ColumnPlace matters nothing. It’s all about what you house in your head and heart.

Nine months ago and on something of a whim, I threw down roughly $300 for a one-way Air Berlin flight to Europe. I never issued proper goodbyes or otherwise indicated that I wouldn’t come back to San Francisco, and yet some small, reckless part of me already knew it was foregone. Now, I have under my belt nearly a year abroad and, even better, a German-issue work and residency visa affixed to my American passport.

This week, I’ve popped back into the States for the first time since my departure and am currently holed up at a friend’s little flat in Brooklyn. New York energizes and animates me like no other place in the world, but Berlin is a magnetic and beautiful beast that compels me to splash right back across the pond. Europe isn’t exactly home to me but, at this juncture, neither is the United States – returning to my country of origin has only confirmed for me what I already suspected: I will not remain and cannot return here with any permanence.

The absence of home, conceptually, isn’t a lack – but rather a liberation. Because I don’t chiefly belong anywhere, I by default belong everywhere. Girdled by my journalistic impulse to indulge curiosity and bolstered by my professional prerogative to document culture in real time, I don’t quite feel like a citizen of the world: Not, at least, in a blasé cosmopolitan sense nor with a corny “global village” sentiment to validate my existence and experiences.

It’s the people we meet who give us license to continue. Without them repelling or attracting us – indeed, without the mere presence of people as placeholders, markers and signposts – we cannot be free to hack off our roots and sally forth into new and unfamiliar terrain; we cannot be free to contribute our song to the universal chorus. Our allies and enemies alike provide us with belonging – whether they be present in a corporeal sense, like a lover curled in bed in slumber, or whether they be the fodder of imagination, like the memory of a lover long lost. While he might never surface again in the flesh, he remains just as real in the adventures of the mind. Within you, his is an existence of eternal return.

Home then is a notion. It’s as much an idea as a place. The figment is no less real than the physical expression – in the end, won’t both come to dust? Maybe home isn’t what you carry on your back at all, but rather what you house in your head.

Psychological projection is a powerful agent. It’s why we reflect on what has come and harness these experiences to inform what will. If you can make it up, you can make it so.

Berlin-based Abigail Wick is a contributor to The New York Times and National Public Radio. ‘From an Ex-Pat…with Love’ is her weekly EcoSalon column about cultural dislocation, romantic relationships and lifestyle choices – filtered through the lens of an American woman living and working abroad in Europe.

Author Image: Alina Rudya

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ColumnA Vaclav Havel memorial in Prague, photographed hours after the announcement of his death Sunday.

Vaclav Havel, the prolific and politically-incendiary Czech writer and intellectual cum 1989 Velvet Revolution leader, died last Sunday at the age of 75; a decades-long devotee of tobacco, he passed due to respiratory complications in the privacy of his country home in Bohemia. Havel’s works – including 22 plays, nine non-fiction books, and the Charter 77 human rights manifesto – galvanized not only the disfavor of the Communist government, who imprisoned him on multiple occasions because of his texts, but conversely the esteem of his countrymen, who elected him as the first democratic ruler of then Czechoslovakia.

Havel’s creative output spans the gamut from absurdism to children’s stories, and he leaves behind an impressive oeuvre of books and letters rich with imminently quotable passages. Over the intervening days since his departure, I’ve been rolling around certain Havelian turns-of-phrase – cold, dark marbles on my tongue.

With quiet but ruthless exactitude, Havel called out of hiding small, hard secrets about the human condition. He of course exposed and documented systematic abuse and civil rights violations in former Communist Czechoslovakia, but also delivered a fair share of reckoning with our species’ systemic frailties and follies.

He wrote that people “are compelled to live within a lie, but they can be compelled to do so only because they are in fact capable of living in this way. Therefore not only does the system alienate humanity, but at the same time alienated humanity supports this system as its own involuntary master plan, as a degenerate image of its own degeneration, as a record of people’s own failure as individuals.”

To form a bridge between his quote and this weekly column’s core theme – love and intimacy – doesn’t require elaborate architecture. While Havel is talking here about the nation-state and body politic, the principle of self-propagating defeatism also holds fast in romantic pairings. He implicates not only the government, but also the governed; in doing so, he examines macro structures and also micro figures within a system – both of which inform, and feed, the other. The whole is a reflection of its sum parts. The major movements and themes of a piano concerto sound not without the harmonization of individual ivory keys pounding the chords.

