Leandra Medine's Blog, page 64

What Can I Say? I Prefer the Fuck Boy Beanie

I have a confession, and the weather-shamers out there aren’t going to like it, have maybe already rolled their eyes at it. It concerns beanies. Specifically, the way I wear mine if and when the temperature calls for one. ARE YOU READY? I’m nervous. Okay, here goes: I wear it folded up, above my ears, perched atop my head like a dollop of Daisy. Are you mad? Am I paranoid? It is a well-documented fact that this can look pretty dumb, if not completely inappropriate, and I understand if you think less of me. And yet I like it anyway, and even prefer it to the far more reasonable way of wearing a beanie, which is pulled over your ears like… well, like a beanie.

I’m pretty sure this is my ex’s dad’s fault. He used to pull his beanie so far down his face that I couldn’t even see his eyebrows when he patronized me. Now I want the opposite of that. Or maybe my affection is a response to my favorite hype brand Aimé Leon Dore pushing the above-ear beanie hard this season.

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FW19 Uniform Program paired with Suicoke Hobbs. Available tomorrow 11am. @aimeleondore

A post shared by Aimé Leon Dore (@aimeleondore) on Sep 12, 2019 at 9:00am PDT

(I like him and I also want to be him.) (Same goes for her.)

But then I’ve preferred this route for longer than that, even before Daniel Day-Lewis started trotting around a crisp New York ears out last December, although I cite him as inspiration, too. And I was certainly a fan before Harling wrote her take-down of the trend last winter. Although I should clarify that she was talking specifically about fisherman beanies—the kind that sit close to the head like unfurled condoms—whereas I’m talking about your more standard beanie, slightly-but-not-too propped up. Either way, I told her I disagreed from pitch to publish, then had to remind myself that Man Repeller isn’t a fascist website and respects opposing ideas.

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It’s somehow magic hour in the MR office this morning

A post shared by Haley Nahman (@halemur) on Mar 18, 2019 at 6:32am PDT

To be fair, this preference *does* bring shame upon me and my family. Even if just by my own account. Since I moved to New York, I’ve become much more in tune with the idea that clothes serve a utilitarian purpose. In the Bay Area, checking the weather was more of a formality than a requirement for getting dressed. But in New York it’s the most important part of getting ready and planning your life; the central principle around which the culture is organized. I quickly learned that no one here wears boots in the summer, for instance. Because why would they? Boots aren’t necessary in the summer. The first time I wore a scarf for a reason was three years ago. I actually needed a scarf. My neck, specifically, was cold. It blew my little California mind.

The other day I suggested my boyfriend pull his beanie up a bit and he went from looking like a character from South Park to looking like the man of my dreams.

I like it this way. I like that no one in New York wears flannels or beanies in the summer; it seems poseur-ish to me now, too. In that sense my style has never been more firmly rooted in its utility, and something about that makes me feel like fucking Thoreau. Like I do things for a reason. Like I’m balancing groceries on my hip as I get my mail out of the mailbox. It’s civilized!

And yet, the above-ear beanie—known by some as the visual warning of a fuck boy—betrays this sensibility. I just think it looks better. Cooler. Fresher. Cuter! It shows your face more, and your ears. Marvin Gay wore his hat like that! And in our defense, beanies don’t only exist to keep your ears warm. I’m reminded of that regularly on the train, when my whole body feels like it’s on fire because I forgot to take mine off after boarding. The above-ear beanie is also good for chilly weather that isn’t yet freezing; it’s a partial commitment to warmth. But then, of course, there are times when my ears are so cold I have to break policy and pull my beanie down. That’s when I have to laugh at myself, admit I’m not above loving something simply because it’s “cool,” then pull my hat back up as soon as I’m inside.

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If you think that’s stupid, I totally understand, and in return, I request you just let us have this one.

Feature Photos  via Aimé Leon Dore.

The post What Can I Say? I Prefer the Fuck Boy Beanie appeared first on Man Repeller.

The Weirdest (and Most Addicting) Horoscopes I’ve Ever Read

These days, there are so many ways to seek out your horoscope—CoStar, Sanctuary, (Man Repeller, of course), the New York Post, the odd Hearst magazine, the Standard Hotel, Susan Miller, Alice Bell. But, as is often the case with top-shelf astrology, my horoscope seems to find me. Though I have my suspicions about whether it’s really a horoscope at all.

It arrives every week by way of an ongoing thread in my inbox with the subject line “re: rob brezsny aquarius.” The first message dates back to January 8th, 2019, the day my friend Grace decided to introduce me to Rob Brezsny’s oeuvre by copy-and-pasting his Aquarian horoscope into an email. (Grace of the one-woman-newsletter is a Libra, on the cusp of Scorpio. She is also one of my few feats in the field of making-friends-as-an-adult.)

Reading him feels like being handed a newly chiseled prism through which I can view, analyze, and internalize my experiences.

The contents of our long email thread now represent my sole interaction with the secrets of the stars: Grace pastes the cerebral missives, each a paragraph long, from Rob Brezsny’s website Free Will Astrology every week. In the case of Brezsny, “horoscope” is more of a catch-all term. (As he told The New York Times in 1994, “My secret agenda is to be a poet who gets paid for writing poetry.”) Reading him feels like being handed a newly chiseled prism through which I can view, analyze, and internalize my experiences. He has a mission in mind: “So much of what happens in your life is stimulated by what you think is going to happen. I want readers to use their imagination to cook up new responses to the events in their lives.”

Brezsny’s whole enterprise, I’ve since learned, originated with a column he kicked off in 1980. His material on Free Will Astrology, available to anyone on the internet who knows to look for it, otherwise reaches towns far and wide via syndication in alt weeklies.

Here’s an example of a dispatch from May 14th:

I’ve found myself hooked by the content as much as the writing itself: I often marvel at Brezsny’s work as a lesson in brevity. It’s rare to come by a horoscope of his that exceeds 150 words, and yet they each have a compact beginning, middle, and end. By contrast, I pitched this story as a piece that would clock in at 400 words. As you will soon find out, it is not. Put down your bag and stay awhile: We are already at word #407. Pithy as Brezsny may be, he contains multitudes, as his web presence will remind you: His site characterizes him as “an aspiring master of curiosity,” “perpetrator of sacred uproar,” and “a storyteller and prophet as much as an astrologer.”

Occasionally Grace annotates his passages (“Is he trying to tell you to reign it in on The RealReal?”), or I react (“I hope I am one day half the writer that Rob Brezsny is. Short-form king,”), but otherwise the chain persists with little editorialization like quiet and dependable clockwork, rhythmic as waves lapping onto the shore of Gmail.

In September, he referenced Toxorhynchites, large mosquitoes that don’t buzz around or bite humans but instead breed larvae that feast on the larvae of more bothersome mosquitoes, to illustrate a point.

Brezsny also possesses a trove of trivia. Over the past year, my horoscopes have included anecdotes from Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, Charles Lindbergh’s sense of spirituality, Renaissance painter Filippo Lippi’s personal saga, a brief moment in the history of the Ford automobile company when they made a so-called “biological car,” discoveries in Chinese archaeology, and so on. In September, he referenced Toxorhynchites, large mosquitoes that don’t buzz around or bite humans but instead breed larvae that feast on the larvae of more bothersome mosquitoes, to illustrate a point: He proposed “that you be alert for a metaphorically comparable influence in your own life: a helper or ally that might be in disguise or may just superficially seem to be like an adversary.”

Another Brezsny-induced moment of clarity arrived at my virtual doorstop on Tuesday, October 15th, 2019, when Grace made her internet rounds. Brezsny kicked off that week’s horoscope with a proclamation from (fellow Aquarian) author and activist Angela Davis: “I believe in inhabiting contradictions…I believe in making contradictions productive, not in having to choose one side or the other side. As opposed to choosing either or choosing both.” In the spirit of Brezsny and Davis, I spent a week focused on holding all sorts of contradicting ideas in my head at once, and it felt like brain yoga.

Amidst well-excavated facts and soundbites, what Brezsny delivers, week after week, is a new frame of mind to try on for size. He deals less in slight superstitions, more in minor self-discoveries. Following Brezsny’s example, I recommend making small renovations to your mental architecture, and sending these blueprints to your friends.

