We agreed to meet for lunch on a Friday. One o’clock, in front of the Dim Sum restaurant on Mulberry, right off Canal. An agreement made over text the previous night after swiping right and exchanging more than a few messages. Him: a photographer, just out of school, living in Bushwick and interning at a magazine in SoHo. Me: an arch school dropout, and a minor-league dealer fucking around in Bed-Stuy.  Ever since I left college, a lot of people have taken me for a burn out. But I consider myself a foodie: someone who finds pleasure in eating, but with absolutely no career prospects. It’s a joke I like to tell myself. I do know my way around the kitchen. I’m the kind of guy who can win a boy’s heart first through his belly, but it’s not like any have stuck around for breakfast. I had a feeling this guy would. The early summer had set in with those days of aggressive humidity and unbroken grey skies. It was the beginning of June and I couldn’t have been happier for the lazy summer ahead. I decided to walk from my apartment to the restaurant, but the light breeze that enticed this sojourn to Manhattan stagnated by noon. The dormant pavement heat blossomed by the time I had to cross the river. Beyond the buildings along the horizon, the clouds casually threatened rain, or at least I was hopeful for a deluge, a summer shower to hide the sweat stains growing darker. My hair had flattened and stuck to my forehead, completely voiding all the time I wasted styling, my center part ruined. If I were smarter, I would’ve worn a lucky cap.  Walking to the date probably wasn’t one of my best ideas, I must admit, but it was the only way I could clear my mind and sift through all my doubts about meeting this curly haired cutie. The moment I woke, a pit grew in my stomach. I figured a warm shower followed by a pep talk in the foggy mirror would calm my nerves like it always did in high school before a big game, but after all these years I was out of practice.  My legs shook as I put in my lucky square cut diamond studs and sprayed a smidge of my designer cologne, thinking this woody scent would do the trick, fuel my confidence, but agh! The shaking spread to my hands and the perfume got in my mouth. Nothing was working. I didn’t even have an urge to eat; my bowl of cereal got soggy before my eyes and eventually, I just abandoned it on the coffee table. The downtown skyline never ceased to amaze me each time I walked the Manhattan bridge: the steel, cement, and glass rising high, the flat tops, peaks and pediments all disappearing into the low lying clouds. A picture-perfect image I once dreamed of adding to, all framed by Neo-Gothic limestone towers. I was better…