After a dozen years, I left the lonely city of San Francisco, where I found an odd companionship with self-driving cars on late pandemic nights.
There is a loneliness to San Francisco. During the day, life bustles about in busy exercise. At night, the city abandons itself. The streets empty out. San Francisco is a city that sleeps—an early to bed, early to yoga city. If you are inclined to stay awake in the darkened hours, you will find yourself often in solitude, as I did living in the Bay Area for a dozen years. I left for New York City on the first day of May.
San Francisco was shielded, for a time, from the worst of the pandemic. We gave thanks for a lack of a discernible winter. I lost count of the number of times I made grateful small talk about how being able to meet friends in parks at any time of year saved our mental health—likely our respiratory health as well—from further decline. What San Franciscans also did was forgo traditional nighttime pleasures. Bars were closed. Clubs shut their doors, boarded up their windows, and started GoFundMes.
By contrast, the neighborhoods of San Francisco that host crowds past 9 o’clock—the Castro, the Mission, certain sectors of SoMa —are anomalous. I was once kicked out of a restaurant in Bernal Heights at nine after arriving at 8:30 for a date. I never saw the date again. I blame the restaurant. Like many of Silicon Valley’s products, the cars crept into our lives until they became ubiquitous. They began appearing after I graduated from college.
I have yet to ride in one of the cars, though I would like to. I do wonder about what the safety drivers feel as they perform a task for the express purpose of automating it. I imagine the position of “self-driving car babysitter” must carry with it a certain doomed feeling. I do want one someday. I hate driving.
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