I live in a laundry room, sans an actual washer and dryer, but my vintage-purse collection resides in a cupboard meant for the sheets and guest towels of a grown-up. I recently ended a two-year relationship with a person who loved me enough to buy a mattress with me and overlook my mediocre credit score. My eggs are wilting away like overheated arugula, and I want a family. The free food at the company I work for is no longer a novelty but has contributed to a weight gain of 17.5 pounds over the course of 3.5 years.
In San Francisco, I’ve cried in work bathrooms, at concerts, on Muni and one time in the Marshalls on Market Street. I’ve been dumped on my doorstep and at the farmers’ market at UN Plaza. The experiences I’ve gained from dwelling in this way-past-mid-20s-but-not-quite-30 spectrum of society means I have at least eight grey hairs in my bangs alone, and I know my way around a quarter-life crisis.
So when the time comes, and all the built-up sadness, anger and resentment from your early and mid-20s are ready to make a public appearance, here’s where you should go:
A bacon-wrapped hot dog cart
Consuming meat of questionable quality wrapped in another meat of questionable quality is the perfect metaphor for your uncertain future. It doesn’t matter if you’re vegetarian or vegan or gluten-free, because guess what? You’re freaking out. Eat up, calm down and use every condiment, or it didn’t happen.
Next to any dog walker in San Francisco
For obvious reasons, but specifically, at least seven well-behaved dogs will lick the salty tears from your face.
BART (any station) during morning-commute hours
Everyone has their headphones in their ears and is passively-aggressively using their gym bags to push to the front of the escalator line. People are applying mascara and picking their noses and reading books and using Bumble. No one is awake enough to deal with a screaming person, so really, go for it.
Golden Gate Park (next to the bison)
Majestic and hairy, the bison (likely) have poor hearing due to the dreadlocks blocking their ears. So go ahead — tell them all about the 32-year-old man who left a used condom in the decorative teacup your grandmother gave you after you slept together. The bison are great listeners.
Your friend’s tech company
If there’s something better than free snacks, nap pods and dogs as an antidote to your meltdown, please tell me right now what it is. Bonus: you can trip the person riding a hoverboard down the hallway if it will make you feel better.
San Francisco School of Massage
Essentially, you can pay someone to comfort you. When your masseuse asks you what your problem areas are, you can tell them, “My neck, my back, my anxiety attack.”
Latin American Club
There is a giant cardboard-cutout hamster on the wall that will make you feel better about yourself. If only for the reason that you are not a giant cardboard-cutout hamster hanging on the wall of a bar — witnessing messy make-outs after the consumption of margaritas notoriously comprised of 98.5 percent tequila. (You should have one—or two.)
Dolores Park
Treat yourself to a weed truffle and seek out a section of probably-peed-on grass between the drum circle and beer-pong game. No one will hear your whimpers over the pounding or cheers of tech bros easily distracted by balls.
Bob’s Donuts
This doughy haven is open 24 hours a day, and it is almost guaranteed that if you sprawl on the floor of the shop and roll around in the crumbs of donuts past, they will give you a free donut if you promise to leave.