Relationships – whether you’re like me exploring the sublime nuances and also sour notes of being a single woman after a lifetime spent otherwise or, like my little sister in the United States, married to the very boy you met and fell for in junior high school – are an inalienable, inexorable feature of our existence. Pair bonding’s resultant transcendence is illusory, albeit recurring, giving way at times to tedium, pointlessness and a rot of existential rubbish.

Havel wrote his own way out of it: “Isn’t it the moment of most profound doubt that gives birth to new certainties? Perhaps hopelessness is the very soil that nourishes human hope; perhaps one could never find sense in life without first experiencing its absurdity.”

Berlin-based Abigail Wick is a contributor to The New York Times and National Public Radio. ‘From an Ex-Pat…with Love’ is her weekly EcoSalon column about cultural dislocation, romantic relationships and lifestyle choices – filtered through the lens of an American woman living and working abroad in Europe.

Author Image: Alina Rudya; Article Image: Megan Ouellette

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ColumnThe capital city’s own mayor puts it best: “Berlin is poor, but sexy.”

In Scott Roxborough’s How Berlin Became the Coolest City on the Planet, he writes that the 3.45 million-person city is everything Germany is not: spontaneous, open, cosmopolitan and exciting. While Roxborough’s summary dismissal of Deutschland might be ungenerous, his synopsis of its capital is unerring. The metropolis defies easy definition – dynamic and polymorphous, Berlin is in perennial state of becoming.

Pop-up restaurants, shops and galleries are the norm; sprawling former warehouses cum all-night dance clubs featuring pulsating electronic beats are open every day of the week; the city streets are a menagerie of graffiti and street art; and internet start-ups are in such abundance that Berlin has been dubbed Europe’s “Silicon Allee.” Young internationals from the creative sector flock here for the cheap rent in the East, allowing them to set-up studios and storefronts at a low cost in a globally-relevant urban center. From an all-vegan supermarket to a remarkable, Finnish-style sauna that literally floats on the Spree Canal bisecting the city, Berlin is a place where radical, even seemingly preposterous ideas have room to germinate, take root and flourish.

Mayor Klaus Wowereit – who, incidentally, happens to be gay, but whose sexual preference is a complete non-issue in this tolerant locale – provided the city with its unofficial motto when he described Berlin as “poor…but sexy.” And it is so. While the country of Germany’s staid, export-driven economy is propping up the euro zone from collapse, Berlin’s unemployment level exceeds 10-percent. It’s not a place for industry, but rather a cultural capital. Its very financial malaise is what makes it a tenable global destination for artists who might have a slim pocketbook, but whose straits energize their creativity – this is where the sexiness comes into play.

Berlin isn’t for everybody. Of all the European cities, it certainly doesn’t place first as one of the most beautiful. Far from the posh digs of Paris, Rome or London, Germany’s capital isn’t a center of high-end fashion or epicurean eats, which is precisely what makes it so attractive. It’s Berlin’s tenuousness and frayed edges that make it sparkle. After The Wall fell, there was a mass exodus from the former Socialist enclave; derelict, care-worn buildings were abandoned and young, downwardly mobile people sought out the empty shell as a playground of their own imagining.

In two intervening decades, Berlin continues to discover its own vicissitudes, to be carved out by ex-pats and Germans alike. Poor and sexy sure, but also touched with no small dose of both madness and magic. It’s a city of those who are willing to stand on ground that’s not quite solid, but that is rich with the ferment of do-it-yourself derring-do.

Berlin-based Abigail Wick is a contributor to The New York Times and National Public Radio. ‘From an Ex-Pat…with Love’ is her weekly EcoSalon column about cultural dislocation, romantic relationships and lifestyle choices – filtered through the lens of an American woman living and working abroad in Europe.

Berlin Image, Roland Anton Laub; Author Image, Alina Rudya

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ColumnStaving off depression during a dark Berlin winter sometimes means a communal sauna and a cold beer.

In the popular American imagination, Western Europe is still a bastion for in-the-buff recreation. The mere mention of the Mediterranean, for many of us, calls to mind glorified, sun soaked stretches of impossibly beautiful coastline crawling with tan-line-free bodies. Yes, Europeans exhibit a comparatively relaxed approach to sexuality, but for a current generation, nudism is on the downswing – a past time relegated to the territory of grandfathers influenced by hippie zeitgeist now past.

