To read the piece in its entirety, see The Guardian.

Two weeks ago, I walked into an upscale restaurant for a networking dinner. I was brand new to Miami, a city whose residents pride themselves on two-story strip clubs, too-orange spray tans, and rented Ferraris.

I didn’t want to be here – neither at this dinner nor in Miami – but since I was supposed to spend six months stuck in this city receiving medical treatment for a weird dizziness issue I’d been dealing with, I figured I’d try my best to make friends with whatever non-terrible Miamians I could find.

Cue networking dinner.

“Sir,” the maitre d’ told me, “you can’t come in wearing shorts and sandals.”

I sprinted to a TJ Maxx and, not knowing anything about clothes, I put on the first thing in my size, threw my shorts and sandals into a plastic shopping bag, and returned to the restaurant anew.

Upstairs in the dining room, Eric, the dinner host, walked over. He’s a bro. I’d had a phone call with him a week prior through a friend of a friend, where he kept using the word “sick”.

Eric gave me a fist bump and then pointed to my seat next to a tall man wearing a blazer, who looked both nerdy and kind. Perhaps this man could be my new friend.

I caught Blazerman mid-sentence: “ … and I minted two NFT bananas last week and then resold them for 5x the next day,” he said.

Oh no. I don’t do crypto people, I thought.

To read the rest of this piece, see The Guardian.