Something borrowed from Jess and Russ.

Because a really good read is a commencement speech delivered by Adrian Tan. One of his advices: Fall in love.

I didn’t say “be loved”. That requires too much compromise. If one changes one’s looks, personality and values, one can be loved by anyone.

Rather, I exhort you to love another human being. It may seem odd for me to tell you this. You may expect it to happen naturally, without deliberation. That is false. Modern society is anti-love. We’ve taken a microscope to everyone to bring out their flaws and shortcomings. It far easier to find a reason not to love someone, than otherwise. Rejection requires only one reason. Love requires complete acceptance. It is hard work – the only kind of work that I find palatable.

Loving someone has great benefits. There is admiration, learning, attraction and something which, for the want of a better word, we call happiness. In loving someone, we become inspired to better ourselves in every way. We learn the truth worthlessness of material things. We celebrate being human. Loving is good for the soul.

Loving someone is therefore very important, and it is also important to choose the right person. Despite popular culture, love doesn’t happen by chance, at first sight, across a crowded dance floor. It grows slowly, sinking roots first before branching and blossoming. It is not a silly weed, but a mighty tree that weathers every storm.
You will find, that when you have someone to love, that the face is less important than the brain, and the body is less important than the heart.

You will also find that it is no great tragedy if your love is not reciprocated. You are not doing it to be loved back. Its value is to inspire you.

Finally, you will find that there is no half-measure when it comes to loving someone. You either don’t, or you do with every cell in your body, completely and utterly, without reservation or apology. It consumes you, and you are reborn, all the better for it.

And that is just the end part of a text filled with some great quotes:
"I have nothing against average people. But no one should aspire to be them."

"Don’t expect anything. Erase all life expectancies. Just live."

"Any child can blurt out the truth, without thought to the consequences. It takes great maturity to appreciate the value of silence."

"It is far too easy to be liked, one merely has to be accommodating and hold no strong convictions. Then one will gravitate towards the centre and settle into the average. That cannot be your role. There are a great many bad people in the world, and if you are not offending them, you must be bad yourself. Popularity is a sure sign that you are doing something wrong."

Oh, man.
We got another truth of the day delivered this morning by Jimmy Twin. "I would chose you anytime, but you must be aware that the world has apparent problems with appreciation."

Rosy cheeks, lovely locks and we've never seen John Lennon look so irresistible. Besides being a musical genius and an old soul, he said something very true about partner selection; "I'd never met a woman I considered as intelligent as me. That sounds bigheaded, but every woman I met was either a dolly-chick, or a sort of screwed-up intellectual chick. And of course, in the field I was in, I didn't meet many intellectual people anyway. I always had this dream of meeting an artist, an artist girl who would be like me. And I thought it was a myth, but then I met Yoko and that was it."

* Three Months Later *

You are an engineering nerd, and I assume you work all the time
Yet your handsome stature, your boyish charm, is surely worth the climb

The reason I behave as I know you, is because I see
So much of me in you, or so much of you in me

That shadow of a smile, waiting to burst into laughter
Unruly curls, as extensions of thoughts of similar character

A sense of humor, unintentionally entertaining, not really witty
Sparkling eyes, striving still to replaced judgement with curiosity

Communicative, attemptingly pedagogical, we try to make sense
With a contagious enthusiasm, luring people to our side of the lens

Yes, intelligent eyes, the mirrors of a soul and widely seeing
Injecting in its spectator a sense of confidence, calm and well-being

Rich in knowledge, accumulating wisdom. Hard to impress
But lightly amused. Difficult to catch, but easy to undress

Likeable, from the relaxed way in which we move around the world
experiencing life on a different level, another spin, a smoother swirl

Learning from mistakes, and not really knowing what to believe
being happy for each day of health, and the developments we achieve

Yet, my heart beats louder than yours, words flow freely in abundance
A longer way for you to go, tracing unknown paths of emotional distance.

They met at the Swedish Chamber of Commerce's crayfish party. To him, a casual affair. Forgetting that's how all great love stories begin.

Give us 140 characters and that's the story. We've met a man who we could, and have, easily write the world's longest novel on his virtues and beauty, how calm and beautiful he makes us feel, and how in our heart of hearts we just know that two old souls has met again. Of course, this freaks guys out. We ought to know that by now. But we are humans, acting in self-interest, sometimes stupidly so, and if our romantic pursuits have come to anything it is courting this man until he realizes that his future happiness depends on it. Frankly, my dear, we have never been so sure of anything before.