While the growing disinclination to disrobe in public holds true in many countries across the pond, the phenomenon hasn’t fallen out of favor in East Germany – especially not in Berlin. In this former Soviet stronghold, plenty of culturally-enshrined opportunities exist to enjoy oneself sans cumbersome clothing and, oddly enough, this is perhaps best evidenced during winter.

Here, the sauna – in import of the historic Finnish variety – reigns. Typically co-ed, these clothing non-optional environments help stave off the depression that attends not only the grisly German winters, but also dearth of daylight at such a northerly latitude. At the season’s height, daybreak doesn’t come until late morning, and the sun again sets before the end of the work day. With winter comes a world of bone chilling cold and a smothering cloak of darkness seeming without end. The antidote? Frequent trips to one’s neighborhood sauna, where a multi-hour visit costs mere euros – about the same price as a decent bottle of red wine.

In the U.S., saunas are usually a costly luxury and in same-sex company; in Germany, it’s not only a quotidian luxury that comes at little expense, but also one that proffers a mild, mixed gender thrill. Far from the terrain of socially inappropriate lechers, sauna culture is so commonplace that families come with their children, groups of university students gather and hang out, and even business people (although typically groups of men) converge to talk shop and sweat it out together.

And, of course, the body’s fluids must be replenished after subjection to such extreme heat. While an uptight doctor might classify a post-sauna beer as ill advised, rest assured the Germans aren’t wary of its indulgence and, in fact, consider it a tidy closure to the evening. In a land where the average life expectancy is long; the men, brave and strong; and all of the women beautiful – well, they might just be on to something. The sauna isn’t just a recipe for enduring the long slog of winter, but also the crux of enjoying a good life and aging well.

Berlin-based Abigail Wick is a contributor to The New York Times and National Public Radio. ‘From an Ex-Pat…with Love’ is her weekly EcoSalon column about cultural dislocation, romantic relationships and lifestyle choices – filtered through the lens of an American woman living and working abroad in Europe.

Bio Image: Alina Rudya, Article Image: thomaswanhoff

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ColumnJane Austen’s tomes on relationships are revisited with 21st century reading glasses.

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in good fortune must be in want of a wife.”

These words mark the opening passage of British author Jane Austen’s 1813 novel, Pride & Prejudice. Although the conclusions she draws about love and intimacy are starkly insufficient for contemporary audiences, Austen continues to be fiercely relevant because of her lightning-hot investigative process and sharp social commentary. With a forked tongue pointed directly at the landed English gentry, it’s not so much her what, but rather the derring-do of her how.

For post-modern women, Austen’s world view – with its codified rules and wax seal of matrimony – isn’t so much suspect, but simply quaint. We welcome and also balk at today’s ever changing guard, asking what will become of us in an era defined by what sociologists herald as the End of Masculinity. Boys and girls both are bereft of a compass for navigating the variegated topography of gender, pair bonding, and progeny.

In our era, plurality reigns – rendering outcomes open-ended and unhinged, rather than foregone.

For Jane Austen, the terrain of dating and desire was not simple. Austen, for instance, spurned a suitor once marriage became the relationship’s only inevitability; consequently, she spent the rest of her life alone, but transformed her solitude into a gift – harnessing her time to author Sense & Sensibility, Mansfield Park and Emma. The socially-sanctioned options at her disposal were few, but she certainly gave the finger.

For many women, it’s the sheer abundance of choices that threatens to paralyze momentum; porous lives with few boundaries have their own attendant shortcomings. The introductory statement to a current-day Pride & Prejudice would require radical revision, not least because the very concept of a “universal truth” is an untenable antiquation. Instead of staking out a man of means in want of a wife, I might re-write the text to read as follows:

“That you are wholly and utterly alone is unavoidable; that everything is causal and that we’re all in this together is also inescapable; the rub, whether it be between boys and girls or whatever relationship between two humans, is to harmonize your ultimately abject triviality with your responsibility to change the world, in ways big and small, on a daily basis.”

Berlin-based Abigail Wick is a New York Times and NPR contributor. From an Ex-Pat…with Love is her weekly EcoSalon column about cultural dislocation, romantic relationships and lifestyle choices – filtered through the lens of an American woman living and working abroad.

