I always feel a sort of existential disquiet around models. This week in particular, with evenings spent gulping champagne to dull the acute discomfort as six-foot Eastern European waifs slither around me, their diaphanous skin reflecting camera flashes, their liner-smothered eyes staring from perfectly round heads that might snap off if you pulled hard enough. Occasionally they’ll speak, though only to each other, and their flippant indifference towards the primped and gelled men vying for their attention (those lucky ones who made it past the doorman) seems like a scene from some basic cable soap. They nurse gin and tonics, imported beers and $5 bottles of water, and while their drinks are always half-empty, you never actually see anything touch their lips.

After about ten minutes of watching them I’ll feel suddenly exhausted, weighted under the mental balast of a paradigm that considers someone like me so unworthy. I’ll search for a seat, a place to collapse and observe from a distance, only to find the models strewn across every chaise, their spindly limbs stretched languorously along the velvet or leather surface of whatever trend-swallowing venue we happen to occupy. Tonight’s locale looks like the bastard child of an Aspen ski lodge and a Dutch brothel, cast iron candelabras and thick red curtains draped over wall-mounted horns and other unidentifiable animal parts.

Feeling my head start to reel, I search for someone, anyone who doesn’t metabolize air and wear clothes for a living. Normal people pepper the room, eyeing the models with the same wariness that I feel. What’s it like to inhabit those tweezer bodies, to walk through the world taking up so little space? What will these women look like in five years? Ten? Their spines, protruding through tank tops and low-backed dresses, already curve in serpentine arcs, and a few have veins already visible under their transluscent skin.

Grabbing my bag, I pull out my cell phone and make a beeline for the front door. Miraculously, Boyfriend answers on the first ring.

“I’m leaving now, heading back downtown. You want to meet me for dinner? I have the biggest craving for a steak.”