Seinfeld Paralleled

It's funny how being in New York reminds you of a Seinfeld episode. I've always considered my life to be something like a Seinfeld episode. I think everyone does, generally speaking. Seinfeld is one of those shows that is relative to just about anyone, and it is even more relevant to people in New York. Obviously, that is due to the fact that the show takes place in New York.

My own life seems to take peculiar parallels to it, interestingly. And while there are certain things in the show that are truly unbelievable, there are other things you find out when you live here that are exactly like in the TV show.

Personally, I've always had trouble with which character of the show I identify with the most. I could be Jerry, because I tend to find an observational humor about things in any situation, probably something I developed after watching episode after episode of the show. I could be George, who I've always thought of myself in years past as a result of my neuroticism and ineptitude with the ladies, but as I grew older, I felt I grew to contain those Larry David-like tendencies quite a bit so they wouldn't become a dominant part of my personality. I could also be Kramer, because anyone who knows me knows of my never-ending stream of hair-brained schemes and my lack of desire to hold a job. I can't really relate to Elaine, mostly because I'm male and she is female, but, surprisingly enough, I do have a friend named Elaine (who saw that coming?!) and we talk about EVERYTHING! Much like in the show.

My apartment is set up in a way that invites an observer's eye, decorated with seemingly random objects (though no bicycle). It appears as if a sit-com could definitely be taking place there. And if you took out one wall, you'd have a perfect stage setting for one comedic enterprise after another. The one thing that is different about Jerry's and my apartment is that it is not the focal point or frequent meeting place of a lot of social interaction. Sure, my roommates and I have people over every once in a while, but it does not entertain the constant flow of people in and out with their own individual stories to tell as Seinfeld's does. The roommates each share a certain amount of this space together, rarely any collective time together, though we do swap stories and opinions as a result of our proximity.

I think the apartment would be more of a meeting place if we were located in a more centralized location that was convenient for everyone to get to. As of now, it is more of a destination than a hang-out spot, so people can't casually come in and out unless they are in the neighborhood.

Some of the things in the show are very accurately depicted as typical occurrences in New York City. For example, there is never a shortage of weird, crazy people to interact with. Sometimes you have no choice, sometimes they just start interacting with you, and you just have to go with it. New York is expert at putting any typical person in a situation he/she has not encountered before, and therefore might think it bizarre and/or funny. Seinfeld as a TV show could never have run out of ideas of outrageous situations for people to get in to. It is a perfect window into the psyche and behavioral patterns of people, bystanders or activators, when placed in the metropolitan, cosmopolitan environment that is New York City.

Of course people have their favorite coffee shops, or restaurants they like to go to, but Seinfeld also showed us how vastly different food can be, and how weird interacting with people can be in the quest for food.

It also displayed how varietal life can be when in the quest for a mate. Dating was a common theme in Seinfeld, and just as predicted, it is weird here. It is very difficult to do considering how unpredictable people are, how expensive everything is, and how distances become so long even when they're not at all.

One of the things that I never believed would happen in New York, but that happened all the time on Seinfeld, was people running into each other on the street. One would think that New York is too big a place with so many people running around all the time for it to even be possible to run into someone you know completely at random. But it does! I've run into people all the time. You meet somebody, and then you hang out in the same neighborhoods, you ride the same trains, it's bound to happen sometime.

What people refuse to believe about New York is that, while it is enormous, it is still, at heart, a small town. Everything about it has a small town atmosphere, if you ignore the skyscrapers and taxicabs everywhere.

It may be hard to believe, but it's easy to see why that show was so successful, because so much of it was based on real life. And as we all know, real life is very funny.