Whenever my friends in New York or Paris complain about the dating scenes in their respective cities, I can’t help but throw my head back in an unapologetic fit of patronizing laughter. Ça n’a rien à voir avec my hometown of Los Angeles, chéries.

Imagine all the all the mean girls (and boys) in high school who decided compensate for their parents routinely ignoring them (and/or bribing their way into top tier universities) by obtaining worldwide adoration. Now, stick them all in one kale-and-oat-milk-fueled city, and make them compete with one another for entertainment jobs and Instagram likes. That’s Los Angeles for you.

Please keep in mind that the self-important, navel-gazing nature of Hollywood is not industry-specific – everyone in Los Angeles is a celebrity of some sort, if only in their own mind. So, unless pathological narcissism turns you on, I suggest you look elsewhere if it’s love that you’re after.

With all that said, if you do find yourself looking for love in the City of Angels (LOL), here are some of the characters you may encounter.
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Let’s face it: the mention of German men doesn’t evoke much passion. Never have I seen a friend break into a dreamy smile en route to Berlin, or wax poetic about some German dreamboat she had just men. German men always seem a bit like German food – you’re sure it’s fine, maybe even good, but you don’t consciously seek out to experience it.

This past August, I attended a dinner with about eight tall, handsome German guys. It was a great evening of learning all about raves and DJ culture, debating societal responsibilities, and almost signing up for an Ayahuasca ceremony – the stuff East Berlin is made of. The Germans were friendly and hospitable – and yet, as men, they remained a complete mystery, which made me even more determined to decipher them.

Fast-forward two months, a friend generously offered to connect me with a few expats with extensive German dating experience. I was secretly hoping that I would stumble across breakthrough revelations that would point towards a nation of deep thinkers and closeted romantics – after all, this is the country that once gave us Nietzsche and Beethoven! Alas, my findings were slightly different. Without further ado, here are some key things I learned about the Deutsch.

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Call me a naive Babysitter’s Club byproduct, but I can’t wax enough poetic to female friendships. In an ecosystem where every other touchpoint – men, work, even family – are often imbued with headache and chaos, friends are akin to a glass of Sauvignon Blanc – predictable, dependable, a surefire temporary refuge from your issue du jour. Having stumbled upon many of those over the years, I couldn’t be more grateful to my globally-dispersed gaggle of girlfriends for their emotional support and endless patience!

I say “gaggle,” because it often takes a small village of friends to pick you up from life’s proverbial gutter and hustle you back to sanity. Just like one should not expect their partner to fulfill all their needs, one cannot realistically expect one friend to simultaneously fill the role of mentor, advisor, wing woman, cozy shoulder to cry on, etc. Instead, it is best to amass a handful of trusted confidants to  emotionally exploit  rely on in the perennial hamster wheel that is life. Without further ado, here they are, in diminishing order of importance.

P.S. Don’t forget that friendship is a two-way street and all that. Where a lot is given, a lot is expected!

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When I was eleven years old, I went on an exchange program in a French city called Nîmes. On my first night there, a boy named Arnaud confronted me with two pressing questions: did we have electricity, and did bears roam the streets of my native Saint-Petersburg? (And so began my rapport with French men..)

Twenty years later, not much has changed. I still regularly find myself on the receiving end of endless stereotypes about Russia, which have since shifted from bears to De Beers (ha!) Since this is the sacred month when I park myself in the motherland and inhale practical wisdom in bulk, I decided to simultaneously explore some of the dating-related gems that I have been privy to this year.

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A few years ago, when I was young and spewing generalizations like glitter dust, I penned this article about French men. It was a little stupid and oozing with clichés à la “French men don’t shower but are good in bed! Just hold your nose!” And yet, it somehow managed to climb the Google search rankings, sparking a mini-debate in the comments section that is sporadically enriched to this day. It appears that for every reader lamenting about her Frenchman dating nightmare, there is another one celebrating her French partner as God’s gift to the planet. Neither POV is wrong.

Since analyzing Frenchies is in the DNA of this blog, and because I have been dating one of them for seven months now (woohoo!), I feel like I have the moral obligation – and authority – to give you my updated assessment of the topic. If I sound biased at times, forgive me. Love makes you do crazy things, Frenchmen defense included.

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Editor’s Note: This post was brought to you by Pragati WS, a brilliant 24-year-old lawyer from New Delhi with a penchant for perusing the New York Times, Vogue and Dbag Dating between court hearings. Other hobbies include overindulging in coffee and Italian food and voicing her opinions on her blog and Twitter. This particular topic was inspired by the “tragic yet hilarious” dating exploits of Pragati and her girlfriends, once again proving that, no matter how many thousands of kilometers may lie between us, we are all the same!  

Delectable caramel skin, wavy dark hair, chocolate-brown eyes, deep intelligence.. These are just a few of the many factors that lure women to Indian men. Even the ones who aren’t exactly Dev Patel lookalikes have a certain earthy je ne sais quoi that make them pretty hard to resist. Throw in excellent manners and abundant generosity, and they are definitely worth your while.

Now that we have sung these guys all the praises under the South-East Asian sun, it’s time for some practical advice. If you are dating – or considering dating – a man from this subcontinent, here are some common traits you should be prepared for.
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