Graphics by Coco Lashar

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A New Yorker’s Guide to Getting in the Holiday Spirit

It’s around late November that New York starts to feel less like a city and more like a dynamic, sprawling holiday party–one with a limitless supply of heart-warming festivity. Everything from the twinkly lights stretched over streets to the music wafting from storefronts to the cold, crisp air is a celebration ripe for the plucking. To get ourselves nice and hyped for this impending jubilee, Man Repeller teamed up with stylist Monica Morales to devise an outfit protocol for taking full advantage of New York’s communal holiday party proclivities this season. No RSVP necessary, all you have to do is step out the door (or in the meantime, scroll down).

Wear a Statement Puffer Coat to… Walk Up and Down Fifth Avenue With a Cup of Hot Chocolate

Fifth Avenue is objectively one of the most dazzling spots to take in during the holiday season, what with all the elaborately crafted window displays and department store light shows and Christmas tree stands. Though it’s obviously tailored toward gift shoppers, there’s something pure and uplifting in the act of simply observing–strolling along with an optional cup of hot chocolate in your hand, burrito-wrapped inside a puffer coat eye-catching enough to give those aforementioned window displays a run for their mesmerization potential.

Wear Your Most Absurd Party Dress to… Meet Friends for a Casual Dinner in Your Neighborhood

If you have yet to walk into an unassuming pizza parlor dressed in your finest party finery, I highly recommend doing so sometime in the next couple of months, a hallowed time wherein festive outfits don’t necessarily need a festive venue or occasion to make sense, quite simply, in your soul. Take advantage of the opportunity to wear your favorite high heels because there’s no standing or small talk required–just a chipper ‘tude and a mood for food (specifically mozzarella cheese).

Wear a Tie-Dye Crop Top and Feather Boa to… People-Watch in Grand Central Station

Holiday season people watching in New York is the best kind of people watching, hands down. In addition to the influx of tourists, there’s a palpable energy buzz that sweeps the city like an electrical current, zapping everyone with pink cheeks and a sense of delight. For optimal people watching, you can’t go wrong with Grand Central Station–a veritable hub of human activity, and an aesthetically pleasing one to boot. Wear something warm and colorful and inviting so as to attract as many friendly smiles and directional queries as possible.

Get Dressed to the Nines Just to… Go See a Classic Holiday Movie in Theaters

Certain theaters in New York play classic holiday movies during the holiday season, which means you can “make a night of it,” as they say, watching gems like The Elf or It’s a Wonderful Life while eating movie theater popcorn mixed with M&Ms. Take yourself on a solo date in your most delicious date night outfit, or make it a group thing and tell your pals the dress code is “black-tie cozy” just because.

Load Up on Sparkly Accessories to… Sit on a Bench in Central Park and Listen to Holiday Music

There is much pleasure to be had in accessorizing yourself like an evergreen tree, I can assure you. Pull out all the stops, i.e. sparkly bobbles, your shiny necklaces and light-reflecting purses, your dangly earrings and statement belts, and wear them all at once to do nothing more than plop yourself on a park bench, plug in your headphones, and listen to whatever music makes you visualize egg nog.

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What are your favorite things to do in New York–or anywhere!–during the holidays?

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Stylist / Director: Monica Morales at DLM

Photographer: Lucinda Taffs

Model: Ruby Campbell of Heroes Models

Hair and Makeup Artist: Shideh Kafei

Videographer: Jessica Lawson 

The post A New Yorker’s Guide to Getting in the Holiday Spirit appeared first on Man Repeller.

Why Friendship Breakups Hurt So Much, According to a Couples Therapist

I have fielded a lot of story ideas over the years and I’ve noticed that writers’ collective obsessions tend to ebb and flow—one year everybody’s pitching their take on the same TV show; the next year all anybody wants to write about is What Skincare Means to Them. But if I had to name something, I think the one topic that’s been the most constant and most frequent source of writers’ (and readers’) interests is the friendship breakup.

It’s such a common experience that it can seem banal on the surface—and yet writers keep pitching it and readers keep asking for stories or advice about it. (The recent Caroline Calloway saga presents perfect evidence of people declaring the whole thing both boring and utterly captivating at once.) I think part of what fascinates us about best friend breakups is that very tension—we don’t think we should care so much, and yet we do. My most recent thought on the matter, aided by Haley’s recent Ask MR, is that maybe we’d make more progress resolving these issues if we treated them as if they mattered as much as our collective interest suggests.

So, that’s why I called Man Repeller’s unofficial therapist laureate, Dr. Orna Guralnik, whose Showtime series Couples Therapy has overtaken our watercooler conversation over at HQ. I asked her about how friendship breakups measure up to romantic ones, if some breakups hurt more than others, and what to do if you want to get your pal back.

People often talk about how emotionally similar romantic and platonic “breakups” can feel. How much truth do you see in that?

Psychoanalytic theory tends to theorize a lot about parental dynamics—development in terms of relationships with mother, father, the primary caretakers—and it under-theorizes about sibling and peer relationships. There’s an ongoing critique of that hyperfocus. So, in the popular mind, we tend to hyperfocus on the primary love object, when in fact people’s social networks are deep and profound with other people in their lives—with friends, with colleagues.

Where do you think that focus comes from?

There’s a sociopolitical economic pressure to prioritize the basic family unit—marriage, kids, and that social structure—over other structures. The way our society is built, there’s more and more pressure on the individual and on the family unit to be the provider, the economic source of safety, instead of the larger-scale social network supporting the individual. It’s tied in with capitalism, but it’s tied in deep with neoliberalism too. It’s probably been getting worse since the Reagan era. There are economic reasons to emphasize the family unit, and to de-emphasize the community, because if you emphasize the community, then we’re all responsible for each other, we are one with the government, and we all should be taking care of each other. We don’t just dump it on the individuals and on the family. This overemphasis on family values—there’s an economic motivation to that.

Our emotional truth is that we are all deeply connected to each other.

That’s interesting. So when people are writing in with these ideas and questions about friendship breakups, what they’re expressing is that the way society is set up is not connecting with what feels emotionally true to them?

Exactly, yes, because our emotional truth is that we are all deeply connected to each other, and there are other kinds of kinship structures that matter to us deeply. Not just our lover, our spouse, our kid. We’re tied very deeply to each other.

Do you find that friendship breakups tend to feel more painful at a particular stage in people’s lives?

No. I think it’s always a profound, deeply destabilizing loss when a true friendship is ruptured. I think it’s horrible. It’s horrible for young children; it’s horrible for adolescents; it’s horrible for young adults. It’s horrible for us throughout our lives. We are deeply connected to our friends. I think, in a way, our best selves show up with our friends.

Do you see something unique in the bond or expectations in women’s friendships?

I think when people are young everyone makes friends wonderfully. Kids are just naturally inclined to connect. They don’t even make friends; they are friends. That’s their basic expectation: “We’re friends. We’re together. We do things together.” But as things get more gendered, boys suffer because there are all sorts of arrangements around masculinity that make it difficult for boys to deepen their friendships—talk about things, express affection. There’s all this homophobia. But I think the younger generation of boys is better at it. They do know how to be friends in a way that, let’s say, men of my generation were not very good at.

People spend a lot of their individual therapy time talking about their friends.

I sometimes think that’s why women experience these friendship breakups so intensely. A lot of these relationships are so close that they take on qualities of what we typically associate with romantic relationships, even if it’s not sexual.

Yes. Yes. Yes. We have these headings of, like, “Oh, this is a romantic partner,” and that’s how we understand that relationship. Friendship includes much of the excitement and the attraction that a romantic relationship has. It just doesn’t have that heading. I know for some people, it sometimes gets confusing. Friendship can feel romantic and people are like, “Wait, what does that mean? What’s going on? Am I this? Am I that?” People get confused about it because our feelings don’t fall into neat categories. We just feel. We connect and we bond and it doesn’t always fit the category name.

That’s what led me to this question recently: If therapy has become more normalized and we feel that friendships are important, why is it so unheard of for friends to go to couple’s therapy? Have you ever heard of it happening?

I love that, but I haven’t heard of it. People come to me for couples therapy and other types of relationship issues. Like, if business partners realize that their interpersonal dynamics are interfering with their business relationship or for family business stuff, like succession issues. Those things give people good enough reasons to see a therapist. But I can tell you that people spend a lot of their individual therapy time talking about their friends. If there are ruptures or issues with friends, people talk about it a lot in therapy. It’s a very core issue. And it should be. It’s important. It’s essential. But no, I haven’t had people approach me about it. I guess it’s not a sanctioned option, but I love that idea.

Why do you think it sometimes feels harder to mend a friendship? Is it because the commitments in those relationships aren’t as formalized?

