When “The West Village Girl” essay made its rounds, calling out the monotony of white twenty-something women climbing the influencer-adjacent ladder, it laughed at these women who sought friends in a specific circle in a specific subset of the city:
After they snapped a selfie, I observed one of them, in the course of a minute, check a group chat, swipe through a dozen Instagram Stories, clock in to her Hinge account (no new messages), then throw a few heart reacts into yet another group chat. When I introduced myself, she told me she settled here two years ago after a breakup; it’s a good place to be single. “Everyone’s so attractive. It’s electric on the weekends,” she said. Plus: “We’re all the same! We’re all doing the same thing! It’s not a bad thing. It’s community!”
As these girls got dragged by older women within the article who remarked their time as West Village girls was freer, more fun, I resonated with the pressure the newest round of transplants face.
Ne…
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