Elizabeth Bishop was wrong: The art of losing is hard to master. There are few situations in life where we are forced to lose the things we want with enough frequency to really help us nail the choreography of abandonment. Few, but not none: I would argue that there is one place where you can not only learn to let go of a good thing, but actively relish the act of watching them move on without you.

If you want to learn how to grieve, dear reader, you should get yourself to an orgy.

My first sex party took place a few weeks before I had to leave New York for good, my visa having run its course. I had been invited to a couple of parties, and as fun as they'd have been, there comes a point in any exodus where the idea of meeting new people who you'd like to be friends with just feels like sadomasochism. So I thought to myself, "I wish I could go somewhere I didn't have to talk or socialize, but still be surrounded by people."

It was then that I remembered the bear sex party mailing list I had signed up for (God bless New York). For the straights still in the building, this was an organized sex party for scruffy, bearded gay men and their admirers. I checked and I was in luck. There was, in fact, one that night in midtown, and it was just 20 bucks to go in.

I'd had the odd threesome before, visited a plethora of intimidating saunas on solo jaunts round Europe, but organized bacchanals had, until that point, escaped me. I had no idea what to expect. Would it be some bleak, suburban swinging party? Some carefully choreographed masquerade serving perfume advert eleganza? Thankfully, it was neither, just a lot of hot, hirsute men in a blacked-out midtown apartment. With a snack bar!

It seems redundant to point out that I had a lot of sex at the orgy. But what, uh, came over me by the end of the night was an incredible sense of tranquility. The very nature of a large group sex situation meant that in the two minutes after I'd finished 69ing a hot guy, I came back to find him being fucked by someone else. And you know what? I was thrilled for them.

In that moment, I understood: New York, like the hot man currently being penetrated in front of me, had been mine for a time. It had been beautiful, joyous and just a tad salacious, and now it was somebody else's turn. Somebody just as deserving as me.

I walked out of that party and sat in the Times Square McDonalds, a very different type of pleasure palace altogether. Looking out over that neon hellscape with my chicken nuggets, I didn't get angry at the crowds. I just felt thankful that I got to run around the Jerusalem of capitalism for two years. A place other people come to fawn over, one I was able to take for granted. And I couldn't wait to see who got off the plane or the train or the bus to get topped by New York next.