Well, to support what you’re saying, I do think it would be helpful for it to be acknowledged that friendships actually have a profound place in people’s lives, and are important enough to invest in, as any other relationship. They are like the fabric that makes human existence matter. People [should not] feel oddly about the fact that they care so much—because everyone does.

I think people have a lot more capacity to deal with truth than they know.

What kinds of elements of couples therapy do you think can be incorporated for people who are trying to solve an issue with a friend?

The main thing that can be gleaned is that often the way to mend ruptures is to be able to really listen and see things from another person’s perspective. It doesn’t mean giving up your own perspective, but really taking the time, the empathy, to grasp things from another person’s perspective, see where they’re coming from and mind when you’re getting unnecessarily paranoid. But try to understand that maybe they’re coming from a good place.

And then, figure out a way to speak openly about the motivations that are nested in certain conflicts. Some people have a hard time being honest with each other about what’s really going on, and I think people have a lot more capacity to deal with truth than they know. With friends, it’s often around competition or envy or possessiveness. Just be honest about that stuff.

Would you recommend anything that mimics the format of couples’ therapy? Like setting aside a time to talk in person?

Yes, certainly no text wars. If people are not feeling like they could go to a therapist, they could still involve a third party—it doesn’t have to be a therapist. It could be another trusted friend, to help people sit down and hear each other. When you listen with a third person in the room, you hear the other person’s perspective better.

Another thing that comes up a lot are questions about navigating a new phase of a friendship—maybe one person gets married or has kids and it makes it harder for them to get together or to relate to each other. Do you have any thoughts on how to renegotiate the expectations in friendship?

I think those kinds of transitions—when one person in the friendship is moving at a different pace or going in a different direction—are very painful. It’s not a simple thing. I think it would be good to think of a friendship as a lifelong thing, to think about it as a long haul. A person can be preoccupied and busy for years, and they will come back if you sit steady and you keep feeding the friendship. It’s not something that goes away. I know plenty of people that are out of contact for years either because of a rupture or because of like you’re saying, life events. But they do find each other again.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Graphic by Dasha Faires. 

The post Why Friendship Breakups Hurt So Much, According to a Couples Therapist appeared first on Man Repeller.

How to Throw a Housewarming So Good You’ll (Almost) Want to Move Again

In partnership with EQ3.

Moving is a lot like getting a cavity filled in that both experiences beg a pressing question: How is it 2019 and we still don’t have a better way of doing this? From the lease signing that’s (for reasons unknown) 45 minutes away from where you’re actually moving, to the reminder your arms have a combined strength comparable to barely-set jello, to that one box of junk you know will never get unpacked—if it weren’t for the joy of housewarmings, I’d be genuinely surprised if anybody ever moved again.

Housewarmings—those are perfect. (Evidenced by the fact that zero dentistry metaphors come to mind.) These parties exist without the expectations of holiday hosting (a turkey? I just moved!) and the rollercoaster of emotions that seem to come with birthdays. They’re one-night-only celebrations that can transform a blank space into one that’s overflowing with top-shelf quality memories, perfected by the slightly blurred haze that only three cups of spiked mulled cider can accurately cultivate.

That said, every party worth its Polaroids requires work, and housewarmings—held in new spaces, where it’s likely not everybody will know each other—can require more babysitting than your regular in-home shindig. So, below are eight housewarming tips covering everything from food to mood lighting to gentle conversation coercion, sprinkled with some product recommendations from dreamy furniture and home goods store EQ3.

1. Dress Your Table Just as Thoughtfully as You’d Dress Yourself for School Picture Day

There aren’t many things in this life that are more satisfying than getting an outfit Goldilocks-level Just Right—but setting a table with the same thoughtfulness you might devote to positioning your butterfly clips just so circa second grade can feel just as good. Speaking of second grade, napkin layering is a subject I wish I’d studied in school, but no one’s called me out on my self-taught methodology yet: Invest in two sets of napkins in complementary colors, laying one flat as a placemat and folding the other under your utensils. Add plates, bowls, and vases (as long as they’re politely below eye-level) in a matching color to your napkins, then take a step back, snack on a rogue baby carrot, and allow at least 25 minutes to admire your work before any guests arrive.

2. Forget That Ceiling Lights Even Exist. What ARE Ceiling Lights, Even? (

When it comes to parties—dinner parties, dance parties, Tupperware parties—good lighting is the key to success. Pretend your ceiling bulbs are all blown for the night and light your whole home with soft and glowy lamps and candles (kept somewhere they’re not likely to be knocked by a rouge elbow, please) sort of like you’re a mystical fairy and your home is a woodland grotto. Nobody wants to feel like they’re drinking or dancing inside a mall changing room when they’re at a housewarming, so keep the lights down lowwwww.

3. Sprinkle Snacks Around Your Space to Inspire Maximum Moth Mingling (Don’t Worry, I’ll Explain)

Like moths to a cracker-shaped flame (see what I did there?), people will always hang out near the snacks. With that in mind, seize the opportunity to treat your guests like moths–i.e. the more designated food areas, the better. While your first instinct may be to create a snack HQ in one spot, leaving plates and trays of bite-sized snacks in a few different areas on living room consoles or side tables, like this solid teak stool, will help spread out the crowd. Anything can be a snack table if you believe!!!

4. Do Everything You Can to Make It Look Like You Didn’t Actually Just Move In

Okay, sure, you may have literally just gotten your keys—but you don’t want it to look and feel that way. Aurea Sanabria Molaei, Founder & Creative Director at Flower Bodega recommends taking the time to steam new curtains and let your rugs properly unroll before have anyone over–essentially the home decor version of “I woke up like this.” No need to strive for unrealistic levels of perfection, though–leaving books and throws where you last put them down instead of tidying everything away will also make your place look comfortably lived in. Bless your *slightly curated* mess.

5. Rearrange Your Furniture to Trick People Into Having Intimate Convos

Similar to the pain of being seated at the end of a long table in a noisy restaurant, being stuck on the outskirts of a riveting party conversation because you’re at one end of a long couch sucks. If you have a sectional, like the Lane sectional, angle your sections inward or bring other pieces of furniture, like this Chiara lounge chair, in close, so a few small conversations can happen at once and everyone can have a comfy seat to sink into while they gossip/flirt/vent/practice for their upcoming stand-up gig. This setup is basically a future group chat waiting to happen.

6. Set Up a Bar, So People Can Serve Their Own Drinks All Night Long

Getting a drink for your guests is a great thing to do when they first arrive, but after that the real MVHP (Most Valuable Houseparty Player) move is to give them the power to serve themselves. Even if this just means leaving glasses and a few bottles of wine on a bar cart or side table, you will get maximum appreciation from your guests. They’ll be cha-cha-ing martini shakers and grating lemon zest faster than you can say pass me that paper towel roll you guys are animals in a good way.

7. Stick to Light-Colored Drinks If You Don’t Exactly Trust the Dexterity of Most of Your Friends (I’m Looking at You, Samantha)

Everyone either has—or is—the animated friend who can’t possibly tell a story without a flick of the wrist and wave of the hand. These friends, and those who constantly have a cracked phone screen, are who you should be keeping in mind when stocking your bar. Prosecco, orange wine, and gin or vodka cocktails are excellent carpet- and white-couch-friendly options. If you’re set on serving reds and dark liquor, it pays to have an extra bottle of club soda stashed away in case of (carpet) emergency.

8. Tell Everyone in Your Favorite Group Chat to Arrive Half an Hour Early

First impressions matter: at work, when dating, and—most! importantly!—at parties. Task a trusted core group with coming by early, so your home is adequately warmed before the majority of your guests arrive, like the human equivalent of a chocolate chip cookie aroma wafting from the kitchen. Bonus tip: If you’re stressed about people staying well past their welcome at the end of the night, include both a start and finish time on your invitation. I can’t promise you people will adhere to it, but at least you will know you tried your best. (But also, best of luck getting anybody to leave your perfectly planned and executed party hehehe).

Bear Bowl


Chiara Chair


Tartan Floor Pillow


Coast Marble Coasters


Solid Teak Stool


Tube Floor Lamp


Coast Lava Coasters


Crescent Shaker


Crescent Wine Cooler


Desert Runner


Desert Napkin


Tartan Throw


Ripple Highball Glass


Growler Vase


Alfred Vessel


Alfred Vessel


Sienna Dinnerware


Noir Modular Wine Rack


Tibetan Sheepskin Pillow


Mesa Round Dinette Table


Lyla Armchair


Kacia Coffee Table


Grove Flatware


Batu Plates


Crisp Highball Glass


Faye Napkins


Garrido Collection


Perrier Bar Cart


Pebble Vases


Jasper Rug


Garrido Serving Bowl


Dot Tray


Lane Sectional


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Photos by Louisa Wells.

