Bright Lights, Big City

You are not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning.”

This opening sentence establishes a motif in which the character struggles to reconcile his behavior with his sense of self. Though the language is imprecise, the reader understands that the narrator recognizes both his behavior and the environment in which he finds himself as unsavory. He, however, tries to convince the reader that he is a far more decent person than he seems—despite his pattern of destructive and self-indulgent behavior. 

“Tad is the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning. He is either your best self or your worst self, you’re not sure which. Earlier in the evening it seemed clear that he was your best self.”

Tad is a foil for the narrator. He exhibits the self-assurance and cool confidence that the narrator performs or assumes only when under the influences of cocaine and alcohol. When he’s high, he feels a like a better match for Tad. When he comes down from the drug, he’s confronted by the vapidity that draws them together.

“The problem is, for some reason you think you are going to meet the kind of girl who is not the kind of girl who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning. When you meet her you are going to tell her that what you really want is a house in the country with a garden. New York, the club scene, bald women—you’re tired of all that.”

The narrator describes his longing for companionship and his inability to meet the kind of woman whom he believes he deserves. His desire for sincere companionship is foiled by his obsessions with drugs and partying. He seems to long for a quieter life, more akin to his suburban upbringing and for a woman more like his mother.