A friend of mine went on a date with a former work colleague this week. She was excited to finally explore her crush. The evening was enhanced by some specialty cocktails (the guy is typical Brooklyn and owns a bitters company). It started off well and ended with him insisting that she take one of his shirts to wear to work the next morning.

Unfortunately, he said to her regarding his shirt, “Keep it.” But it was not like “Keep this shirt as a memento of our first night of intimacy together.” It was more “Keep it so that we don’t ever have to see each other again, even if it’s just to return this ugly shirt that I’ve been trying to get rid of anyway.”

Do some men have a special closet filled with ugly shirts they no longer want and are hoping to unload on innocent one-night stands? My friend thinks that he doesn’t want to sleep with her again because she’s sexually intimidating to men in their twenties. I think there is a good word for these ugly-shirt-closet guys and that word is wanker.

- Haley Hogan

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There’s a hotel in Manhattan where all the wankers can take their mistresses, or prostitutes. Surprisingly, it’s called Le Parker Meridien. How luxurious! And you can rent rooms by the hour. How convenient! And it only costs $150 per hour. How affordable!

There’s even an upgrade option for $250. It includes champagne, strawberries, and an adult film, to get you and your lover/sex slave in the mood. Talk about gauche. I guess the economy has forced us all to limit our spending. The Parker Meridien’s hourly room rate should be called “The recession special.”

- Haley Hogan

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Considering its NC-17 rating, Blue Valentine was not as chock full of titillating sex scenes as I had expected. The few moments of lust fail to compensate for the film’s heart-wrenching story. Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling are flawless as two lost souls who fall deeply in love, get married, raise a child, and over time fall into a dysfunctional hellhole of a relationship.

Gosling is hopelessly adorable as Dean, a high school dropout who, in spite of his many talents, wants nothing more from life than to make do as a mover and meet the girl of his dreams. Williams plays the delicate and beautiful Cindy, Dean’s love at first sight, who is a talented but insecure pre-med student. Unfortunately, Cindy’s wanker of an ex-boyfriend knocked her up just before she started dating Dean the dream boy. In a painfully realistic abortion scene, Cindy bails at the last minute and runs out of the clinic and into Dean’s arms.

If you’re into emotional roller coasters, bittersweet love stories, and the idea of Ryan Gosling naked and sexy at one moment and crying hysterically at the next, then Blue Valentine is a must-see.

- Lizzie Crocker

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I don’t know about you, but New Year’s Eve usually makes me really depressed. That is, unless you’re madly in love with the man/woman of your dreams and that person is the one kissing you at midnight.

In 2011 I hope to:

1. Get a prestigious job.

2. Get my novel published, or at least get a literary agent.

3. Get hired as a bartender, since neither 1 nor 2 will happen.

4. Avoid all creepers, wankers, and other degenerate characters — unless they have something to offer me that is relevant to any of the above three.

5. Get everyone to start reading and cooking from my sister’s brilliant new food blog.

6. Stalk the following celebrities (all pimps in their own ways): Hugh Hefner (he only has a short time left! the clock is ticking!), Kristen Stewart (she is so hot right now), Jack Nicholson (not sure why that hasn’t happened yet), Blake Lively (just cause…).

7. Finally discover a legitimately good reason for having a blog.

- Haley Hogan [Follow me on Twitter & read my other blog about WASP culture]

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The Prime Minister of Italy, Silvio Berlusconi, made quite the bold/gauche statement this week: “It’s better to be passionate about beautiful girls than gay.” He was defending himself for having had an affair with a 17-year-old erotic dancer. Silvio is 74 years old, and I guess he likes them perky.

The dancer (“Ruby”) claimed that things with Silvio were strictly platonic (he just gave her a lot of jewelry and a sports car because he admired her thighs). Silvio even bailed her out of jail. Apparently Ruby has a bit of a shoplifting problem.

The Catholic Church is less than thrilled about these developments, and the gays aren’t too pumped about Silvio’s loaded comment — it’s always incredible to discover that most positions of power are filled by absolute wankers. Silvio is politically incorrect on so many fronts that it’s almost funny.

- Haley Hogan

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My sister entered into a bicoastal relationship, and as soon as there were 3,000 miles between them, her boyfriend became a wack job. He told her she shouldn’t come to visit on Halloween weekend, because he would be busy with grad school and things (“things” being a dress-up party where he paraded as a “man riding an ostrich”). Need I say more?