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What Body Language Experts Know That We Don’t

How does she know? This was the question that plagued me recently when I read a body language expert’s analysis of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry. But how does she know that Meghan’s hand placed on Harry’s arm means she is enjoying the moment? Or that the position of Harry’s fingers indicates that he’s a relaxed parent? These are some of the existential quandaries I ponder around 3 a.m.

The expert in question, Blanca Cobb, regularly deciphers corporeal clues for media outlets such as CNN, Good Morning America, and Harper’s Bazaar. She also trains lawyers, journalists, salespeople, and other professionals in the art and science of body language. I caught up with her last week to learn some of her tricks. During our conversation (which thankfully happened on the phone so she couldn’t see my tell-tale nervous hunched shoulders and foot-jiggling), we discussed how body language works, how her single friends sometimes try to harness her powers before a date, and how to win over the most battle-hardened airline worker. Below, her job in her own words, along with her analysis of three celebrity photos I foisted upon her.

Reading Body Language Is a Superpower

Reading body language is a bit like having a superpower. I see the subtle, nuanced elements of human communication you don’t. When talking to each other, people are mostly focused on the words the other person is saying. But our bodies reveal how we feel in ways we may not even realize. If you’re nervous, you might rock slightly, rub your lips with your finger, or play with your hair. So yes, sometimes it feels like I have a superpower, but it’s not an inborn talent – it’s a learned skill. I have a Masters of Psychology and studied with great body language and deception detection experts.

“Prince Harry won’t get too far ahead of his wife before he’ll turn around to check on her. Both of them leading with the same foot shows that they’re emotionally connected; your gestures tend to subconsciously mirror the one you love.”

You’d be surprised how many industries use the services of body language experts. Companies hire me to train their sales teams to read people better—to recognize, for example, a customer’s reservations about making a big purchase. I get called on by national and international media to weigh in on what I can see in interactions between people in the public eye—celebrities, politicians, famous athletes, or high-profile criminal cases, like the Oscar Pistorius murder trial. My job is to glean insights not just about a particular situation, but human behavior more broadly. The goal is always to understand people better.

There are a lot of factors to take into consideration when reading body language. Culture and context are really important, as are “clusters.” In body language, a cluster is two or more types of gestures a person makes at around the same time. A cluster gives me more confidence in what I believe I’m observing. For example, say a person is talking to someone and they crinkle their nose. Crinkling the nose is a micro-expression of disgust. That is a clue on its own, but when paired with other gestures we can extract more information about what a person is really thinking. Crinkling the nose and leaning away from someone would indicate the subject’s dislike of the person they are talking to, or of the topic. If they crinkle their nose while nodding their head, they may be trying to give the impression that they agree when really they do not.

That Said, I’m Not a Mind Reader

I always say, however, that body language is a combination of art and science. A read of a situation is by no means a 100 percent certainty. There have been times when I’ve been quoted in a publication along with another body language expert, and we have a difference of opinion. But think of it this way: not all doctors are going to solve the same medical condition the same way, right? They might try different medications or procedures based on their expertise and experience. It’s important to remember that body language analysis is just one person’s interpretation of the situation.

“Alexandra’s chin is lifted up ever so slightly, her head is tilted and she wears a serene smile. All show that she’s proud of being with Keanu. If you look at the way their bodies are angling towards each other, that they’re holding hands and the relaxation in their posture and their outside hands, you can tell that they’re comfortable around each other.”

The most challenging part of my work is probably when I don’t have enough information. When a TV program or publication comes to me and wants a solid answer about what a celebrity or politician’s body language means, and sometimes it’s just not possible. There’s only so much information that you can get from one photo or video. A lot of the time, I don’t know what happened before it. I need some context. Going back to the medical metaphor, it would be like going to the doctor and saying, “I have a cough.” The doctor is going to be like, “Do you cough at night? In the morning? How does it sound? Is it a barky cough? Are you coughing anything up?’ Often as a body language expert you don’t get to ask many, if any, follow-up questions.

Think about it: If it were that easy to tell if someone is lying, we would not have the Innocence Project, we would not have this high false confession rate. You want to know why? Because judges, juries, police officers, detectives, and lawyers would be able to see right through a deception. It’s just not that easy. I wish it were!

Asking for a Friend

My family and friends rarely ask me to read someone’s body language for them as a favor, but I will say I have some single friends who are starting to date again and will occasionally reach out and ask, “Hey, I’m seeing this guy, here’s what’s happening when we go out, what do you think?” A friend recently recounted to me that her date doesn’t look her in the eyes much, and often looks over her head. But he’ll touch her arm occasionally, particularly when she says something funny. He was giving her mixed signals. To help her figure out what’s going on, I suggested that she watch him when they’re talking. He might be uncomfortable, lying or hiding something if he looks everywhere but her eyes, or gives eye contact to others, but not her. Since I didn’t see their interactions myself these are of course only guidance points–everyone needs to trust their own instincts.

Now You Try It
“With his left hand wrapped tightly around Kim’s hip, Kanye is holding his lady close to him and letting the world know that she’s taken. Their right hands say it all as they are mirror images of the grip holding their respective phones. When you’re in sync with your partner, you tend to subconsciously mimic each other.”

Moving through the world can be a little easier when you are more mindful of the body language signals you’re giving off. In a job interview, you should lean forward when the interviewer is talking, keep your hands visible by rested them on the table, and keep both feet grounded on the floor. At a party or a bar, if you want to seem more approachable, don’t huddle in the corner and avoid eye contact. Instead, be more open and inviting by having your back to the wall or the bar and looking around the room.

Body language can also be really powerful when dealing with customer service. Say you’ve missed your flight and you’re at the airport hoping the airline will re-book you on the next flight at no charge. Before you approach the counter, make sure you’re in the right mindset, because your non-verbal cues will reflect that. Calm down, relax your shoulders, make sure you’re showing the natural curvature of your fingers when you put your hands on the desk. Lean forward and say, “Hi, Mary, I really need your help.” Say the person’s name and speak with a warm tone of voice. If initially Mary says she can’t help, don’t sigh, roll your eyes, or drum your fingers on the desk. Showing that you’re a reasonable person will get you further than someone who complains, “Oh, I’ve been in this line for 20 damn minutes!” and becomes aggressive. Mary is the one with the power in that situation, and if Mary doesn’t hate having you in her face, there’s a much greater chance of you being offered a seat on that next flight.

 

Images via Getty

The post What Body Language Experts Know That We Don’t appeared first on Man Repeller.

We Look Alike, But We Don’t Look Alike: My Brother and I Styled the Same 3 Pieces, 3 Different Ways

In partnership with Hill City.

I have four brothers, but it is only my older brother, Haim, who cares about style as much as I do. Until we were out of my parents’ house, I interpreted his interest as a sort of compulsion. When we were very young, he insisted on having, basically, every pair of mesh basketball shorts on the market. When we got a little older, it was all about whiskered skinny jeans. By the time we were in high school, the currency became bright button-down shirts. Between these peaks were minor blunders-as-valleys—the spring he spent wearing JNCOs, the summer he could not see past paisley and through the vicissitudes of his changing style, there was always an emphasis on sneakers. In our adult lives, Haim is no longer just Haim—he’s Single Uncle Handsome Haim the Influencer and he’s really developed unwavering care for and a sense of his own casual personal style.

But I’d be hard-pressed to say that we share style sensibilities—that if I were a guy and he was a girl we’d dress alike. (When asked, Haim said my style “could get weird sometimes.”) I’m more invested in using my style to challenge myself, to crack a code, to make something difficult—like, say, existence—feel easier. Meanwhile, Haim is more of a figure-it-out-then-recreate-it-ad-infinitum kind of guy. These differences are probably why I was so hellbent on casting him as my counterpart for this story, a classic tale of one piece, two ways—pitched for Hill City, the new cool activewear brand who make technical mens clothes that technically look great on women. That’s not their tagline, but maybe it should be. Idk.

Anyway, I instructed us to take the same hero piece (the Insulated Wool Shirt Jacket in charcoal heather, the Thermal Light Shirt Jacket in stone and the Heavyweight Fleece Hoodie in light grey heather and style it in our own ways to compare the outfits.

