WE’RE OUT TA HERE
See ESCAPE on Page 36 New Yorkers feel hotter, thinner and luckier in love after kissing the image-obsessed city goodbye
FOR Zoë Barry, feeling attractive in New York was an impossible feat. The 32-year-old, who grew up in Stuy Town and attended an all-girls private school, says her self-esteem was slowly sapped by the city’s skyhigh beauty standards. “As a woman, you’re never enough,” says the sporty 5-foot-6 CEO. “I was never tall enough or slim enough. It grates on you after a while — that pressure to be a mannequin.”
So Barry pulled a confidence-boosting move that more and more New Yorkers are considering lately: She fled NYC for a city that actually appreciates her.
“A bruised ego is a very common New York syndrome,” says Upper East Side psychologist Kathryn Smerling. “There’s always someone who’s going to be better-looking or have nicer clothes than you. It’s a perennial quest for perfection.”
Manhattan-based psychotherapist Jonathan Alpert says the trickle-down effect is especially painful when it comes to looks — and finding love. “It’s not uncommon to feel overwhelmed,” he says. “New York City creates an underlying push not just to keep up with the Joneses but outdo them. This makes it very difficult for people to feel good about
themselves. Leaving is definitely on the increase.”
Even conventionally gorgeous women risk getting cast aside by spoiled men. Barry recalls a New York male acquaintance who once callously remarked, “Beautiful women are like flowers. They ought to be replaced daily.”
That dig is what drove her to action. “I was done with being told I’m disposable,” she says.
Soon after, Barry, who had been working on Wall Street, decamped to Breckenridge, Colo., where she became a “ski bum.” A flood of male attention quickly followed.
“All of a sudden I was the belle of the ball,” she says. “In New York, I couldn’t find a nice guy anywhere.” She ended up dating a down-to-earth dude who couldn’t care less about snagging a sample-size trophy girlfriend. “It was pretty much the exact opposite of New York City,” Barry says.
Now settled in Boston, where her digital health company ZappRx has raised $42 million in capital, Barry credits the change of scenery with saving her self-image.
Even glamorous cities can send confidence soaring in surprising ways. When Sherry Smith relocated to Paris after a decade of battling shaky self-esteem in NYC’s fashionable Chelsea nabe, the 5-foot-2 publicist expected to feel invisible among effortlessly gorgeous French women. Instead, she became one of them. “In New York, I felt average, like a 6. In Paris, I felt like an 8 or a 9,” she says. “I was regarded very differently and got more attention, even though it was the same me.”
Smith recalls one time when a dashing gentleman praised her “unique sense of style” — specifically, a bold skirt with bare legs. “He thought it was sexy,” says the blonde, now in her 40s.
Guys’ selfesteem can be affected, too.
Adam Baumgartner was fresh out of college in Indiana two years ago, when he moved to Hell’s Kitchen and suffered a major ego hit. “It takes a lot to stand out,” he says.
Hard bodies at New York beaches were so prevalent that the newcomer would steer clear of the shore altogether. “I didn’t want to take my shirt off,” admits the 24-year-old redhead, who describes himself as skinny, with a runner’s build. “I avoided Fire Island because I was worried about my body.”
He tried bulking up at the gym, to no avail. “I’d go on Grindr and feel like I hadn’t made any progress at all,” Baumgartner says. “There are just too many people to compare yourself to.”
A month ago, Baumgartner moved to crunchy San Francisco, where he says the dating scene is far more forgiving.
“When I go out, I’m not as selfconscious because I don’t feel as judged,” he says. “It just seems gentler here, a place more likely to embrace someone no matter what they’re wearing or how they look.”
Alpert isn’t surprised by Baumgartner’s experience: “By placing more value on how you feel rather than how you look, you tend to feel less stressed and anxious,” he says.
Still, you might want to steel yourself for constant flattery if you do leave New York.
“I got way hotter when I moved away,” says Janis Isaman, a 40-yearold former fashion exec who pulled off an escape from Greenwich Village a couple of years ago. Now working as a fitness instructor in Calgary, Alberta, the 5-foot-4, 125-pound Isaman blames New York’s boorish bros for eroding her self-esteem.
“It wasn’t uncommon for men to make a comment about how ‘chub- by’ I was,” she says. And it wasn’t just strangers at the gym. “After two months of dating, I had one guy say to me, ‘I’m not calling you fat, but I normally date models.’ ”
In Canada, on the other hand, Isaman’s proportions are in high demand. “Here, everyone says, ‘You have the best body.’ ”
The complimentary attention has empowered her to hone her signature style, marked by smartly tailored clothing and funky jewelry.
“I dress to play up my assets,” she says. “I can’t grow 6 inches or take 10 inches off my hips — and I’m fine with that.”
Isaman is happy to have her Big Apple dating years behind her. “I didn’t stand out, but I sure do now,” she says. “I still have a dozen single girlfriends back in New York who are intelligent, beautiful and welldressed. They’d be picked up in a hot second in any other city.”
For Barry, settling in Boston has supercharged her sense of personal hotness. “I feel like I can be attractive wearing jeans and flats, whereas in NYC, it’s like, ‘Did something bad happen to you today?’ The pressure is off, so you can feel and be beautiful.”