Because the great thing about native languages is that words
sometime ring much truer in it than others. And really,
romance is all about a mutual desire to see each other.

Får jag träffa dig ikväll?
Jag har ingen anledning till det
Tänkte först gå runt det, tänkte råka springa på dig

Men nu är är det bara så
Att jag orkar inte göra så
Antingen vill du träffa mig eller så vill du det inte

Vill du det inte så går jag nog hel ut ur det
När man var liten föll man jämt
Men nu ska det vara så jävla hemskt

Så fastän du kanske säger ja bara för att vara snäll
Får jag träffa dig ikväll?

Får jag gå precis så nära
Att min axel stryker vid din arm
Jag vill inte verka jobbig eller så men jag är varm
Och du ser kall ut 


Lyrics from the song Får jag? by Säkert!

Because all kisses ought to be beautiful and spiritual, and because We feel fine.

Sometime girls are dicks, sometimes boys are dicks and sometimes even we realize that you can do all the things in your power to try to get someone's attention, and still fail.
Which sucks, for sure, but what counts here is still that old saying; if you have never failed, you probably have not been doing a lot of interesting things.

Sometimes we feel as if newspapers are just full of BS, and that's why it is delightful to actually learn something useful while reading them. This time it came down to the simplicity of choosing your partner, and inspired by the couple featured in Dagens Nyheter, we now know that you should go for a man that is utterly attractive, very funny and who loves you.

Trots bråk ibland är kärleken mellan Erik och Martina på många sätt starkare nu än i början av deras förhållande. Erik tycker att Martina är generös som låter honom hållas med sina jakthundar och Martina tycker fortfarande att Erik är den roligaste och snyggaste hon vet.

– Ja, Erik är väldigt, väldigt snygg. Ibland när han pratar hör jag inte vad han säger bara för att jag står och tänker på att han är så snygg.

The Modern Love column is one of the few places where the art of broken-heartedness, and love in all its forms, is given proper space, at least once a week, in the respectable newspaper of New York. We would like to write there one day, too. It just seems like something romantic has to happen first.

By midnight, we’d already spent an hour canoodling in the dark corner of a salsa bar, and another hour rolling around half-naked on his building’s roof, Metro-North trains rumbling a few blocks away. I had no idea if I’d ever see him again, and inhaled every minute of the most uninhibited fun I’d had in years.

When we finally reached his apartment, I realized what I’d missed by marrying at 23. His bedroom was one of those only-in-New-York creations carved out of the living room — no windows, walls that didn’t reach the ceiling. Looking for a safe space to lay my pearl necklace and earrings, I knew I was a long way from my former five-bedroom colonial in the suburbs./.../

I worried that maybe I shouldn’t be playing this game with a heart that would never quite heal. But this I now know: People we love come, and they frequently go. What matters is staying open: to possibility, to connection, to hope.

Photos: the lovely Jenny Mörtsell and Sozi

Because we would also like to be able to say that "this is my cute boyfriend. He is the most funny, cute, creative and interesting person I know. He also picked up guitar like a pro, makes a mean guacamole and is the best kisser in the world!".

Because even if your heart is to the left, it is always right.

We're biding farewell to winter today. It might be because we haven't seen as many pretty boys in one single day, since September. Although we love guys in mittens and caps, spring sunshine has a way of exponentially increasing the number of make out-able guys, and with all this talk of us living in exponential times, we're dying for some proof.

Because the name Peter, derived from the Greek Πετρος (Petros) means "stone". And just as we were beginning to think our heart had turned into granite or frozen to ice, it started beating again, around three'o'clock yesterday afternoon. The guy said wonderful clichés such as "Aha, you're not letting school get in the way of your education" and "Always under promise, and over deliver". We love stuff like that, and what we love even more is the feeling that really good, possibly the best, guys do exists.

Words are very unnecessary.

-Har Jan aldrig förr tyckt så mycket om nån, så att ni har fått hjärtklappning fördenskull? sa barnmorskan.
-Nääj, sa Jan.
Men i samma stunden begrep han vad det var, som hade satt hjärtat igång på honom. Och inte nog med det, utan han började också ana vad som hade varit felet med honom i hela hans liv. För den, som inte känner av sitt hjärta varken i sorg eller i glädje, det kan säkert inte räknas som en riktig människa.