Not to toot my own ass, but I think the idea was bang on. When asked how the clothes integrated with his wardrobe, Single Uncle responded: “They are literally the definition of my style. Dress for comfort above all else while attempting to look cool in the process.” Obviously his definition of cool is subjective, but we can talk about that later.

Now, because I’m me, I obviously also psychoanalyzed the Freud out of us, so, you know, have fun reading on!

Look No. 1 featuring Hill City’s Insulated Wool Shirt in Charcoal Heather

The styling process: Whereas I’d prefer to define my personal style as a deli sandwich bar, Haim agrees without my needing to speak for him that his style is definitely more “casual and sporty,” adding, “I’ve always preferred comfort—I’m a sneakers-over-shoes guy.” These differing philosophies are reflected in the more formal approach I took to pairing the shirt with a knit turtleneck, gold chain belt, wool trousers and the pop-o-purple sandals. His point of view? “Nothing beats the combination of a hoodie under some sort of jacket.”

Psychoanalysis: I’m flexible, he’s rigid. Where I prefer to demonstrate unconventional use cases as they relate to my clothes, testing how far I can take the wears out of their comfort zone, Haim is a bit more literal, preferring to keep them squarely within the parameters of the designer’s intentions.

Insulated Wool Shirt in Charcoal Heather


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Look No. 2 featuring Hill City’s Thermal Light Shirt Jacket in Stone

The styling process: Haim said he’d have chosen this jacket in black because he gravitates toward darker colors but I basically forced us to go with the stone. You know what he said in response? That this was his favorite look from the whole shoot because of the jacket. I did this insane thing wherein I turned a dress into a top (Indeed, that gold dress with jewel-encrusted boobs is actually a top) and folded it into gold brocade shorts, slapped on a pair of socks and clogs then completed this disco-chilada (like an enchilada, but shinier) with the jacket. Where would we wear these looks? Ironically, the same place. We both answered, “Out to get a meal.” Novel, huh?

Psychoanalysis: He’s an introvert, I’m an extrovert. He prefers that other people set up proofs of concept, I like creating the proofs of concept. Why? How? Well! As you can see, he’s two for two with hoodies under jackets whereas I am two for none with any traceable pattern and that, my friends, is by design.

Thermal Light Shirt Jacket in Stone


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Look No. 3 featuring Hill City’s Heavyweight Fleece Hoodie in Light Grey Heather

The styling process: Haim picked this piece and tbh, I never would have. There was a merino half-zip that had my g-dang name on it, which I’m still dreaming about to varying degrees of strong REM sleep but I am !up! for a challenge, so a challenge I accepted. His thoughts? “I’d wear this out to dinner, to meet friends for a drink, to meet a date, you name it!” He went on to express that most of his wardrobe is hoodies because they’re “functional and versatile.” Then, because I needed a styling pro tip, he told me a good way to dress them up is by adding an oversize knee-length coat and a beanie. That did not sound like a good solution to me, so after toiling with wide-leg pants and trouser jeans and mini skirts and shorts, I landed upon a pair of white jeans, an ivory blazer and velvet mary janes. Now, lo and behold: my unexpected favorite look.

Psychoanalysis: I am less receptive to meeting people in the middle when I feel strongly one way or another (e.g. sweatshirts are not for me) but incidentally it seems that I, too, can surprise myself by letting someone else take the wheel. As for Haim — a rose is a rose and was always a rose: another day, another hoodie.

Heavyweight Fleece Hoodie in Light Grey Heather


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In broader conclusion, I’d like to ask ~you~ who wore Hill City best in each of the three instances? Did we succeed in visually expressing the multifarious nature of the garments? Are you inspired? Will you try this with a sibling, or partner, or co-worker on your own? And per question no.1, the winner gets to keep one of my daughters, so be honest, be critical and don’t forget, he’s single.

6 PHOTOS
click for more

Photos by Franey Miller.

The post We Look Alike, But We Don’t Look Alike: My Brother and I Styled the Same 3 Pieces, 3 Different Ways appeared first on Man Repeller.

Are Micro-Breakups Better Than Ghosting?

The last person I dated broke up with me on a Thursday night in spring. He was a rugged Aussie import who had courted me over a round of mini golf and a Sunday afternoon trip to the zoo. We’d met a handful of times and I liked him, in the vague and mildly hopeful way you can like someone who you don’t know very well.

“He’s nice,” I told my best friend a couple of weeks after I met him. “In a kind of he’s-not-the-one way, but he’s good fun to be around.”

Then, a few days later, he broke up with me. It seems strange to use that expression to describe him awkwardly coming to my place and perching on the sofa as he explained why he couldn’t keep seeing me. In my mind, “breaking up” is a term reserved for the end of more long-term arrangements—the tangled complexities that come with unpacking months, or even years, of building something meaningful together. This wasn’t quite a breakup—more of a micro-breakup. A short foray into each other’s lives ended as swiftly as a left swipe.

The culture born from online dating has received a bad rap over the last few years. An entire dictionary of new language has provided us with ways to paraphrase some of the more troubling terrains of looking for love online. We can be ghosted or zombied or orbited or targeted by any of the similarly ghoulish terms that denote how disposable app dating has made us feel.

Interestingly, it seems the backlash against these dating behaviors has begun to elicit results. Mindful dating is a notable new trend, and singles are increasingly championing more old-fashioned methods—like meeting people slowly, or communicating face to face—as an antidote to what is perceived to be the symptoms of an increasingly disassociated mindset. It is perhaps this that sparked my date’s well-intentioned in-person breakup chat. We know now that ghosting is bad. It has been so vilified that we’ve been given no alternative but to speak now, or forever feel guilty about that person who we went on two dates with once and then never messaged back.

This has had a curious, if expected effect: Outright rejection is on the rise. And although your coupled-up friends might exclaim that, “You can’t be that upset, you hardly knew them!” the unique sting of the micro-breakup persists. We live in a time of multiple matches and dates scheduled so regularly that managing our Bumble inboxes can feel like a full-time job. When nothing is allowed to fizzle out anymore, you might be forced to confront the reasons why someone doesn’t want to be with you multiple times a month. Yes, each micro-breakup might be small, but a thousand tiny heartbreaks and disappointments can easily amount to something more profound—perhaps more painful, and certainly more intimate, than simply being ghosted and filling in the blanks yourself.

Healing from a micro-breakup doesn’t follow a typical breakup script, either. It’s hard to mourn a relationship, for instance, that never was. You don’t have a plethora of pictures to look back on, or places that remind you of them. You can’t tell your friends what you miss about someone you hardly knew, or call in sick because you didn’t get a fourth date. And yet, perhaps you really did like the person. Perhaps you’ve been dating around for years and this was the first person you’ve been excited about in a while. Or perhaps you’ve simply had enough of trying to tell yourself It’s not me, it’s them, while a small part of you thinks but just maybe it is me. When you look at it like that, even the most microscopic of breaks can veer into the existential.

But the question remains: Do I wish that some of my matches had simply ghosted me instead? Left a cold trail of unopened WhatsApps for me to figure out that they actually didn’t feel like we should have a third date at a karaoke bar? It’s difficult to decide. After all, ghosting leaves open innumerable possibilities for why someone doesn’t want to be with me, the kind that creep up on me at 2 a.m. and make me wonder whether they just weren’t looking for something serious or if my penchant for playing One Direction first thing in the morning put them off. But the micro-breakup might just confirm my fears—or at least make me face up to the fact that someone actively chose not to be with me and hasn’t simply dropped their phone down the toilet.

We are told that to find love we have to be vulnerable. We have to not play games. We have to put our cards out on the table. But by doing so we might be forced to face the parts of ourselves we find difficult and unloveable. The micro-breakup makes it all too easy to focus on these things. And yet, it’s also possible to see the good in them. The knowledge that there are people out there who are considerate and respectful of your feelings, even if you aren’t quite right for each other. The ability to move on to the next one with the knowledge that you gave it your best shot. The hope that someone will find your obsession with Zayn Malik endearing, eventually, if not right now.

But is ghosting really such poor form that we need each rejection presented to us on a platter, even for the most inconsequential of endings? It’s hard to say, and probably depends on the person, which only makes this social calculus more complicated. What do you think? Is a micro-heartbreaker always better than a ghost?

The post Are Micro-Breakups Better Than Ghosting? appeared first on Man Repeller.