Image by Kameron Elisabeth

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ColumnAn American ex-pat on dating in Europe.

It’s the gulf between the man who says “Mon chéri” and he who says “Hey, baby.” It’s the difference between the guy who orders a Jack Daniels with Coca-Cola and he who instead prefers a nice Bordeaux. It’s the net effect of a man in pants that fit versus he who still wears the same baggy-cut jeans that he did when a student in high school.

Sure, the aforementioned examples might be riffing on all the hyper-reductive stereotypes about the American versus European man, but between the lines – the subtext, if you will – there are certain truths well worth mining if you’re an American looking to meet a European. As a woman who bleeds red, white, and blue but who’s living abroad across the pond, this year has been something of a crash course. In this week’s Sex by Numbers, Old World collides with New. Here are six signposts for snagging that beautiful boy with the accent.

Your Americanness is an asset. You are a product of your culture’s grooming, and nothing can shake that. There’s nothing sillier than regarding your stars-and-stripes badge as a dating game stopgap. It’s an irreducible asset that you can harness and highlight to your advantage. Playing up the fact that you were a bonafide Texas cheerleader in high school carries with it a mystique that favorably positions you ahead of the cigarette-sucking angst of your European-born female counterparts. Yes, we’re speaking in generalities here, but the point is not to try to hide who you are.

They expect you to be ignorant. Many Europeans harbor all manner of anti-American prejudices, but perhaps the most cloying is the belief by some that Stateside girls are ignorant of the cultural and historical influences that shape the world. (The U.S. is, after all, nothing but one fat, happy Walmartized Disneyland – right?) Recent case in point: “So, I just got back from the Gustav Klimt retrospective – oh, wait – do you know who he is? He’s an artist.” In Europe, my intelligence is second-guessed on a near-daily basis. The fun is in upending these expectations. (Personally, I prefer Klimt’s “Golden Phase.”) It’s your defiance of small-minded stereotypes that sharpens your edge.

They assume you’re a fake. You’ll hear it in some form countless times: “Americans are too friendly, they’re too nice, they’re phonies, they’re false, they love useless small talk but don’t really mean it, they’re as superficial as they come.” First, accept the other’s perception with a grain of salt and without taking it personally. Remember that for all of the superficial, saccharine, smiling Americans there are rude, smug, arrogant Europeans in equal measure, who are itching to make themselves and their opinions heard. C’est la vie! In your own way, know that intolerance is but a manifestation of fear of the unknown and keep in mind that their version of the world is just as – but no more – valid than your own.

Yes, Americans are inclined to bend over backwards and sometimes are too eager to please, but it’s not your job to apologize for it. Instead, it’s your prerogative to exploit your friendly nature as a device to charm – it works. A smart woman goes only where she is appreciated, not merely tolerated.

Dress the part. I can’t help but shudder at the Stateside girls on holiday in Europe who know no better than to hit the sidewalks looking like they stepped straight out of a strip mall (horrors). Men here possess a birth-right appreciation for a woman with a sense of true style.

Strive for a look that is simple (I can’t stress this enough), classy (this has nothing to do with money), and understated (as in steer clear of pop culture). Clasping a strand of pearls around your neck doesn’t equate with being a member of the Republican party; pearls are for the everyday. Remember the rule of halves: If you opt for a body-hugging blouse, pair it with loose trousers or if you slip into stockings and a miniskirt, couple it with a tasteful top. Use a blow dryer and wear your hair soft and long. Keep your makeup minimal with a focus on the lips and eyes, while following this suggestion: Look at old photographs taken when you were a little girl. What was your natural coloration? This is the cosmetic pallet to which you should adhere as an adult. Au natural, darlings. In short, think Carla Bruni, not Katy Perry. 

Sex is sex. Europeans embrace nudity as an integrated aspect of everyday life – they bare their bodies without a second thought at the beach, in the co-ed saunas, and certainly in the bedroom. It might sound unkind, but the general impression of American men – one I’ve only come to understand after moving abroad this year – is that they’re largely terrified of showing off their bodies but trigger-happy to share their genitals. Conversely (and, yes, I realize I’m painting broad-brushed strokes here), European dudes like to preen, strut, and physically demonstrate that they are men. These guys are proud of their physiques and strength and, at first blush, might even seem vain. But it’s actually a deep-rooted, thoroughgoing commitment to remaining connected to their physical selves – trés sexy. 

