talking to some old dude in Falafix about how much he pays for bulk orders of whole wheat pita bread. But there he was, doing the heavy lifting for me to the point where all I had to do was show up and knock em down.
This is kind of the reason I want to go to Vegas. I need to learn how to be social and build a social circle. I need an easy-mode playground where I can just practice that shit on people I'll never see again. I know that logically there's no reason I can't do this shit on my own. It's just too hard. I don't know.
But if I wasn't friends with Billy, I would have literally no social life at all. Friday and Saturday and maybe one or two days during the week we go to an event. Which is cool, don't get me wrong. I'm grateful I even have that. But it's not enough, you know? As much as I enjoy hanging out with him and appreciate how he's taking me around, I don't want to have to rely on him or anyone else to be my social planner.
I'm not gonna lie, it's kind of cool to not have to make any decisions or do any research regarding where to go. But by relying on him, that means I'm limited to the events that he goes to.
Excuses, excuses! It's almost midnight here on Saturday night and I could literally walk outside my apartment and walk into any of the 10+ bars within a one block radius and socialize with random people. I even have a few people I know here who would be down to go out and run some game. But here I am, typing away the fucking blog entry of the century THAT NOBODY WILL EVEN READ instead. WHY.
God I really hope I become famous someday. I've realized that's the only way anyone is ever going to read all this shit that I've written over the years. Fuck man, I don't even think my mom would read this shit at this point. Even she's got things to do.
Well that's not true. She'd probably read it all.
Anyway look, I know I don't "need" to go to Vegas to do this course to desensitize myself to socializing with other people. I could literally just stay here and do it with Billy or any of the other guys who are down. Fuck man, I could even just pick up my balls and do it by myself. Who the fuck cares you know? Am I ever going to see these people ever again? Probably not.
Yeah. So anyway. I know this is sounding super gay at this point but I can't stress enough how lucky I am to be friends with this kid. Nobody knows what will happen in the future, but I think that someday I won't have this problem anymore. I mean it's not even just the social planning thing. Just the people that I meet through him. I mean I could have gone to eat lunch at a billionaire's apartment last weekend. What the fuck? Just because this guy somehow knows him? Ridiculous.
The reason I'm building this shit up is that I realized that New York is a pretty cool place if you a) have friends and b) can force yourself to leave your apartment despite the cold.
If you have those two things, then it's a great place. But if you lock yourself away and get high and play Dota after freelancing your way into a higher tax bracket, then it doesn't matter how many mcgs you take brother, you're not going to see the value in being here.
But then that makes me think: do I really need to go do the Vegas Immersion? Can't I just stay here and keep going out with Billy and the rest of the crew? Maybe I'll meet a few more billionaires, a few more falafel restaurant owners and before you know it - BAM! I'm a famous internet celebrity.
Yeah, maybe I skipped some steps in there but you get the idea. LOL could you imagine? I'd come home after eating lunch at some random billionaire's apartment and write about it for a bunch of Dell customer service workers to read about on Steemit in between watching championship cricket matches and eating rice with their fingers. Then maybe people would read that shit.
Anyway, the point is that if I actually got my shit together and left my fucking apartment every day for a few hours to go be social, a whole new world would open up to me. There's so much opportunity here in New York. Especially when you do something that has such a universal appeal as social media does. Every fucking business needs that shit and none of them are doing it. And the ones that are doing it are doing a shitty job and would LOVE to just pay someone to do it for them.
I would always just tell myself that pounding the pavement is a waste of time. Why go talk to people face to face when I can use my contact form submitter to contact 100k people this week? What is a few extra conversations going to do?
Did the LSD help me today? Definitely. More energy, more enthusiasm, and more social acuity. And on top of all that I still had enough gas in the tank to come home and crush a 5k word post. This shit is the fucking bomb. Looking forward to tomorrow.
I'm not editing this shit either. Hope you had fun.
