Bobos

It could be Rush Street in Chicago or slices of the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles. For my Australian friend, it’s the section of Melbourne where people go to see and be seen. I’ve heard it called the Monaco of Istanbul and the land of the bourgeois bohemians. It is Bebek, a small waterfront secetion of İstanbul that has become an "it" spot for anyone who is somebody.

It projects the same aesthetic as other cities, just interchange the faces: gamine women teetering around on stilettos while their slicked and starched men wait impatiently for the valet to pull up their Lamborghinis. The fruit doesn’t have any bruises, the fish doesn’t stink, and you can read a lot of English on the sweatshirts of random passersby. It is clean, bordering on sterile.

The posturing and posing of this well preened and thoroughly groomed clique reminds me of a cattle call audition for an imaginary part. An air of indifference to anything but oneself creates the distance of a movie screen – they have put themselves on display, and therefore you can watch the scene but never be part of it. Worst of all, it simultaneously ignites repulsion and desire.

The sidewalk cafés spill into one another to form a massive cool kid’s lunch table. The scene clogs traffic and jacks up prices; creating the illusion that you’re in a different city than the one you’re in and every cosmopolitan city on the planet all at once. Perhaps it is the minimalist menus, the sleek fonts that stamp out monosyllabic restaurant names, the demure lighting, the angular people, the square plates and uncomfortable chairs; the same hypnotic electronic beats spliced between repetitive lyrics, the same color schemes, the sparsely decorated interiors, or all of the above. The place puts you on guard, like being at a crowded Crate & Barrel where you feel you are going to break something because you take up too much space. It is swimming upstream against a human current of discomfort. Everyone is in perfect rhythm they don't have much soul. We all are in on some secret that none of us really know, but shh, don’t tell or you’ll spoil the illusion. I wonder if it is simply because I can, and you can’t, that it seems so special. Everyone is so contained and well orchestrated, as if a painting has come to life between the hours of 11 p.m and 3 a.m but can only move within the bounds of an invisible frame. Once I step inside, I find I know the choreography as well, the same stylized movements and over awareness of my surroundings.

This fairytale turning into a pumpkin mentality makes me feel like I really want to go to such places, and then, once I’m there, I immediately feel suffocated and desire to get out before it’s too late. But I am no Cinderella and I always imagined Prince Charming would be on a bicycle rather than in a Lamborghini.