It’s important to keep in mind that this is an “affair culture.” Sure, the men here love having girlfriends and wives, but they’re equally comfortable taking lovers. It’s true the world over, but maybe more so in Europe than America: Sometimes, a kiss is just a kiss; sex is just sex; and savoir faire is a modus operandi.

Sex By Numbers is an ongoing look into the emotional and sexual lives of the modern day woman. Follow Abigail Wick weekly here for insight and inspiration as she explores the “sex” of women and the terrain they must travel.

Image: kikaso

The post Sex by Numbers: The American Girl’s Guide to European Men appeared first on EcoSalon.

Can’t we just be soft and cuddly this Friday?

What’s more cute and loved than our favorite animals? We walk them, we talk to them, we gaze upon their beauty in the stillness of nature and still, there are never enough words to explain how much we appreciate them..until this week. Anyone with the least shred of animal decency in them clicked on All Creatures Great & Small: 30 Best Quotes About Animals so they could wax poetic with their furry and feathered friends while at home, on the beach or deep in the woods.

Abigail Wick is our resident sex columnist who, in addition to being a great writer, has a voice that will make you melt. It’s like buttah. Any of her columns could fit here in the warm and fuzzy edition but Flirting As Art? Acting coy yet direct to get what you want is a pretty soft and sexy way to go, especially if you just embrace being a flirt and work it to your advantage.

Just above your fireplace is a small shelf that many call a mantle but you, the budding artist, the home decor maven, you call that a blank canvas. In 25 Wicked Halloween Mantles, Shelter Editor K. Emily Bond pulls from all over the internet to bring you 25 creative ways to light up your hearth for the spookiest night of the year. Note to budding artist/home decor maven: make sure when lighting the fire in the hearth, your creative touches haven’t drooped too low to make your wicked mantle, wicked messed up.

Who doesn’t love a warm knit sweater when the weather turns cold? We caught up with knitwear designer Anna Cohen and Imperial Stock Ranch co-owner, Jeanne Carver recently to talk DIY. What we love most about the collaboration of sheep rancher and designer is that the product that comes from them can be so high fashion and environmentally sustainable. Read more about the designing duo in Anna Cohen and Imperial Knits Partner Up For Some DIY and the kits they’re now producing from the Imperial Stock Ranch in the high desert of Shaniko, Oregon.

Don’t deny it, when fall comes, something inside you screams for comfort food. Hot casseroles, hearty soups and soup bowl sized lattes can’t come fast enough to quell your cravings for inner warmth. One thing all that good cooking and drinking doesn’t always fix is the reduced amount of sunlight we have to endure and the dopamine and serotonin deficiencies our bodies endure. Not to fear snuggle bunnies, writer Luanne Bradley’s 12 Top Foods To Beat The Blues will have you smiling in no time, decorating your mantle, flirting with your partner while wearing a warm sweater and calling Fido over for a quote that just happened to come to you.

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ColumnSkip the weight loss centers and the elliptical machines, there are other fun ways to drop unwanted pounds.

Last spring, I set sail from the States to Europe, where I’m now a legal resident. In the intervening months since my arrival, I’ve shed a handy ten pounds – without even realizing it was happening. In fact, it didn’t occur to me that I was slowly slimming down; I only noticed that my energy levels were wicked high, that I loved shopping for new clothes because I liked how I looked in the dressing room mirrors, and that I felt infinitely sexier than before I came to Berlin. What happened?

I definitely don’t hail from one of America’s Fat Capitals; my former home of San Francisco is one of the healthiest, most physically fit populations in all of the U.S., and my long-preferred, mostly active lifestyle seemed to have all the right cards in place for an optimal waistline: I’ve always walked and biked everywhere (I don’t even have a driver’s license), and as a yoga teacher and (mostly) vegan, it seemed I could do no wrong. And yet, some key ingredient kept me hovering at a Marilyn Monroe body type. These days, I’m certainly no buff beauty queen, but I have definitely stopped thinking and caring about my weight. Who needs to worry when you can just have fun?

This week’s Sex by Numbers provides a little toolbox of four incredibly accessible, easily applicable tips for whittling down your frame – European style – with nary a lick of dreadful dieting or fretting about what the scale reads.