Expectations vs. Reality: A Retrospective on My Wedding

I’ve now spent two months trying to think of a nonchalant way to say this and I really can’t, so… I just got married!!!!!!!!! On September 7th, my now-husband Gabriel and I had our wedding at Sunset Beach Hotel on Shelter Island, and shortly before that, Man Repeller asked if I would be interested in recording my experience—specifically my expectations pre-wedding and my feelings after—to see what it revealed.

Already a frequent journaler (I love the clarity that comes from looking back on old writing to measure how much I’ve changed), I was grateful for the prompt, particularly because in the months leading up to the wedding it felt as if my brain was expanding to ten times its size in order to keep constant tabs on pressing issues like tablecloth measurements and confetti deliveries. I knew I would struggle to remember what I was actually feeling during this whirlwind of planning if I didn’t write it down somewhere. What follows are my before-and-after takes on said whirlwind, broken down by relevant category. I hope it provides a mixture of comfort, entertainment, and useful information to anyone else who might be in the midst of planning.

First Things First: My Dress and Shoes

My dress, steamed and ready to go! The sparkly veil was a last-minute addition from Kleinfeld Bridal, and I’m so glad I ended up wearing it. I love the back of the dress–you can see the daisies and ribbon we added here.

 

Before the wedding: I’ve already purchased my dress–it’s by Cecilie Bahnsen. I wrote about it a bit on here before, but I had a relatively easy wedding dress shopping experience. I went to Dover Street Market with both my parents (in my mind, they both have impeccable taste), tried on two Cecilie dresses and ordered the one I liked in white on Moda Operandi the next day. I’m making a few minor tweaks to it with a tailor this week. My tailor works for the Metropolitan Opera, so she really knows what it takes to make a dress look good all night. She reworked the sleeves and back so they stay in place no matter how I move, and she added little daisies (my favorite flower) to the back, plus some velvet ribbons.

My shoes I’ll be wearing are a fresh pair of the same shoes I wear every day: white patent leather Repetto Mary Janes with a 3cm heel. I’ve been wearing some version of little Mary Janes since my early teenhood, and I’ve been on a kick with these Repettos for several years now. In my opinion, they’re the perfect shoe. They have a slight 60s vibe, like my dress. They’re also comfortable. I don’t typically wear heels, and I wanted to be positive that I could dance all night. These seemed like the obvious choice, considering they’ve passed that test many times.

A Polaroid of me right after I put on my dramatic flower crown.

After the wedding: About halfway through the reception, I realized that the entirety of my look was ruined–my husband had accidentally thrown a glass of red wine across the front of my dress, a button had popped off my shoes, my flower crown was drooping, and the family heirloom cameo I wore on a ribbon around my wrist snapped and flew down the stairs into the bar where, thankfully, I was able to find it. I didn’t care. I was so happy to be married that everything else felt inconsequential, and I felt exactly like myself the entire day.

I’ve had the dress cleaned and the shoes repaired. I’ve been wearing my shoes all around town (like I said, they’re my everyday favorites), and the pearl earrings and hair clip I wore have been affixed to me almost constantly since the wedding. Now I’m just plotting when it would be appropriate to wear the dress again. The thought of buying this gorgeous dress just to give it only one day out in the world is so sad to me, which is why I purchased it with the intention of wearing it over and over. (In fact, through the early twentieth century, it was common for a bride to simply wear the best dress already in her closet to her wedding or to repurpose a wedding dress into everyday wear). Gabriel and I privately vowed that we would wear our wedding outfits every year on our anniversary, but mine may make a comeback before then….

The Food and Cake
Local oysters at cocktail hour.

Before the wedding: Sunset Beach is catering the wedding. All the food will be served family style, hopefully fostering an intimate dinner-party feeling. They have the best french fries in the world, and I’ve requested tons of them.

Our cake is by Ladurée. It’s a Marie Antoinette cake with low pale-pink tiers and lots of scalloped edges–basically a cake version of me. The flavor is Ispahan, which is my and Gabriel’s favorite dessert. It’s a French pastry composed of rose macaron, lychee cream, and raspberries. I imagine the flavor will be a bit divisive (some of my younger guests have expressed frustration that there will not be chocolate), but it’s our wedding day!

We are also having a late-night snack bar catered by The Super Snack Store. I found them through Man Repeller, naturally, and I think they are going to be a big hit.

After the wedding: Lots of people warned me I wouldn’t have time to eat dinner at my wedding, but I thought I would at least be able to sneak in at least a handful of french fries. Nope. To be perfectly honest, though, I was running on so much adrenaline I don’t think I would have been able to stomach a proper meal. That aside, it made me so happy to see everyone cozied up in candlelight, talking over beautiful plates of steamed artichoke and mussels. Guests all reported that the food was delicious. I trust their word.

Our cutie pie of a cake.

I did manage to get a slice of our cake, which I am so glad about. It was delicious. Our photographer said it was the best wedding cake she had ever tasted, which seems like a weird flex out of context, but if you’ve ever planned a wedding I know you’ll let me bask in my pride on this one…

When we finally shut off the music sometime in the early morning, Sunset Beach’s chef surprised everyone left standing with a tray of cheese fries and mini hamburgers. It was probably the best thing I’ve ever eaten.

My Hair and Makeup
My sister and I doing our finishing touches side-by-side. Clearly she hadn’t yet brushed out the Shirley Temple curls in the back of my hair!

Before the wedding: My sister, who is my Maid of Honor, is doing my hair and makeup. She’s the only person I’d trust with my appearance on my wedding day. I am really not a big hair-and-makeup person. The one time I had my makeup done professionally for an event (Prom night, 2013), I cried when I saw myself in the mirror, thereby sullying much of the makeup artist’s hard work. In general I’m fairly comfortable in front of a camera, so I’m not too worried about my appearance in photos. I’m more concerned with looking *glowy* and natural in person.

I don’t want to paint a picture of myself as being unrealistically chill, though. I’ve been obsessed with getting my skin perfect (I am a notorious picker), so I’ve been doing laser treatments once a month since February. I’ve also gotten my roots touched up twice in the past three weeks, which is truly wild for me, as I usually like to go a few months between treatments! I suppose my main beauty wish is to not have a stress pimple and to have my eyelid stop twitching (also stress), but both of these things are tenuous as of now. Will report back.

After the wedding: My sister really outdid herself. I felt beautiful and very *glowy*. My curls lasted all through the night and even into brunch the next day. I’m pretty sure I had a pimple somewhere, but we covered it, and at this point I honestly can’t even discern where it was. My eye also stopped twitching! But I spent the whole day crying, so I’m not sure how much that mattered in the end…

My best friend Julia lacing up my dress. My earrings are by Sophie Bille Brahe.

Getting ready was one of the loveliest parts of the day. My sister and I listened to 90s hip hop and drank green tea, and friends flitted in and out to give hugs and report on the shenanigans happening in the groom’s suite. In the last hour or so before the ceremony, my ten “ladies-in-waiting” (a group of little loved ones ages four to 16) all filed in and we all helped each other affix flower crowns. As crazy as it may sound, they kept me calm as we waited for our time to walk down the aisle. We sat on the floor and talked about crushes and did a last-minute dance to ‘Fergalicious’ to get our jitters out. I know that they will always be my sisters and cousins, but it did feel a little like a celebration of the last time I would really get to be a kid with them.

Here I am with all of my ladies ready to go down the aisle. They chose their own dresses, which are mostly a mix of Bonpoint and LoveShackFancy with ballet shoes–except for Charlotte, our ring bearer, who wore a suit and Air Force 1s.
The Ceremony

Before the wedding: Gabriel and I come from very different religious backgrounds, and navigating the ceremony has undoubtedly been the most difficult part of planning our wedding. The two of us have always been on the same page about what this commitment means to us, and we began our conversations about what married life would look like for us long before we were ever engaged. The challenging aspect was turning this private conversation into a very public one–not only committing to one another, but also uniting two families.

Julia leading the hand-binding portion of the ceremony while my grandfather takes a break from his officiant duties. My sister and Gabriel’s brothers stood at the altar with us.

That being said, I’m so excited for our ceremony. It’s the aspect of the wedding that I have the most trouble picturing, as it will be based on words that we are mostly keeping secret from one another until then. It’s funny how you always have this vision of who you will be by the time a big event rolls around, but when it finally arrives you feel mostly the same as always (or maybe that’s just me?). As I type this, the wedding is in nine days, and I don’t feel any more put together or eloquent or elegant than I did when we began this process back in January. If anything I feel more haphazard than usual. I think I imagined that I would feel more like an adult on my wedding day, but I’m also glad I feel mostly the same as I always do.

