Flavor of the Week: Over Exposure

My roommate and I are seasoned troublemakers. When we’re not making the trouble, we’re sniffing it out, and since we’re such experts, I wasn’t surprised when Nina and I found ourselves standing on the corner of Spring and Sullivan streets with a half-naked man asking us to take photos of him.

We started the evening at a friend’s posh apartment-warming party on Wall Street. We spent the majority of the night attached to the cheese-and-wine station, befriending any like-minded people who loitered around the hors d’oeuvres, toasting often to our friend’s debonair new pad.

Coincidently, we headed out as the cheese dwindled (truly a coincidence), en route to see an ’80s cover band at The Canal Room. During the set, we twisted and shouted, just beat it and poured sugar all over it.

We were in high spirits as we headed back to my West Village apartment, continuing our dance moves along the way. As we gallivanted down the streets, heads turned. But one man didn’t seem to notice as he steadfastly concentrated on his BlackBerry, looking rather distressed.

With my curiosity piqued (Nina calls it nosiness), I tapped him on the shoulder. “You look about as lost, confused and distraught as I did when my mom texted me last year that Michael Jackson died,” I said. “What in the world is going on in that phone of yours?” He looked up, and I noticed that his bright blue eyes seemed to droop with horror. “This girl I know is sexting me from Mexico,” he said. “And I don’t know how to respond.”

I grabbed the phone and scrolled through the conversation, reading it aloud to Nina.

Girl: My hotel bed is empty without you, wish you were next to me.

Guy: Yeah, Mexico would be pretty cool. Seemed pretty innocent, so I continued to scroll.

Girl: You know how much dirtier we’d leave this place?

Guy: Haha they have maid service for that!

Girl: I want to be naked with you. Her last flirtatious line left our guy on the corner confused. He wasn’t sure what she wanted, how he should respond or what the point was if she was thousands of miles away in Mexico.

I stared him down, giving him that serious look, my forehead wrinkled with perplexity. “What’s your name, kid?” I thought that, with his lack of game, I could rightfully infantilize and bully him a bit.

“Steve,” he answered. I admit: He wasn’t half-bad looking. His eyes took first prize, but his buff body wasn’t far behind.

“What do I do? What do I say?” he asked. I liked that he said it with such sweet sincerity. “I’m not this kind of guy. I’m a lover, and I don’t even really know this girl.”

Nina and I looked at each other for an astonished second, and we both blurted out basically the same thing: “Ask her to send sexy pictures!” “Really? Is that too much?” “She initiated it, kid, take advantage,” I said, urging him on. This was starting to get good. Trouble rarely met us so easily on an unassuming corner.

I watched as he sent her a text: “What are you wearing? Send me a pic.”

She replied almost immediately: “You first babe.”

Then he got really confused—his blue eyes now all defenseless and naive—and he again turned to us for help.

“Do what the woman says, boy!” He seemed like he wanted to be bossed around, so I gave it to him. We didn’t know this girl, but we liked her and her aggressive nature. Nina and I were excited to help her out with a good picture of the guy’s bod.

Steve reached out his hand to Nina:

“OK, would you mind taking a picture of me then, please?”

Nina insisted he cut the polite talk out and hand her his BlackBerry. Steve posed with a wide smile plastered across his cute mug. We snickered at his unintended silliness as Nina began to count: “One… Two…” But before she made it to three, Incredible Hulk Steve tore off his shirt, exposing a not-tooshabby eight-pack of abs. We giggled more, realizing the absurdity of it all as we stood there, on the wide-open corner with a halfnaked man pursing his lips in that I-think- I’m-fierce way. Nina’s hands were shaking as she tried to hold back her laughter. Somehow she managed to get a few clear shots of his tight gym body.

“Is there enough light?” our unashamed model asked. He pointed to a nearby restaurant: “I can go under that light.”

I know Abercrombie & Fitch is in the habit of parading naked men outside its doors to attract attention, but I had a feeling this Soho-chic restaurant wouldn’t be too fond of Steve’s PR strategy.

Then Steve reached for his belt. “Hands on your head!” Nina screamed, as if it were a stick-up.

Steve put his innocent face back on and said, “I’m sorry, I don’t know what to do. And I’m not this kind of guy: I’m a lover.”

As he repeated that line again, we began to realize something might be up and felt skeptical about this over-exposure.

“OK look, umm, take your BlackBerry, send the girl your ab pics and have a great rest of your night,” I said.

“Well join me, girls!” Steve was now all raring to go. “We should get to know each other over a drink.”

“We’ve gotten to know enough,” Nina said. I nodded as we bolted toward my apartment.

The kid was relentless and just as speedily followed us, pointing out potential bars for his desired drink. It wasn’t that he seemed harmful or threatening, exactly. In fact, he still seemed pretty nice. He just wasn’t our sort of thing, and his persistence was far from redeeming or charming. It was sweet, however, that after I told him that my boyfriend would be “very, very angry if we didn’t get home this second,” he told me I deserved better than an abusive boyfriend. (Uh, thanks, Steve).

Of course, I didn’t actually have a boyfriend and was just trying to dissuade him from following us. Thinking the big, bad boyfriend scheme would intimidate him didn’t work. Instead, it just encouraged him more.

“We can talk about it over a drink,” desperate Steve said. “You deserve better. You really do.”

Despite the kind words, Nina and I needed escape routes. Steve’s dedication was resolute. With no other option apparent, we decided to switch gears and be upfront, mature women about it. So, on the count of one… two… three! we cold-sprinted up Seventh Avenue, leaving him befuddled, with his naughty phone clutched in his hand. As we weaved through the puzzling streets of the West Village, we didn’t look back. Nina realized we had lost Steve by turn four, but we continued to run the rest of the way back to my place and up the three flights of stairs.

We wanted a crazy night and somehow managed it. Once our adrenaline died down and we’d exhausted our retelling of our corner encounter, Nina and I slept well that night, thinking about Steve and his strange sexting setback. And hoping we’d helped one lonely girl in Mexico also get to sleep as well. C

Read more of Stacy Tasman’s writing at www.stacytasman.com.