LOVE HATE New York

On my way to meet my friends in Manhattan, I hummed Camila Cabello’s “My heart is in Havana, oh na na na...” Her velvety voice filled my earbuds as I dodged a taxi that came within inches of clipping my toes.

“Watch where you’re going!” I said quietly, not shouting like some New Yorkers do, because I still needed to live here longer. The cabbie responded with New York’s traditional one-finger salute.

A few years ago, I swore I would finally leave this dirty Manhattan, its loud people, endless construction, and dating nightmare. I dreamed of the turquoise shores of France, organic food, well-dressed, toned French men, and romance. When I announced my plan over bagels at Zabar’s, my friend Sandrine rolled her eyes.

“Sure, go ahead,” she said, smearing cream cheese on her bagel. “Paris is just Manhattan with better architecture and worse attitudes. But send postcards! You’ll be back before you know it.”

I quit my soul-crushing job and went to Paris, a cultural and architectural dream! I stayed in all the best districts to get a homey feel, but neither the 7th, with its Eiffel Tower, nor the 16th, by the Seine, felt like where I wanted to plant my roots.

On my first day in Paris, I headed straight to Café de Flore on Boulevard Saint-Germain, the iconic establishment where Picasso, Hemingway, and Sartre once philosophized. I expected to feel the soul of Paris wash over me like the Seine. Instead, I got a waiter who looked at me with the same enthusiasm as someone viewing their tax audit notice and a coffee that cost more than a Broadway show ticket.

The first lesson in Parisian etiquette came swiftly: I’d forgotten to greet him with “Bonjour, monsieur” before asking for my table. In France, this oversight is perceived as irredeemably rude; apparently, launching into conversation without the proper greeting formula is akin to arriving at a wedding in flip-flops. The waiter’s icy stare confirmed I’d committed a cardinal sin, one that would follow me throughout my Parisian adventure.

Paris, supposedly the global capital of fashion, turned out to be a sea of black and grey. Where was the legendary French style? I’d expected to see the effortless chic I’d read about, but instead, I found myself surrounded by people dressed like they were in permanent mourning. My colorful scarves and bright coats made me stand out like a peacock in a flock of pigeons. No wonder Emily in Paris got those stares, I was getting them too. For a city that prides itself on being the world’s fashion epicenter, the reality was surprisingly monochrome and, frankly, boring.

Walking the streets required constant vigilance. I found myself clutching my purse like a life preserver, hyper-aware of every approaching stranger. When a well-dressed Parisienne approached me near the Louvre, I tensed, but she was only offering fashion advice. “Mademoiselle,” she said with concern, pointing to my Christian Dior bag hanging casually at my side, “you must carry it in front, not there. C’est très important.” The irony wasn’t lost on me: being lectured about style while simultaneously being warned about theft in the supposed fashion capital of the world.

The Seine flowed gracefully beneath elegant bridges, unlike the powerful, industrial Hudson, which offered sweeping views of the New Jersey skyline. The Seine whispered stories of aristocrats and artists; the Hudson shouted tales of immigrants and strivers. Where the Hudson felt like the lifeblood of a city constantly in motion, the Seine felt like a museum piece, beautiful but behind glass.

Even meals came with elaborate protocols. At every restaurant, bread appeared with strict commandments: you couldn’t touch it before the first course, had to tear it only with your fingers, never with a knife. I watched other diners follow these rituals with religious devotion. In New York, food was just food. Here, every bite required following an ancient etiquette manual.

I swiped on Tinder daily, booking lunch dates like a restaurant critic for The Times. And sure, men were much more handsome in Paris, or it appeared so from across the Seine. But why were they just not “it”?

One tall, handsome Pierre criticized me on our first date for waving at a server instead of making eye contact, which is supposedly good French manners for a Parisian woman, even though he hailed from the Swiss Alps. Allegedly, well-mannered men in Paris distinguish themselves on dates by putting a woman down?

“In New York,” I told him, “we believe in getting the waiter’s attention before our food gets cold.”

He looked puzzled, then offended.

My third date wanted to kiss thirty minutes after we met. “Slow down there. We haven’t even gotten through the appetizer,” I said. He looked confused, as if I’d broken some unwritten rules of Parisian dating.

Back home, Manhattan dating wasn’t perfect; I’d had enough first-date invites to “stop by their place” to fill a subway car, but at least the men understood when I was joking.

After seven dates and multiple apartment-hopping adventures, I decided to experience the French Riviera. “It will surely be different,” I said, sounding exactly like my mother before trying another miracle face cream. I ran away from rainy Paris and settled for winter in the Côte d’Azur, in various towns along the coast.