My grandmother and parents enjoying the ceremony–clearly one of us said something funny!

After the wedding: No one properly explained to me how wild it would be to get up in front of everyone I know and speak aloud my deepest feelings. There are parts of the ceremony that are a little hazy because I was so nervous. There was a moment of comedic relief when I couldn’t find my vows because my loveable, disorganized father had stashed them underneath my mom’s chair instead of giving them to the Best Man like I’d asked him to. Reading our vows was my favorite part of the ceremony. My vows are my favorite thing I’ve ever written, and Gabriel’s were even better. He is a spectacular poet. Our vows were honest and layered and a little bit humorous, and it felt like spreading our hearts out raw for everyone to see, in the best possible way.

My grandfather led the ceremony, and my best friend from college performed the ancient traditional Celtic hand-binding portion of the ceremony. My childhood best friend was witness to our B’rit Ahuvim, a modern Jewish equivalent to a traditional ketubah wedding contract. Immediately afterward, our parents and siblings gave heart-wrenchingly beautiful toasts in celebration. The people we love were more than just witnesses to our union, they were the ones who made it real and official. Fitting, since they are the ones who first taught us how to love.

The Music
Gabriel getting ready to sing the song he wrote for me…swoon.

Before the wedding: Gabriel is a musician, so we’ve known music would be an essential part of our wedding from the beginning. He is playing me a song he wrote at the wedding, and I can’t freaking wait to hear it. I cry any time he gets out his guitar, so I can only imagine what will happen then.

On our RSVP cards we had each guest write down a song request so that we could create a selection of music that was not wholly based upon our eclectic tastes–though we are making some very personal, very non-traditional choices for the music during the ceremony. We have a DJ lined up to mix all the song requests at the after party, but we likely won’t meet him until the wedding night! Hopefully he gets the vibe we’re going for.

Gabriel broke his ankle about a month and a half ago (while I was away for my bachelorette party, oy vey). He’ll be able to walk in time for the wedding, but we haven’t been able to practice our dance because he’s been on crutches. This is making me nervous, since neither of us are, um, super coordinated on the dance floor. My sister, who is an amazing dancer in addition to being a Youtube-worthy beauty queen, was supposed to give us dance lessons, but I guess we’re just winging it at this point.

Gettin’ down during our first dance.

After the wedding: As we hoped, our choice to walk down the aisle to Suicide’s ‘Dream Baby Dream’ really did set the tone for our wedding. People were certainly surprised, but the song is so beautiful that there were already many damp eyes when I entered with my parents (the three of us included). After Gabriel and I were officially wed, we trotted back down the aisle to ‘Doing Things that Artists Do’ by The ILYs with my ladies-in-waiting dancing after us like the little punks they truly are.

Gabriel and I shared our first dance to ‘Hellhole Ratrace’ by Girls. We both absolutely adored the band as teenagers, and it felt so poignant to be dancing to this love song again as a married couple, all those years of longing now fulfilled. We danced the same way we always do–clumsily, goofily, and joyfully–and it was just right. It’s a long song, and a couple minutes in, everyone joined in.

Gabriel designed posters as a special keepsake from our wedding. Here they are outside the dance floor for guests to take home.

The song Gabriel wrote for me was, of course, perfect and had me in tears from the moment he began. His talent will never cease to amaze me. Several of our friends played music and sang for us as well.

Our dance floor music ended up being way more 80s stuff than I expected, but that was great. One of my favorite memories of the night was dancing like crazy to New Order’s ‘Bizarre Love Triangle’ with Gabriel and my uncle. People of all ages stayed up with us well into the night, and the dance floor felt like it was in danger of caving in from all the excitement. The DJ insisted on playing ‘Sweet Caroline’ despite our instructions to avoid any corny wedding songs, but people loved it. Sometimes you just can’t beat making the crowd happy. When the dancing was done, we raced down to the beach with friends to swim in the sea.

The Decor
I had dreamt up a heart-shaped archway, and our friend James lovingly welded this one for us himself (!) out of nautical chain. The Fleurotica team filled it in with pink and yellow roses.

Before the wedding: We’ve adhered to a very specific vision of 1960s-meets-Marie Antoinette and have matched nearly everything to our specific wedding-color Pantone chips of pink and yellow. Gabriel works professionally as a graphic designer, so every aspect of our paper goods and favors have been meticulously designed. I’m mostly just feeling excited to see everything put together in the space, and I’m hoping that I get a quiet moment to admiringly soak in the decor before guests flood in.

Our flowers are by Robin a.k.a. Fleurotica, an extremely talented florist and such a sweet, calm presence—exactly the kind of energy I know I am going to need on my wedding day. We came in with a lot of super specific requests (Froot Loop-colored explosions of fruit and flowers in the style of Dutch Renaissance still lifes, 60s-style daisies sprouting from the ice in the raw bar), and she got what we were going for immediately and topped it with more fabulous ideas. I trust her so much that I am really letting her have free rein with the flowers.

Left: Luscious still life-style groups of flowers and fruit, plus our summery table linens from Heather Taylor Home. Right: Fleurotica’s gorgeous work mingling with menus and our wedding-themed Ladurée macaron boxes.

After the wedding: Fleurotica’s flowers somehow managed to transform the space that I had seen hundreds of times into something that felt completely new. Her flower crowns were these fantastical sculptures that lent the whole ceremony a dreamlike quality. The bouquet, which I initially cared the least about, ended up being an awesome addition to my look with its long neon ribbon. Lots of friends told us that the affair felt like A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which surprisingly was not on our moodboard at all, even though we both love the play! It also seemed like a real missed opportunity for a pun, given that my husband’s last name is Sommer.

The Vibe

Before the wedding: Gabriel and I love hosting dinner parties, so I think we’ve spent a lot more time thinking about the dinner section of our event than the average couple. We want the tables as large as possible to accommodate socializing, and we spent the majority of our floral budget on creating centerpieces, which is apparently unconventional. We aren’t even opening the dance floor until 10:30 pm, because we want people to be able to focus on dinner and then focus on really dancing.

Dinner tables on the upper deck just before sunset.

Finally, I hope the night stays beautifully energized and runs late! Gabriel and I have been working really hard to plan this whole shebang (read: staying up well past midnight every night running through spreadsheets and ironing patches of our crest onto 50 hand-tie-dyed sweatshirts), so the best reward will be to get to dance all night with our loved ones.

After the wedding: I expected a gathering of all our close friends and family from around the world to feel surreal, but I was not prepared for how intense it would feel to have all of them pouring out their love for us. I am still struggling to write about it. I think it’s a human experience that can only be lived (as opposed to described), a rare moment where you can feel the invisible, ever-binding netting of love that brings us together.

The wedding also became such a community effort. The night of the welcome dinner, the remnants of Hurricane Dorian blew over the island, and all of Gabriel’s groomsmen, fresh off the ferry, piled into a truck with my dad to go secure a rain tent over the dinner tables set up on the beach. The next day the sun miraculously came out, but friends and family continued to chip in, doing favors both big (securing our heart-shaped archway in the grass) and tiny (fetching me a BLT from the deli while I had my hair done).

Toasts and tears of joy during cocktail hour.

On a surface level, not all that much has changed since the wedding. Gabriel and I still live in the same tiny studio, we tend to and love each other’s families in the same way we did before, and we are still unsure about what our life together will look like in the coming years. But internally, I feel different after sharing this hugely emotional day. We lifted our love higher by revealing its depths to everyone close to us.

In the hours and days following the wedding, so many people came to Gabriel and me to tell us that we had changed their views on marriage. This was by no means something we expected to do, but it meant so much to us both. No matter how much the very concept of marriage has changed over the past few decades, I think there’s still this very prevalent idea that you have to follow a prescribed pathway or be at a certain stable point in your life in order to get married. Gabriel and I did away with every part of a traditional wedding ceremony that didn’t feel essential to us. When the whole thing came together it was a perfect picture of who we are as a couple: colorful, humorous, and deeply sentimental. It’s often quoted at weddings that love accepts you just as you are, but the wedding itself should also celebrate you as you are. If we encouraged our guests to carry that sentiment moving forward, what more could we ask for?

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Photos by Jillian Mitchell.

The post Expectations vs. Reality: A Retrospective on My Wedding appeared first on Man Repeller.

Are the Presidential Debates *Too* Entertaining?

