NYC's Biggest Freak is Back On the Market
There's been a seismic shift in the 60+ pansexual dating scene: Bill de Blasio is available.
Until Eric Adams’ election, Big Bill de Blasio was basically the only New York mayor I knew.
He was fresh to the city in 2014, as was I. New York was huge and complicated and confusing and weird; so was its mayor, a giant man with no discernable passions other than commuting to the YMCA and grinning weirdly, who put forth some decent policies and otherwise spent his time saying “pwease don’t hwurt me or my famiwy” to the ultra-powerful and completely psychotic police unions. At his side throughout was his wife, Chirlane McCray, a sexually nondenominational woman who has previously described herself as a “lesbian” but also hates labels, which was just another charming slash “??????” quirk in the grand mythos of de Blasness. But now all of that is over, sort of.
Don’t call it a de vorce, but de Blas and McCray are branching out — separating, but not. Together, but seeing other people. They announced this seismic shift in the 60+ pansexual dating scene in the most absurd way possible: an elaborately overwritten New York Times article. Here are the highlights:
They are not planning to divorce, they said, but will date other people. They will continue to share the Park Slope townhouse where they raised their two children, now in their 20s — the vinyl-sided hub of a thoroughly modern political family whose mixed-race symbolism helped send a spindly progressive long shot to City Hall.
As with much about their marriage, its strain is imbued with civic resonance, a decade after the pair became what was then the most significant and dissected biracial couple in American politics.
And as with much about their marriage, they see lessons for others even in its tumult, both for workaday couples negotiating the challenges of growing old together and for the small subset who expose themselves to the uncommon glare of public scrutiny.
“I can look back now and say, ‘Here were these inflection points where we should have been saying something to each other,’” Mr. de Blasio said. “And I think one of the things I should have said more is: ‘Are you happy? What will make you happy? What’s missing in your life?’”
Inflection points! Civic resonance! This is a blog about a famous couple who have decided to do ethical nonmonogamy! They just want to go on Feeld!
Over a nearly three-hour interview, during which they cupped hands sporadically and once high-fived in agreement, Mr. de Blasio, 62, and Ms. McCray, 68, were alternately wistful and upbeat, self-critical and defiant.
Rather than issue a terse joint statement to announce what they called a trial separation — the carefully worded fate of so many political marriages before theirs — the two suggested they wanted to get considerably more off their chests.
Three! Hours! Of! Therapy! With! The! de Blasios! Wow. Wow. Wow. They cite all sorts of things — de Blas being mayor, COVID, etc, but then the killshot comes:
Yet they also clocked a shift in their relationship a year earlier, they said, coinciding roughly with a presidential run that Ms. McCray viewed with deep skepticism.
“I thought it was a distraction,” she said, publicly echoing a prevalent complaint from Mr. de Blasio’s constituents.
“Kind of true,” he said, laughing. “Point for Chirlane.”
Asked how it felt when Mr. de Blasio proceeded anyway, she allowed that she had to be supportive.
Literally nobody wanted this man to run for president! Not even (especially) his wife!
What this says to me is just how sad and frustrating the life of a certain kind of career politics man must be. Look at the outcomes: the absolute best career you can possibly hope for is Barack Obama’s. Obama spent barely 20 years in public office and rocketed straight to the top. His record is incredible: seven years slogging it out in the Illinois State Senate (not a lot of work or spotlight), half a term as a full U.S. Senator (lots of spotlight, not a lot of actual work), and then bam, eight years as president (lots of spotlight, lots of work), leaves office at 55 and retires right onto the “hang out and collect speaking fees” circuit having basically done it all. This is the ideal. This is what every de Blasio and Beto and Pete Buttigieg and Joe Biden dreams of.
But when it doesn’t work out… man. Look at Biden. He’s president, finally, literally on the verge of death after spending decades as a senator and then debasing himself as vice president before moving aside for a failed dynasty candidate and then, finally, winning the office. Beto tried to skateboard and magazine cover himself into the Senate and then the presidency and then Texas’s governorship and failed at all three which is just humiliating—but at least he didn’t have to do any actual work while doing that. Pete is on his consultant-core journey towards… something, but is currently cooling his heels taking flak for all of the trains leaping off their tracks around the country. When push comes to shove, though, he’s got Lis Smith to back him, so he’ll probably amount to something eventually.
But consider: de Blasio might have it the worst out of all these guys. He spent eight years as mayor of New York City, a high-profile job where you are responsible for an absolute clusterfuck of a city and are almost guaranteed to piss off everyone involved. Meanwhile, he humiliatingly ran for President and got absolutely nowhere. He also killed a groundhog! God. You do all these absolutely debased and humiliating things for your shot and you go nowhere.
These guys don’t have anything else! The game is all it is; as O’Rourke once said they’re “just born to be in it,” it being the depravity of electoral politics with a clear bent on becoming president. But they can’t all be Obama! Which brings us back to now. What does de Blas do now? Does he run for… something else? Does he try for Schumer’s Senate seat in a couple more terms? He’s 62 now, a year older than Obama is, and while he could retire to a far-less-lucrative “speaking fees and vanity directorships position” career, I don’t think he has it in him. Instead, his midlife crisis is going to be… dating around, I guess, while frantically trying to find something else he can run for.
His wife, meanwhile, sounds like she’s going to have a great time. Hot girl summer!
I was so mistaken. I thought that de Blasio ran for the nomination in some weird attempt to make McCray happy. Now I know the hard truth. Not one person other than de Blasio wanted him to run. He is a freak. And now this city has a much bigger freak as their mayor. A colossal freak.
Sir! Excuse me! Sir! This headline is Rudolph Giuliani erasure, and I will not stand for it! My man did not hire his law firm associate to dress up like his daughter for horribly illegal and cringeworthy sexual encounters for this blog to pass the title of His Dishonor of Freakiness to a mere consensual polycule weirdo. His first wife was also his cousin! Never forget!