Hedge Funds and Dive Bars

So I got an e-mail this morning from Mr. CEO asking me to meet him Tuesday or Wednesday of this week. Interesting. Maybe that's when the wife and kids will be busy? I still don't know this guy, yet, I'm strangely attracted to this dark side, the mysteriousness of this person who is so discrete online. I've convinced myself to go and meet him strictly for journalistic purposes. It seems like a fun experiment. Of course, I will bring my mace just in case.

When I do research on his name, a lot of hedge fund stuff shows up. Before I moved to New York, I didn't even know what a hedge fund was. Basically, a hedge fund is a way for the rich and corrupt to get more rich and corrupt. Since there is such a disparity between the rich and poor here in Manhattan, guys who are deep into hedge fund operations are usually pretty weird, yet insanely rich. But, not "good" rich because they are usually pretty reclusive and snobbish. Like they think you are crazy if you're not in the Hamptons all summer. Or, the word "dive bar" doesn't exist in their vocabulary.

There are tons of these hedge fund cronies trolling around for pretty arm candy dates online. They are lonely, overworked, and a bit desperate, if not socially stunted.

The last hedge fund guy I dated used to zoom up (uninvited I might add) to my apartment in his new Porsche (not his BMW because it was too slow) at 5 in the morning after long nights of clubbing. He was hyper, obviously on something, and he seemed so alone, so scared, and he would grab onto me tightly. It was my first NY experience that money doesn't equal happiness and it scared the shit out of me. The emptiness I felt when I was with him was overwhelming.

How can these men, who obviously could have anything at their beck and call, be so unhappy, so empty, so devoid of life? Money is just paper that we, ourselves, have invented. It's not real. We can't take it with us when we die.

I found myself spending more time with this lonely hedge fund crazy because he always took me to the best restaurants, the best clubs and he knew New York inside and out. It was exciting to speed down the West Side Highway in his Porsche, the wind blowing in my hair, frivolity and drunkenness taking over my rigidity and innocence. He knew the owner of the best gourmet Indian food restaurant here in the city, and it was there that we would chat over wine, the Samosas melting in my mouth in the seductive candlelight. It was in his expensive Gramercy apartment that we would stay up all night, him showing me photos of his past loves tucked into his nightstand drawers. He confessed he went to therapy and his mom recently had a nervous breakdown. They found her wandering the streets in her nightgown.

The bitter taste that this man left in my mouth has still to go away, because I have realized that having money brings whole other sets of problems, and, money alone will not attract me to a man.

I can take myself to the best restaurants. I can take myself to the best clubs. It might break my budget, but if I really wanted to, I could. And someday, maybe if I want it, I will have a Porsche.

My grandfather used to say to me: "Honey, we're all the same. Everyone still has to eat and shit. Don't ever forget that. Ever."

Maybe Mr. CEO's wife and I can go shopping together.