Walk It & Work It

Maintaining fitness isn’t some codified, separate activity from the rest of your daily activities, but rather an integrated aspect of life. In the morning, I walk to the market for breakfast ingredients and mosey on over to the office. On my lunch break, I stroll along the canal that cuts through the city or explore nearby graveyards and parks – it refreshes me and keeps me from going mad from sitting at a desk and in front of a computer all day. In the evening, I use my own two legs to get to yoga class and back home again, and instead of taking the subway to meet up with friends later at night, I walk to whatever bar, club, or restaurant where we’ll be hanging out. By incorporating regular bipedal motion into my everyday life, I get to enjoy the city sights, bump into friends on the sidewalk, window shop, and generally approach each day with appreciation and ease. Sure, it might require more time than driving a car, but it endows routine experiences with increased richness and joy. Plus, there’s no better time for strapping on my headphones and listening to music.

DIY Dinner

Nothing is sexier than knowing how to hold your own in the kitchen, and a woman who can whip-up a mean meal at a moment’s notice is a hot commodity in the dating market. (Because, let’s face it, relationships are a cultural and social marketplace.) I’m a proponent of intuitive eating and cooking in conjunction with seasonal, regional foods. As such, I advocate stocking up monthly on staples like legumes, lentils, and nut butters, while making frequent trips to the market several times a week for fresh vegetables, fruits, fresh-baked breads, and ethically-produced dairy products. Culinary art is one of life’s most sensual pleasures and is not only an opportunity to nourish your body but delight in a full-fledged orgy of lush colors, scents, tactile exploration, and even the roundly satisfying thwack of a butcher knife against the chopping block. When you enshrine a daily habit of cooking into your routine, you deepen an appreciation for food and can savor it more richly. And there’s the added benefit of the pounds simply melting away.

Have Sex

You can even have lots of it, if you want. It’s an obviously inventive, expressive workout that provides an endorphine rush in equal measure to running a marathon or getting a promotion, except rather than being an exceptional affair, it’s a sustainable activity in which to engage on a daily basis. Further, a healthy sex life results in a healthier physique. We all want to feel completely free of body-consciousness when we’re with our lovers; it allows us to more deeply engage in intimacy and focus purely on the pleasures of sharing ourselves with another person. Having regular sex is rad, and provides constant incentive to keep your body feeling beautiful and strong to share your best self with a lover (or several).

Balance, not Boundaries

Wine with dinner, nice cocktails as nightcaps, a croissant for breakfast, convivial meals and drinks with friends that span for hours and hours – I could go on. Beauty, at its core, is about savoir faire. It’s vital to celebrate life with other people by coming around the table and enjoying its bounty – and this isn’t just about Thanksgiving and Christmas. Here in Europe, every meal is occasion for festivity and joy, and people are willing to unplug from their laptops and iPhones to come together on a quotidian basis. Indulgence – in sweets, spirits, and fine company – is perhaps the single most important component of creating balance and joy.

Image: Jamie Neely

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ColumnWe all enjoy getting what we want, and certain methods are considerably more effective than others.

The ineluctable power of flirtation is one of the most invaluable tools in your social arsenal. I am incredibly effective at it, and apply my methods to all manner of human discourse – from girls with whom I have lifelong friendships to my insatiably sunny sister, from my myriad colleagues to my lovers (prospective and otherwise). Flirting, however, has a bad rap, and that’s unfortunate. The term typically connotes insincerity and a lack of humility. It is more often regarded as a deceitful device for extracting what you want from another person than a gift, and to label somebody as such – a flirt – is a dismissive epithet rather than a compliment. I am here to reclaim the fine art of flirting as a practice based as much on mutuality and trust as it is cunning and craft. This week’s Sex by Numbers is an examination of five tools for making the magic happen.

Bring It & Mean It

People are so often lost in negative internal monologues by which they compare themselves to others, engage in self-defeating self-reflection, and feel as if nobody really gives a damn. It’s your job – and perhaps even obligation – to burst their bedraggled bubble and remind them that they matter. We are all small, scared animals with the tragic-comic weight of the world on our shoulders. Flirting, when approached humanely and with compassion, serves as a useful reminder to another person: I see you, I like what I see, you bring something to the world that that is singularly unique, I thank you for it.

