I recently saw a silly greeting card on someecards.com that read “You’re going to love hating living in New York.” Soon after, I stumbled upon this article in the New York Times. Big shock, New Yorkers are the unhappiest state population in the union. The happiest states include much of the south and a handful of less-populated states in the west.

I happen to find this hilarious. Oh, I think the New York part is probably about right. When I lived in New York, I complained constantly about my quality of life. I bitched about subways, commuting, the cold, the way my hair looked in the humidity, the gray sky, the lack of exercise culture, the aggressive work week, the dirty martinis, the lack of Mexican food, the grime, the wind, the rain, and just about anything else that happened to infringe upon my comfort zone. So did everyone, because we could. And then we went on with our lives, self-analyzing, drawing on inspiration, generally doing business that makes the country run, and feeling slightly superior for living where we lived.

The places on the happy list are in poor areas with low levels of education. I’m sorry, but isn’t there a hint of “ignorance is bliss” in this list? Are these people happy? Or do they simply not know any different? I think there’s also a negative correlation between IQ and happiness; I have a hard time believing that the general population of Mississippi is as smart as the general population of New York.

Smarts aside, I think the city-happiness correlation is like the relationship-happiness correlation. I happen to live in a pleasant city right now. Boulder’s like the hot significant other that’s really nice, pretty friendly, funny enough, but the spark just isn’t there. I like to walk around and hold Boulder’s hand. I like to snuggle up on the couch with Boulder and watch a movie. But if I ever brought up a deep topic with Boulder? Ha, we’d drive each other nuts, Boulder trying to calm me down and telling me to let it go, me feeling stifled and like we’ll never understand each other. Boulder’s nice, it really is, and we could probably be together forever, coexisting in our separate spheres, smiling at each other without understanding, having only the occasional affair. But I’d know it’s just 80%. I’d know I wasn’t pushing myself to my full potential.

New York, on the other hand, is like the fiery passionate love affair. New York’s a little bit ugly, but man, has it got wit, a sense of humor, a drive to get things done, and fierce independence. Half the time we’re involved in passionate embrace, half the time we’re throwing the champagne flutes at each others’ heads, threatening to end it and move out. We engage, we push each other, we analyze, and we help each other grow. We seek to understand, and even though we get comfortable, there’s always something there that we didn’t know about each other, the discovery keeping the relationship interesting forever. We’re both sublimely happy and awkwardly miserable, but we can’t muster up the strength to find someone else.

I don’t know if I can marry either city. But when it comes to long term, I’ll take harsh reality over bread and circuses, maybe just cohabitating with NYC until it becomes common law.