Perhaps you've noticed Candace Bushnell hasn't been out and about as much as she used to be. Like she is only on photographed by Patrick McMullan a couple of times a month! What has she been up to? "I go to Connecticut and I look at bugs and I don't socialize," she tells CNN. "If I'm here for 10 days in a row I'm exhausted."

Because of the vampires.

"New York is a city where ... you're going to see sides of human nature that you're going to be shocked by," the Sex and the City author tells CNN.

When I was younger the energy really fed me. This is a city of energy vampires — people really feed on each others' energies and that's why New Yorkers talk fast and gesture and they'll come in and say "Oh my god you won't believe what happened!" That's a normal greeting in New York.

Wait, wait: That's what all the gesturing and chattering is about? Like when people are waving their hands all around, they're actually performing a complicated ritual in order to steal your energy, until all that is left of you is a shell of a person who likes to stare at bugs? And here we thought it was all the backbiting and insecurity that was responsible for New York being exhausting. We were so naïve.

Candace Bushnell: 'New York is a city of energy vampires' [CNN]