Highlight the Hot Shit

See something that you adore and admire in another person? Make sure that in no uncertain terms that they are aware of it. Based on your accumulated knowledge of somebody else, take a moment to reveal to them themselves – in their very best light. Consider, for instance, a co-worker who you almost can’t stand. Step back a minute. What aspect, however small, of their character turns you on? Maybe all you can spot is their ability to brew a good pot of coffee when they arrive at the office every morning. Tell them, by god, that they make a mean cup of joe. The compliment can endow a morning ritual that they might consider tedious or overlooked into an aspect of their day that is suddenly rich with meaning and allows them to experience a heightened sense of connection with their peers. A kind word can affect a world of good.

Be a Peacemaker and Bridge Builder

Nobody likes complainers or trouble-makers. They instead prefer people who can elevate the level of good cheer and positive energy in the room. Make yourself a valued member of the group by facilitating an abiding sense of solidarity and ease among others. Help people foster friendships with others, set an example for how people should treat one another, and generally be a guiding light in all of your affairs to cultivate intimacy and togetherness among a gathered crowd of acquaintances. Your enthusiasm, intellectual energy, and emotional stability can establish a tone that acknowledges how important everybody’s contributions are to the overall sense of joy and belonging that permeates a social space. It has the added advantage of making you invaluable.

Eye Contact and Body Talk

People need to see and be seen. It’s why we gather in bars after work and dance clubs on the weekends. It’s why we compulsively update our Facebook statuses and tag friends in pictures. It’s why we don’t avert our gaze from that tall, mustachioed man on the other side of the room. It reminds us that we exist and reinforces our participation in a milieu much greater than ourselves. And, since this is what people need, give it to them. In short, treat people how they would like to be treated. Like the looks of the guy walking toward you along the sidewalk? Good. Register your attraction by making eye contact and even offering a smile. Notice somebody noticing you while you’re checking out the art at a gallery exhibition opening party? Perfect. Approach him and ask what he thinks about how the curators hung the paintings – really, any pretext will do. And since you’re not being shy about looking him in the eye, further your impact by briefly allowing your eyes rove across his chest and arms. Why not? If you appreciate something, be bold. The worst that can happen is that nothing becomes of your overtures, and even with that you’ve lost nothing at all.

Killer Confidence

The advice is trite but true:  Confidence is crucial for getting what you want, both professionally and personally. Confidence isn’t an affectation, but rather a manifestation of love for oneself and others. It’s empowering and emboldening to make others feel good about themselves, and flirting – as described here – might very well be the key to forging some confidence of your own. We all get caught up in cycles of behavior that shape what we think of ourselves and determine who we will become. Perhaps flirting (conscientiously and mindfully) might be the panacea for us all. Go on and give it a go.

Sex By Numbers is an ongoing look into the emotional and sexual lives of the modern day woman. Follow Abigail Wick weekly here for insight and inspiration as she explores the “sex” of women and the terrain they must travel.

Article Images: Cia de Foto, Author Image: Alina Rudya

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ColumnThe health of a body politic can only be as strong as the individual relationships that comprise it.

The Occupy Wall Street movement, with pop-up solidarity encampments, sit-ins, and demonstrations sprouting in cities as far flung as New York and Nashville or Atlanta and Los Angeles, is a mounting cultural zeitgeist soon to enter its second month. The noisy convergence of a few-dozen Tea Partiers waving signs and causing a public ruckus always ends up dominating the nightly news, but not even NPR provided so much as a single story during Occupy Wall Street’s first nine days. People interested in following the occupation’s development had to look outside of their country’s borders, where international coverage by Al Jazeera and The Guardian UK had to suffice instead.

Now that it’s getting more coverage, many critics dismiss the protesters’ demands and frustrations as scattered and disorganized, but Occupy Wall Street’s disunity is actually its strength. Without a singular definition, there is more conceptual and theoretical space for a plurality of voices, whether that be a recent college graduate whose ambitions to find a respectable job have been dashed or a working class single mother who can’t afford monthly health insurance payments.

In a country where 24-million citizens, no matter how hard they try, can’t find decent full time employment and where 57-million citizens can’t afford full health care coverage, something has run amok. Systemic inequity and exploitation results in rampant societal sickness, and the current Occupation reflects an unhealthy body-politic. Citizens are clamoring not only for relief from economic malaise, but also calling into question the legitimacy of corporate globalization and the governmental structures that support it.