Apparently the stress of the ostrich/man costume was too much for him to handle, especially with the added anxiety of a girlfriend looming over his night of festivities and disguise. So he dumped her, freeing himself from any heterosexual delusions that previously clouded his identity. Now he is the gay tap-dancing “man dressed as a man riding an ostrich” galloping off into the L.A sunset. He is a classic mimbo, and since he dumped her via Skype while lounging in his bed drawing sketches of his ostrich costume, he is also a bit of a wanker.

But next time she sees a man dressed as a man riding an ostrich, she’ll think twice. And probably still date him for a while, but that’s life.

- Haley Hogan

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So now that I have returned to Paris, after four months of being back in the United States, I am appreciating all that the French have to offer. Except for one thing — their obsession with critiquing you on your appearance. It’s a severely gauche cultural trait that they think is totally normal and acceptable.

Yes, along with their insistence that smoking is healthy and critical to being cool, the French love to tell their friends, family, and vague acquaintances, if they have gained weight, lost weight, gotten “fat,” gotten ugly, or whatever.

So when I arrived in Paris I saw my ex-boyfriend for a coffee, and he told me (in French — I have translated the evil phrase for your convenience), “Your thighs have gotten bigger.” Then there was a long awkward silence, and he continued, “You’ve been doing sports. I notice everything about you!” He felt so satisfied with himself–like he had discovered a new kind of cheese. But seriously, where does an ex-boyfriend get off telling you that anything has gotten bigger on your body? He is a wanker, and I am leaving it at that. I am not going to develop a complex about my body just because some crazy Parisian who smokes a pack a day thinks that from some bizarre angle my thighs have gotten “big and athletic.”

Yes, I admit that I have been doing more squats, yoga, and exercise videos since I returned to the US, but why should I feel attacked by this puny, effeminate little French dude? I promise you that I don’t feel attacked — I only feel pissed off at the French, as usual.

- Haley Hogan

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A bunch of Yale guys were pledging a fraternity this week. In the tradition of misogynistic patriarchal institutions, the fraternity wanted its pledges to walk around campus chanting the following words related to rape: “no means yes,” “yes means anal,” and “I fuck dead women.” There was also a whole lot of pro-America hoopla that only added to the sinister patriarchal effect of the horrifying display. Check out the video footage here.

I only hope that the members of Delta Kappa Epsilon who orchestrated this have as low IQs and GPAs as George Bush had when he was pledged into DKE during his Yale years. If these young men were anything but stoned and drunk during this morbid hate ritual, then they should be blacklisted for life. And if they were drunk, then they should be publicly humiliated for life. And if they are secretly performance artists doing a counter-intuitive protest, then they should come out quickly to reveal their secret message against rape culture.

- Haley Hogan

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In college, it’s not unheard of for athletic teams, fraternities, and groups of friends to share stories about drunken hook-ups, divulging whatever details they can remember, comparing notes, and laughing (somewhat sadistically) over particularly absurd or lewd encounters. A recent graduate from Duke University has taken this type of over-sharing to the next level with an explicit Power Point “Fuck List” of the guys she slept with throughout her academic career. What was initially sent in an email to close friends is now viral across the internet. In a mock-thesis format, she evaluates her thirteen subjects based on criteria such as phallic length and girth, physical attractiveness, athletic ability, and talent in the sack.

I saw the list before photographs and full names of the subjects were blurred, but even then, there wasn’t much distinguishing one douchy Lacrosse player from the next. The girl responsible may have a sense of humor, but otherwise she isn’t much less farcical than the star Laxer who likes to get blackout drunk and degrade women. This hasn’t stopped HarperCollins editors from reaching out to the author with book deals and applauding her “self-empowerment.” Those of you who have always wanted to be a published author, take note.

- Lizzie Crocker

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I am usually very good at spotting wankers, but I recently had an encounter with a total wanker disguised as a 100% mimbo-prince composite. I thought he would be the type to write me love letters and take me to picnics in the park, romantic trips to the zoo, etc.

But quite to the contrary — he led me on, made me believe he was in love with me, and then suddenly told me, “business school is way too much work for me to spare so much as 60 minutes to meet you for a drink.” Ever since I have been trying to figure out what is really going through his head. Is he seeing someone else? Is he ADHD and incapable of multi-tasking? Is he gay? Is he one of those sick guys that becomes uninterested in a girl the second she is available to him? Is he afraid that I will write about our sex life on my blog?

Answer: most likely all of the above. I have been reading American Psycho, which has been helping me to get over him. Imagining that all men are like Patrick Bateman helps motivate me toward celibacy.

- Haley Hogan

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