I even passed Elton John’s massive yellow villa near Nice, perched high on Mont Boron with views stretching across the Bay of Angels. The locals call it the “Bel Air of Nice”. His home is so large that you can spot it from the waterfront Promenade des Anglais. The 1920s villa, originally an artists’ colony, now stands as a symbol of luxury and excess, beautiful but somehow disconnected from real life.

I met French men who sought a friends-with-benefits arrangement (minus the friendship part), expected me to pay for their lunches, or wanted to rush into business through dull, mundane conversations. The blue sea, organic food, and warm weather felt pleasant, but after a day or two, it seemed like a backdrop without any main characters, like life in a film where I was merely an extra.

The markets of Provence were a pure sensory experience, with vendors arranging pyramids of olives like precious stones, the morning air thick with the scents of lavender and thyme, and locals examining tomatoes with the intensity of art critics.

Polite Southerners, hearing me speak primarily in English, did not roll their eyes; they silently ignored me or even handed me bread as if I were a beggar. The ultimate irony: in a region where food was practically worshipped, where every meal was treated as a celebration, being offered bread with such cold charity felt more insulting than any Parisian snub. Here were people who spent their lives perfecting the art of living well, who could debate wine pairings for hours, yet they handed me food with all the warmth of a vending machine.

At the outdoor markets in Nice and Cannes, I’d watch the elaborate dance of “market etiquette.” You couldn’t just grab a peach or squeeze an avocado; that was for the vendor to do, with ceremonial precision. Customers stood at respectful distances, pointing to their desired items while the vendor selected only the finest specimens. When I inevitably violated these unspoken rules, reaching for a tomato or picking up an olive to examine it, the vendor would freeze, smile tightly, and gently guide my hands away as if I were a child reaching for a hot stove.

The contrast was maddening. At New York’s Union Square Greenmarket, vendors called out to you, offered samples, and shared stories about their farms.

My best friend Nina FaceTimed me from her tiny Upper West Side apartment.

“So, you’re living in paradise and miserable?” she laughed. “That’s so you. Remember when we went to that five-star resort in the Bahamas and you complained because the beach was ‘too sandy’?”

“That was different,” I protested. “Sand gets everywhere!”

I met people in France. We talked and asked questions, but no one seemed interested in me. It was just a quick social fête, and then, au revoir. In Manhattan, people speak to you in restaurants, on park benches, and in line at Trader Joe’s when you’re just trying to buy your frozen cauliflower gnocchi in peace.

The French obsession with proper social rhythms mystified me. Everything had its designated time: the sacred deux heures lunch break from noon to two, when the entire Riviera would shut down like a sleepy village; the evening apéritif hour, when even casual acquaintances would transform into amateur sommeliers; the elaborate coffee ritual that closed every meal like a period at the end of a sentence. These weren’t just customs, they were commandments, and breaking them marked you as hopelessly foreign.

I once made the mistake of suggesting lunch at 1:30 PM to a new French acquaintance in Antibes. She looked at me as if I had proposed dining at midnight. “Lunch is at noon,” she said with the patience reserved for explaining gravity to children. “One thirty is... not lunch time.” In New York, lunch happens whenever you can grab it between meetings, phone calls, or existential crises. Here, it was as fixed as the tide.

When I first moved to New York, it was refreshing when someone started talking to me on the subway. A guy once spent twenty minutes telling me about his grandmother’s recipe for matzo ball soup. Do I need that information? Not. Was it strangely entertaining? You bet it was.

You don’t exchange phone numbers after these brief exchanges—no one does—but it’s just so much fun to let someone you don’t know share their stories with you. It feels like a part of the world embraces and accepts you without knowing where you work, live, or your credit score.

When I returned to New York, I was tremendously puzzled by how happy I felt hearing loud, fast-talking people on the streets, feeling my tires break against numerous potholes, and getting into an argument with a hot dog vendor about whether ketchup belongs on a hot dog (it doesn’t, and I’ll die on that hill). This is my home, I thought. But why?

The relief was immediate and overwhelming. No more careful greeting rituals before asking simple questions. No more eating bread with the reverence of communion. No more markets where touching the merchandise was treated like defiling a temple. In New York, the Korean deli owner knew my name and my coffee order; the guy at the fruit stand would toss me a free apple with my change; the bodega cat would let me pet him while I waited in line. Simple, human connections that happened without following ancient protocols.

