Love Lessons from Gen Z

This past weekend, the New York Times ran an article on Gen Z, the generation born after 1995 that is now in its teens, ready to become the next batch of humans to mold the world. They are smart, savvy, physically wired to their smartphones, yet adamant about bypassing our millennial mistakes by avoiding Facebook albums, stream-of-consciousness tweets and blogging about their love lives. What scares me the most is how mature they look and feel – gone is the naivete of my teens, shaped by Britney’s low-riders and lyrics (listen to this for a dose of nostalgia); instead, you have a bunch of little Reformation mannequins walking around, spewing wearied wisdom. They are also strangely pragmatic about their love lives, to the point where I almost feel like sticking them in front of a never-ending marathon of The Notebook and force-feeding them Twizzlers until they cave in. Since I currently happen to have one of them co-habiting with me in Brooklyn, I took the opportunity to configure some principle dating rules from this cooler-than-thou bunch.

When is it Time to Meet the Parents?

I was recently hanging out on the couch in Paris with the guy I was seeing. (Yes, was – we are now the happiest divorced couple on the block!) We were hitting the three-month mark and he had already met my brother and sister-in-law by pure coincidence, when I received a text from my mother. “Honey we are on our way from a cruise, passing through Paris today.” Confused, I muttered something about the possibility of my parents being in town. What followed can only be described as a full-on panic attack. “Maybe you think its normal to throw this on somebody with a 2-hour warning but, where I come from (snoozfest London), meeting the parents is actually a big deal!” I actually thought he would be on the next Eurostar back to “where he comes from”, never to be heard from again.

How to Meet Men at #NYFW

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

NYFW is the New York equivalent of Back to School. Everybody who is a social media anybody spills into the city at the exact same time, eager to show off their Capri tans and cross-reference pictures of their summer flings. The popular girls become more popular, the new cool kids tentatively step onto the scene, and the rest of us peasants just sip on #nyfw branded kale juices and admire the chaos through the sanctuary of the Instagram bleachers. And yet, there is one other often undervalued perk, i.e. the abundance of males that come out to play during this peak season, presumably to ogle the cheerleaders in action. Sitting on the Soho House roof the other day, I became acutely aware that there were more hot men in twenty-meter radius than in all 20 Arrondissements of Paris. Who are they? Where are they from? I felt more confused than Dorothy in the Land of Oz, but I also knew better than to ask too many questions. With only three days of NYFW left, its time to capitalize!

The Story of Skinny Elvis

Misery Loves Company · New York · by Marina Khorosh

When it comes to dbags, there is nothing like New York. This city breeds them like free-range chicken, giving them an abundance of space to run around and grow and prosper and become the most bizarre, damaged, f*ed up versions of themselves. As a result, we have stories like this one, recently recounted to me by a close friend over a blissful sushi dinner.

My friend is a very beautiful girl with one fundamental flaw: she believes in love. Carrie Bradshaw love. Ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can’t-live-without-each-other love. This blind faith propels her to make two grave mistakes: give men Real Chances, most of which lead to nothing but time wasted, and attempt to Save Men, which leads to even more poignant disasters. So, when she told me she had recently gone out with a guy who was nice, handsome, but past the point of Chances or Saving, I knew we were looking a whole new level of weird.

Paris is Burning

Musings of the Mind · Paris · by Marina Khorosh

Last week, my platonic life partner Danny and I were walking through the 10ème Arrondissement, when we stumbled into what appeared to be an incredible assortment of men. Handsome, tanned, toned, ripped to the point where they could be used to teach anatomy to third graders… It was the best form of a meat market, each contender a delectable piece of Kobe beef. Thirty minutes later, at Klay, I observed as French gays around me acutely cultivated their sculpted physiques, incomparable to those of their hetero voisins. Suddenly it hit me – perhaps, Paris is actually better for gay men? Curious on the topic, I gathered together my two closest gay guy friends, poured them some Moscow Mules, and interrogated them on the topic. One of them wished to remain anonymous, so we will refer to him as Bambi for his Maybelline eyelashes.

The Torture Test

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

This past weekend in Russia, my best friend’s husband caught me staring at my WhatApp for a full ten minutes, typing and deleting what was meant to be a violent text message to my long-distance ball n’chain. In full understanding of my inner turmoil, he leaned in and whispered one of the most dangerous sentences ever uttered: “If a man truly likes you, he will tolerate pretty much anything.”