An Afternoon in Bryant Park

This past Saturday I spent a large part of the afternoon hanging out in Bryant Park with an old high school friend visiting the city for the weekend and her friend from college. We sat near the south west corner of the park at a nice table and chairs. We all enjoyed some white wine compliments of Tyler's backpack and wheat thins (i did not care for the humus). After an hour or two of peacefully hanging out in the 70 degree weather a seemingly nice man asks us where the D train is. Being the only New Yorker in the group I answered the man and pointed in the direction of the train.

Thinking that was the end of that, I turn back to my friends. The man then compliments me on my (Nike) flip flops. I thank him and turn back to my friends. The (portly) man then brings his chair over and sits down next to us. As this point I begin to realize he is not quite as nice and innocent as I thought. The man then asks to see my shoe, or so i think. I remove my flip flop and extend my arm to show him the treading on the bottom of the shoe, but for some reason I knew to keep my foot close. The man then goes on to tell me how he is a reflexologist and asks me to give him my foot. He leans in getting close to grab my foot and my friend Tyler finally steps in to save me. She tells the man, "you have to understand that it's pretty awkward that you want to touch her feet here in Bryant Park." After no response from the main other than a blank stare, Tyler tells the man to please leave.

He gets about 20 ft away and we see him set up shop next to an unsuspecting woman alone reading a book with her feet up on another chair. We watch the interaction and the woman actually took her sneaker off and let him touch her feet!! After about 30 seconds I think she realized something was wrong and quickly put her shoe back on and I'm assuming asked the man to leave.

We tried to watch the foot fettish man, but he went off to another corner of the park that we couldnt see from our chairs. We wondered how many woman he coerced into letting him touch their feet.