Dbag Dating grows up! After years of pouring out my cerebral chaos on this platform, I’m excited to share Accidentally Adult, my new newsletter about navigating grown up life with out a clue. Subscribe here and enjoy a weekly dose of Mom rants, relationship musings and occasional thoughts on the perplexing experience of being human, delivered straight to your inbox!
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Quarantine Coupling: The Diary
3 months B.Q. (before quarantine)
Monday, April 13th, 2020
5:45 AM. I’m a damn freak, but I love mornings. I love the peace, I love the quiet, I love the blessed 2-hour gap between my Quarantine Partner’s (QP’s) rising hour and my own. Like any millennial neurotic, I dive straight into a New Age morning regimen that is, technically, supposed to sprinkle glitter dust and sanity over my day (disclaimer: it doesn’t). Fifteen minutes of transcendental meditation (no, I don’t know if it works, and I probably never will), followed by 17 minutes with Melissa Wood Health (how is she always so zen? does she do transcendental meditation? ). I spend the rest of Me Time deciding between leggings, athletic shorts, and cutoffs (athletic shorts always win), making coffee and smoothies, reading headlines, and looking for dining chairs on the Internet. My QP doesn’t care for dining chairs – I could chop up a tree trunk and he would gladly sit on a stump all day. Which, considering the upcoming recession, might be a viable option.
Kiss, Marry, or Ghost? (PFW Edition)
The beauty of fashion is its ability to suggest, to inspire, to awaken dormant personas within us. In the aftermath of the Instagram parade that was Paris Fashion Week, let’s take a moment to review some alter ego options designers has to offer us for Spring 2018, rating their datability with a custom Kiss, Marry or Ghost? game!
Hei Bae, DTF? (Or, How To Talk Like a Modern-Day Dbag)
If you are anything like me (born before the ’90s, social media wary, technologically mediocre), you may occasionally feel a droning sense of fatigue while scrolling through Instagram and realizing that there is an entire meme jargon that reads more like Morse Code to your seasoned ears.
And yet, no matter how much we resent it, not understanding the language of the Internet is similar to not understanding the language of the country you live in – highly liberating, yet a surefire hazard for getting screwed over. Since I certainly don’t want you to get screwed over in the dating arena (leave that one to me!), I have compiled a handy little guide that will allow you to both decipher and chime into the wild jungle of Generation Hookup with a few gems of your own!
Moscow Madness: The Diary
I have a confession to make. I have always been slightly intimidated by Moscow. A native of Saint Petersburg, i.e. Russia’s intelligentsia hub, I was practically raised to look down upon ‘Moskvichi’ for their (presumed) gaucheness and cultural deficiency. And yet, I always suspected that my closed-mindedness was partially driven by my own sense of inadequacy. In Moscow, an oasis of concentrated wealth, beauty and corruption, I always felt too lumpy, too naïve, too low on the totem pole.. And so, as God and human nature intended, I judged.
Alas, there comes a time when everybody has to face their fears. Mine came when my brother proposed for me to temporarily abandon family duty in Saint-Petersburg and hop onto his weekend trip to Moscow, a decision he later came to regret. Not only did I come, but I annoyed the living daylight out of him in the process, earning myself a firm placement into the “unmarriable” category. Marriable or not, I also used it as an opportunity to do some qualitative research into the curious world of Moscow men, which I chronicled for you, my dear readers! With pictures!
What Changes Do Women Want? (And How They Plan On Getting Them)
As a Russian woman, International Women’s Day has always had an important place in my heart. After all, it is a national holiday when school is out and the entire country turns into a floral greenhouse and guys are nice to you for a full day – think Valentine’s day sans reciprocation of effort!
It is only when I moved to the US that I realized that, for the majority of the Western World, International Women’s Day actually serves as a day to not only celebrate the contribution of women to society but also push for important and relevant agendas, aiming to drive change towards a more gender inclusive world. (Little known fact: while Russia is hardly an example of gender equality, Russian women have officially had equal rights since the October Revolution. So let’s forgive them for skipping their routine tribulations for just one day to – literally – smell the roses.)
With the 2017 agenda being BE BOLD FOR CHANGE, I decided to ask 8 phenomenal women (and a slightly more mediocre moi) the following question:
What changes would you like to see for women in this world? How are you planning on contributing?
Here’s what they had to say!
