How to Get Ready for a Date Like a French Girl

Those Who Can't Do, Teach · Paris · by Marina Khorosh

After almost three years of living in France and analyzing how French women eat, breathe, play with their hair, and approach all other life missions with the effortlessness (read: laziness) that they are so renowned for, I can confidently say that I have successfully adjusted to their ways and even taken on some of their habits. A low-maintenance person by nature, I have been particularly keen on their approach the art of date dressing, dwindling down the prepping routine to a bare minimum. And so, I bring to you the French girl thought process of getting ready for a date, sprinkled with personal reflections for good measure.

What’s in a Number?

Musings of the Mind · Paris · by Marina Khorosh

Back when I was in my early twenties and the world was still an innocent place, filled with hope and promise of potential boyfriends-to-be, it was a girl’s due diligence to pay attention to her “Number”. No, I don’t mean the numbers in one’s bank account, or even that on the scale – what I am referring to is the amount of men that one allows themselves to become intimate with. A “good girl” always kept her number around 4, while the more risqué ones edged into the “under 7” territory and usually stopped there.

Those who fell into the 1st Wedding Round and got married around 27 withdrew themselves from the Numbers game, cashing out with their husband as their final digit (at least for the foreseeable future). And then, there were the rest of us, those who did not get married and continued to date in the modern-day sh*tshow of no promises and guarantees. Their Number, previously guarded like a national treasure, continued to grow with each passing year, with even the most selective of women surpassing double-digits and stepping into the realm of what the younger them would have considered indecent and inappropriate.

The Story of the Old Flower

I Know How To Pick'Em · Paris · by Marina Khorosh

Ever so often, people ask me whether I think all men are douchebags. Let me set the record straight immediately by stating that this is not the case. It is my strong belief that there is a douchebag in each and every one of us, and I am most definitely not excluded from this equation. Sometimes it is the man who is the douchebag, sometimes it is the woman, and sometimes, it’s the seventeen year-old girl who is the biggest douchebag in the room.

Let’s backtrack a bit. You see, sometime around Christmas, my teenage niece came to visit me in Paris. The unfortunate state of my love life being a family concern, she immediately began interrogating me on whether I was dating anybody at the moment. Luckily, I was ready, having prepared a perfectly decent option that I assumed would earn her approval and ensure a positive report back to the homeland. As usual, I thought wrong, which is how we arrived to the disaster that now goes down in history as the most awkward night of my life, aka the Date with the Old Flower.

Change of a Hair

Musings of the Mind · Paris · by Marina Khorosh

Last week, Kim K broke the Internet, Instagram, your phone, with a gelled-back platinum blonde bob, which she somehow coordinated with fellow publicity hooker Jared Leto for good measure. (I wonder if they have agents syncing these things? Talk about fulfilling job..) This look, absurd as it is, is bound to sweep down to the mainstream masses in the course of the next few weeks / months, inspiring countless girls to peroxide their follicles in an effort to re-create this look.

While some will simply aspire to emulate Kimmy the Refined Goddess of Plastic-Fantastic, others will use it as an excuse to curb those winter blues and delude the boredom and restlessness that comes months of hibernation, sexual frustration, avalanches and whatever else constitutes modern-day Polar Vortex living. A change of a hairstyle will signify a “Spring awakening”, a “fresh new start”, a way to hit the pastures of Printemps up and running, equipped with a brand-new boost of confidence.

Fighting the Right for the Joie de Vivre

Musings of the Mind · Paris · by Marina Khorosh

While I rarely get affected by feedback on any of my writing, a strong viral response to a Vogue.com article, which depicts a day in the life of my best friend and mommy blogger La Yummy Mummy (read her response here), really hit a chord. For some reason, multiple women felt the urge to critique the lifestyle I had portrayed in this article, claiming that a truly hands-on, diligent mother shouldn’t have a time to take showers, dress well, be a doting wife to her husband, all while actually enjoying parenting.

This, my friends, are the ideas that scare women out of marriage and child-rearing in the first place.

The Dbag Dating Career Scorecard

Those Who Can't Do, Teach · Paris · by Marina Khorosh

I know you’re supposed to be what you eat, and how you act, and who your friends are. And yet, I firmly believe that a large part of who you are is what you do. A nobody at a bar can suddenly metamorphose into God via the word “cardiologist”, while a gorgeous stranger can diminish all his appeal by mentioning that he is a retail employee and a photographer on the side. (Unless you happen to be like me and are inherently attracted to losers.) In any case, I love to judge men by occupation, and today, I teach you to do the same via this brilliant little scorecard, positioned roughly by diminishing Dateability value.