It’s been a few months now since the Great Brooklyn Exodus, and we’ve started to settle into the new neighborhood. Once I got over the little things - stepping outside minus the bombardment of yellow cabs; walking more than eighteen paces to reach the nearest convenience store/dry cleaner/ATM; buying birth control at the local pharmacy owned by a sixtysomething Hasidic man with a navel-length beard - the rest followed along naturally. It has its downsides (who knew dogs were capable of excreting so many substances onto so much sidewalk space), but above all it feels real, like an actual place where life happens, not some cartoonish urban experiment with 8 million subjects crammed into 22.7 square miles of Darwinian concrete. I’ve started (like all Brooklynites) looking forward to that trek across the bridge at the end of the day, putting physical and mental distance between myself and the self-obsessed status-soaked survival race playing out behind me.

Still, I have noticed a few similarities - call it a common underlying theme. A subtle pissing contest that’s easy to overlook but always identifiable, and sits like a granite fixture in modern human interactions. See examples below:

Manhattan: My thousand-dollar bag has a longer waiting list at Barneys than your thousand-dollar bag.

Brooklyn: My haircut involved duller childproof scissors and more potent drugs than your haircut.

Manhattan: My trust fund will mature with a 16% higher accrual rate than your trust fund.

Brooklyn: The current two-digit balance of my checking account is lower than the current two-digit balance of your checking account. And my rent is two months later than yours.

Manhattan: My yippy little dog is from a rarer line of purebred affenpinschers than your yippy little dog.

Brooklyn: My friendly but haunted-looking dog was rescued from a far more traumatic life of hardship and abuse than your friendly but haunted-looking dog .

Manhattan: My four-month-old’s Baby Dior suede moccasins with matching pea coat were featured in more “American Baby” photo spreads than your four-month-old’s Kate Spade Fair Isle cardigan.

Brooklyn: My four-month-old’s Che Guevara print onesie is made from a higher certified level of organic fabric than your four-month-old’s Harley’s Angels baby tee.

And so on - you get the idea. Vive la Brooklyn! Oh well - at least the beer is cheaper.