A camera pans across a thousand cheering people seated on a velvety red carpet. We zoom over their clapping hands, bathed in neon blue light, and center on a black, glossy stage, where we find 12 lit-up podiums. Behind each one stands a smiling or stoic contestant, dressed to the nines, lit by twinkling spotlights, and hanging over them, like a halo, is the visual centerpiece: a massive, glowing ring of fluorescent blue, dotted with 22 decorative stars. Over the cheers we hear a booming voice, the host, welcoming us to this exciting evening.

The first question on my mind as I watched the fourth 2019 Democratic Debates last month was: Why does this look like an episode of The Voice? At first I found the comparison comical, then unsettling, and finally alarming. But when I consider today’s political landscape, where nothing is too important to be treated like entertainment—grab the popcorn, prepare to live-tweet, proclaim a winner—it’s also unsurprising. Why wouldn’t the debates resemble a gameshow?

But once you back up a little, untether yourself from the expectation that all TV should look like a flashy, technicolor dreamscape, it begins to look more like an oversaturated nightmare. As I looked into the history of political debates, and more broadly, the treatment of politics as entertainment, it wasn’t hard to trace the road that led us here. It was lined with warning signs.

The Night Politics Became an “Aesthetic”

The first televised presidential debate took place in 1960, between Senator John F. Kennedy and Vice President Richard Nixon. When I looked it up on YouTube, I was struck by the lack of flash: The two of them sit on plain wooden chairs, flanking host and journalist Frank McGee, who is seated at a nondescript desk. Their suits are plain, the background is drab, and the discourse, too, is dry. JFK’s opening remarks are seven long minutes; Nixon’s are eight. But I soon learned that many believe the taping to be a singular turning point in the history of American politics. And that without these minutes on camera, JFK wouldn’t have secured the presidency.

“It’s one of those unusual points on the timeline of history where you can say things changed very dramatically—in this case, in a single night,” media historian Alan Schroeder told TIME. Whereas JFK looked tanned and healthy, projecting an air of confidence, Nixon looked sweaty and ill. “As the story goes, those who listened to the debate on the radio thought Nixon had won,” reports TIME. “[But] those that watched the debate on TV thought Kennedy was the clear winner.” Whether that’s apocryphal, the debate was a boon for JFK’s campaign, and it ultimately birthed a new era in which a politician’s on-screen charisma became paramount to their viability as a candidate.

Over the next 25 years, America would witness a huge cultural overhaul that placed television and imagery at the center of discourse, both political and otherwise. This had the curious effect of imposing some of the governing principles of TV—like its focus on entertainment, expediency, and aesthetics—on reality, and even on the ways the public processed and understood information. One skeptic of this shift was media theorist Neil Postman, whose 1985 book Amusing Ourselves to Death has enjoyed a wave of critical recognition in the 2010s for being hauntingly prescient. (I’m currently in the middle of it and can attest to this.) If you can imagine the extent to which our modern lives have become governed by dopamine-fueled distraction, it’s not hard to see why.

In the book, Postman claimed that 1985 America, amid the dawn of the digital revolution (cable, video games, computers, walkmans, camcorders), was a fictional dystopia come to life—not the surveillance state predicted in George Orwell’s 1984, but more like Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Postman pointed out that while Orwell warned of an external oppression, Huxley foresaw something more self-imposed; a kind of death by distraction. Postman wrote: “As [Huxley] saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think. … Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.”

We may have reached the point where cosmetics has replaced ideology as the field of expertise over which a politician must have competent control.

Every media revolution invites criticism from the old guard, but it sounds creepily familiar, doesn’t it? Maybe it’s fitting that Postman’s nearly 35-year-old book about a dystopia-turned-reality has, in a way, become that for us. His concerns about digital media can be aptly (if more severely) applied to the modern internet. In a 2017 piece about the book for The Atlantic, Megan Garber writes, “[Postman] worried that television—an environment where facts and fictions swirl in the same space, cheerfully disconnected from the world’s real and hard truths—would beget a world in which truth itself was destabilized.”

One look at the campaigns of today’s biggest news outlets—The New York Times’ “The Truth Is Worth It,” or The Washington Post’s “Democracy Dies in Darkness”—confirms our modern emphasis on untangling this fact-fictional knot. I know it’s easy to be alarmist about these things, and Postman is quick to point out that progress is often a kind of tradeoff, but he’s also committed to examining what has been lost as print as taken a backseat to a more imagery-based form of storytelling.

Unsurprisingly, Postman disliked how presidential debates had become a work of theater—less focused on policy than performance. As Garber quotes him: “We may have reached the point where cosmetics has replaced ideology as the field of expertise over which a politician must have competent control.’” Cue the spotlight and tie painstakingly picked for its assertive shade of oxblood.

The Ripple Effects of “Entertaining” Debates

Eight years after the first televised debate, two public intellectuals named Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley took to the sound stage to debate the 1968 U.S. presidential election. That is to say, to debate about the debates. The conversations were witty, engaging, and unlike anything on TV; they aired as part of ABC’s election coverage. In a 2015 documentary called Best of Enemies, co-directors Robert Gordon and Morgan Neville examine these appearances as the birth of American punditry, the 24-hours news cycle, and the reframing of news as entertainment. Watching Vidal and Buckley spar feels like watching TV give birth to The View (i.e. it’s worth the watch).

That politics and its surrounding melee have devolved increasingly into theater isn’t exactly a revelation. The idea’s been unpacked and restated in every cultural think piece since the election of a clownish real estate mogul and reality star to the highest U.S. office in 2016. But this drama doesn’t start and end with Donald Trump, or over-powdered pundits arguing in little boxes on CNN, or a sign that blinks APPLAUSE at debate audiences. It’s baked into how we as spectators (or rather, constituents) react to and engage with politics, and often, how we vote.

Ranking candidates by superficial means, memeing their words, gamifying our voting decisions—these are small ways we as participants in democracy contribute to its theatricality.

The day after the neon-blue 2019 Democratic Debates, I went on Twitter to see how people were reacting and, among your standard jokes about periods, friendlessness, and Keanu Reeves, I found articles ranking the performances of the 12 candidates, proclamations of who “won,” and a stream of jokes about people’s “most surprising friendship”—a riff on Anderson Cooper’s final question, which many considered weak and pandering. It wasn’t unlike chatter I might see in response to a premiere of Love Island. Not that I didn’t laugh:

My most surprising friend is that bad btch in the mirror!!!!! No one I trust less, no one who loves me more.

— Caity Weaver (@caityweaver) October 16, 2019

I also saw a lot of conversation around certain candidates’ “electability”—a word often trotted out after debate performances that inspires a kind of political gaming that has less to do with policy than guessing at other voters’ biases. For instance, I saw some say they won’t vote for Bernie Sanders in the 2020 election despite being aligned with him ideologically, because they’re worried his age or demeanor will disincentivize others from voting for him. This is referred to as “horse-race politics” for obvious reasons, and it can have unfortunate, self-fulfilling effects (as it can in, say, American Idol finals). What’s maybe more concerning though, is how we’ve come to define “electability” in the first place, and who did the defining.

As Perry Bacon Jr. wrote for FiveThirtyEight, “‘[E]lectability’ at times ends up being used as an all-purpose cudgel against female and minority candidates”—often to disincentivize them from running against more “traditional” candidates, a.k.a. straight white men. But who decides what it means to be “electable”? According to New Republic writer Alex Pareene, the term has historically been defined by economic conservatism, an idea first perpetuated by racist and moneyed interests in the mid-90s. In other words, it’s outdated and regressive, and possibly still informing election outcomes.

None of this is to say that considering how a candidate might fare against another, or how they might carry themselves diplomatically, can’t be useful. But as Pareene notes, “electability” as its commonly understood has been consistently overestimated as a predictor of election outcomes. (Trump’s victory being an apt example.) And yet the emphasis remains. Consider Joe Biden’s presidential bid, which seems almost entirely predicated on the idea that he is the most “electable” candidate. (There’s a great episode of Citations Needed on this phenomenon, for the curious.)

Ranking candidates by superficial means, memeing their words, gamifying our voting decisions—these are small ways we as participants in democracy contribute to its theatricality, which can have the positive effect of engaging people, but more often takes the focus away from change-enacting policy. In my view, this is good news. It means that even though the mechanisms that led to a debate stage that belongs on X Factor are deep-seated and systemic, their proliferation requires some measure of complicity from us. We can take it upon ourselves, then, to resist—by valuing policy over performance, by doing the reading, and perhaps by watching the fifth democratic debate tonight with one galvanizing question on our minds: Is anything important enough to be boring?

Feature photos via Getty Images.

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