As a freelance American writer living and working in Berlin, my own participation in this movement is that of the pen. (Although I’m excited this weekend to attend an affinity demonstration here in Germany’s capital, especially because these protests always come with ‘party buses,’ huge platforms on wheels that groan under the weight of mega sound systems blasting electronic music and followed by dancing crowds – fun!)

I’m not a policy wonk, nor am I interested in prescribing antidotes to redress widespread social and financial injustice. Instead, I’m much more interested in what I can do on a micro-scale to directly impact my immediate environment. It is my conviction that the quality of our relationships – how we engage with and support one another – can have profound societal implications. How can people love their neighbors if they’re always pitted in battle against their spouse? How can people exercise sound reason at the voting polls if they can’t even create sane problem solving models with their partner? Our intimate relationships are the building blocks of our culture, and the way that we treat our lovers determines our capacity to develop a world that acknowledges human decency and dignity.

This week’s Sex by Numbers is inspired by the disenfranchised people in my home country who are taking to the streets. I am proud of their emboldened voices. I am proud of the DIY kitchens, free medical care, and solar-generated power systems that make up the encampments. I am proud that people of many stripes are banding together, collectivizing resources, and participating directly in the backbone of a vibrant democracy – dissent. In this vein, I will examine five ways in which we can also foster and nourish love relationships of which we can be equally proud, how we can create romantic partnerships that stimulate our highest selves and model the way we behave in society. A country can only be as strong as its lovers.

Ego Trip

Meaningful communication so often gets lost in the muck of shoddy translation. Our egos are useful survival tools, and peace-and-love calls to stamp them out are not only naive, but also foolish. At the same time, excess ego creates uptight stinginess and increased readiness to be on the defensive. If you operate under the expectation that people are out to hurt you, then there’s a high likelihood that whatever they say – no matter how ultimately trivial – can trigger your too easily hurt feelings.

Imperfectly United

Err on the side of forgiveness for your partner’s petty slights of tongue or sometimes errant behavior. Consider first whether or not their words and actions are, in the grand scheme of things, worth causing a fuss about. Chances are, if you can exercise ongoing compassion for your lover’s own insecurities and imperfections as a communicator than you can save yourselves needless bickering and strife. At the end of the day, you are both flawed beings ever striving to become better versions of you. Sometimes people mess up; get over it.

Do It Yourself

Perception and pro-action mean taking matters into your own hands. If you identify something that needs to be done, do it yourself to show your partner that you’re invested in your shared lives with one another. Sure, it’s always fun to attend to quotidian tasks as a team, but sometimes it’s simply more practical to be efficient and be done with it. Notice his bike tire has gone flat? Take five minutes and fill it with air so that you two are primed for two-wheeling adventure when the mood strikes. Notice that his dirty underwear is piling up in the hamper? Help a brother out and throw it in the wash. Attend to these things with good cheer and without calling attention to them; it serves as a model for the type of thoughtful treatment you hope he also extends to you and weaves into your everyday lives a culture of sharing and equal consideration of interest.

Peaceful Conflict Resolution

I grew up in a family where daily warfare was the norm – what could and should have been minor upsets were instead a source of explosive epithets, irrational and embittered judgement, and exaggeratedly wounded feelings. As an adult, I now have the choice not to inhabit a psychological battlefield in a domestic war without end, and it surprises me how simple it really is to defuse emotional landmines. I’ve had lots and lots of help along the way to achieve this place of relative peace and ease, but at its core is a staunch refusal to invite men into my life who don’t know how to take care of themselves and others. With this requisite check-mark in place, developing a useful, effective template with which to weather a few storms is fundamental.

First Fix You

Be honest about how you feel, but you don’t have to share every damn thought that flits through your head. Instead, focus on the development of your own internal compass so that you can manage your emotions instead of asking your partner to shoulder an undue load. It frees up mental space for both of you to be independent and self-sufficient, so that when you join forces to solve a conflict you can meet one another as free, actualized adults.

Sex By Numbers is an ongoing look into the emotional and sexual lives of the modern day woman. Follow Abigail Wick weekly here for insight and inspiration as she explores the “sex” of women and the terrain they must travel.

Article Images: david_shankbone, WarmSleepy Author Image: Alina Rudya

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