Driving just to Trader Joe’s reminded me of meeting Tuvana for tea nearby and hearing her heartbreaking stories about the cancer fight she had to go through. Despite everything, she always ended our meetings with, “At least my hair grew back better than before, now I look like I stepped out of a shampoo commercial.”

Or my friend Siri and I hit the sauna twice a week to survive winter, sweating and complaining about dating apps while barely breathing between sentences. “If one more man poses with a dog,” she’d say, “I’m becoming a nun.”

Or, most importantly, my son, who came to New York from Boston, and I followed him, like a good helicopter mom (or, as my mother calls it, “being appropriately interested”). Places reminded me of him, my friends, and my life just passing by here.

My building super, Mr. Goldstein, welcomed me back with his trademark bluntness: “So France kicked you out, huh? It’s their loss. Your apartment’s been quiet, too quiet.”

New York seemed more vibrant than Paris. The diversity, inclusion, and embracing nature make it feel much happier. The romanticized clichés of Emily in Paris, romance, and French people weren’t true. In New York, people don’t pretend life is perfect. They’re honest about the mess, the chaos, the heartbreak, and somehow, that honesty creates a more authentic kind of beauty.

I feel that New York and its people don’t want to make life too pretty. They describe it as it is and behave as they wish. New Yorkers tend to babble, often overlapping in conversations, abruptly changing topics, and they aren’t afraid to get personal right away. It’s not rudeness but rather a high-involvement style that shows enthusiasm and inclusion.

One evening, I had dinner at The River Café nestled under the Brooklyn Bridge with breathtaking views of the Manhattan skyline across the East River. As I sipped my wine and watched the harbor lights twinkle, I compared it to my experiences at Café de Flore. The River Café had immigrant waiters from around the world who spoke with me, joked with me, and shared stories about their families, which was a complete contrast to the efficient but distant service in Paris.

Our waiter, Miguel from Ecuador, told me about his daughter’s quinceañera while refilling my water glass. He asked about my trip to France, laughed when I described the bread etiquette, and confided that he had been saving up to take his family to Europe. “But honestly,” he said, winking, “after hearing your stories, maybe we’ll just go to Miami instead.” This warmth, this immediate human connection, was as American as apple pie and as New York as a late-night slice.

I’ve often said, “I can’t wait to move to Europe.” I shocked myself by saying I’m staying here. It’s my home because my heart is here, nestled somewhere between the bagel shop that knows my order by heart and the park bench where I once had my heart broken and then mended by a stranger who offered me half their pretzel without saying a word.

Sitting on my balcony that evening, I watched the sunset paint the grimy Manhattan skyline. A car alarm wailed somewhere down the block, and a couple argued loudly in the apartment below. The reality is harsh here; New York doesn’t soften its blows.

The truth is that the friends I treasure now may not necessarily be here in five years. Some will move away for better jobs, some will drift apart as our lives change, and some will disappear, as people often do. My son might take a job nationwide, and Tuvana will finish her career at the United Nations and return to Turkey. Nothing is permanent.

I’m not staying because the people here love me perfectly. God knows they don’t. New Yorkers can be brutally honest, absent when you need them most, and consumed by their dramas. We hurt each other often, sometimes without even noticing.

But the memories of us trying are etched into these streets. The time I cried on a bench in Central Park after a devastating breakup, a stranger silently handed me a tissue before walking away. That one night, my son and I got lost in Queens searching for that supposedly amazing dumpling place, and instead found ourselves laughing hysterically in the rain at a little hole-in-the-wall noodle shop. The day Zori and I argued so bitterly over something trivial that we didn’t speak for months, only to reunite as if nothing had happened when I ran into her at our old coffee shop.

These aren’t perfect fairy tale moments. They’re messy, complicated, and real, just like New York. Just like me.

I returned to my apartment and gazed at the Paris travel books on my coffee table, which Claire had given me as a gift. I should give those away, I thought. Not because Paris isn’t beautiful; it is. Not because the Côte d’Azur isn’t breathtaking, but it takes your breath away. Instead, it’s because my footprints aren’t there. My tears haven’t fallen on those streets, and my laughter hasn’t echoed off those buildings.

This imperfect city holds the evidence that I’ve lived, really lived. With all its dirt, noise, and disappointments, New York has witnessed my failures and attempts to get back up. It’s where I’ve tried to love and be loved, sometimes succeeding, often failing. The trying itself has become home.

Home isn’t where everything works out perfectly. It’s where you’ve struggled enough to leave your mark. And New York bears the imprint of my struggle. That’s enough for me now.