A handsome boy recommended that we should read Kejsarn av Portugallien by Selma Lagerlöf, and just we love taking good advice.

- Du kom te mig i natt i drömmen, så var det, ja. Du kom te mig, å jag sa så här: "Är du ute och går, Jan i Askerdala?" - "Nej", sa du, "nu heter jag Jan i Längtedalarna." - "Jaså, välkommen!" sa jag. "Där har jag bott i hela mitt liv."

You blow our minds, New York, with this all-day-buffet of dudes, drinks and dancing. Too busy living it, less time dreaming about it, in the empire state of making out.

For quite some time, New York magazine has been posting very entertaining sex diaries, where urbanites share some facts of life. Our favorite contributor has to be The Ex-Banker Living on Alcohol, Hook-ups, and Unemployment. Here's nearly 24 hours of that special kind of romance we are most fond of;

1 p.m. Wake up. I think I brought someone home though not really sure because he’s not here. I almost want to ask my doorman if I came home alone last night, but I make the executive decision not to.

8 p.m. Dinner with one of my old men. I am currently dating a few to finance my Manhattan meal plan. I promised myself the liquid diet, but not when you are having a free fabulous dinner at Del Posto. After dinner, mumble an excuse about not feeling well.

1 a.m. With friends at Marquee, where I catch the eye of a handsome boy in an Hermès tie and immediately start eye-B.J.-ing him. He is a 28-year-old M.D. who graduated from Yale. He buys me SoCo-lime shots and I tell him that 28 years old is too young to be an M.D. He responds that he’s just that good.

4 a.m. He asks me to come back to his place and I’m skeptical, but he says he lives on Park Avenue with his older brothers. He has me at “Park Avenue.”

5:30 a.m. Sitting in his penthouse apartment, he opens a bottle of Dom and we watch South Park—that should have been the first sign. We pass out in his room. I think we hook up.

DAY THREE
8 a.m. He freaks out and asks me to leave. When I get home, I look him up on Facebook and see that he graduated HIGH SCHOOL in 2009. He is 17 YEARS OLD and it was his parents’ penthouse.

The brilliant Noah Baumbach, a handsome man himself, describes the evolution and decline of romance in a style of the "unpronounceable", "foodie guide book".
In The Zagat History of My Last Relationship he proves that there is a dining establishment for every step of the way.

...

THE CHICK & HEN
Perfect for breakfast “after sleeping together,” with “killer coffee” that will “help cure your seven-beer/three-aquavit hangover.” Not that you need it—your “amplified high spirits” after having had sex for the first time in “eight months” should do the trick.

DESARCINA’S
So what if she thought the movie was “pretentious and contrived” and you felt it was a “masterpiece” and are dying to inform her that “she doesn’t know what she’s talking about”? Remember, you were looking for a woman who wouldn’t “yes” you all the time. And after one bite of chef Leonard Desarcina’s “duck manqué” and a sip of the “generous” gin Margaritas you’ll start to see that she might have a point.

/.../

VANDERWEI’S
Be careful not to combine “four dry sakes” with your “creeping feeling of insecurity and dread,” or you might find yourself saying, “Wipe that damn grin off your face!” The bathrooms are “big and glamorous,” so you won’t mind spending an hour with your cheek pressed against the “cool tiled floor” after she “walks out.” And the hip East Village location can’t be beat, since her apartment is “within walking distance,” which makes it very convenient if you should choose to “lean on her buzzer for an hour” until she calls “the cops.”

Excerpt from The New Yorker, September 30th 2002.
And, Noah, we'll just cook for you at home instead.

Saturday eve,
Aug 14th, 1978

Allan-
Washington, D.C. is a city that should be visited frequently
or for an extended period of time. It's vibrant, alive, quick paced and pretty. I wanted to walk and walk, shop, stop, eat, look, rest, inspect, carouse - I will come back - I will go to New York, Paris, London, Chicago - someday - maybe.
I went to Bretano's book store - wonderful!
Have been locked inside Anaïs Nin + Henry Miller.
There is no place for me to crawl off and be alone (except in my books) but nonetheless the vacation is restful and interesting. Going to Virgina Beach in the morning.
I have so much to say but, alas, no way.

Judy