Zoom is cute sometimes?

It's today. It's a newsletter. It's today's newsletter. The week before last, I "Zoom-bombed" a friend's birthday party with a Cameo video from Heidi on Drag Race. That this statement would have made little to no sense to me a year ago brings me a kind of bewildered joy. The following Wednesday, I hosted my mom's 70th birthday, again, on Zoom, my entire living family tree arranged in a grid on the screen, cocktails in hand. It was surreal, and somehow also felt totally normal. In fact, as someone who feels like I've never done quite enough for my mom on her birthday, it felt almost better than normal. I could talk all day about how digital socialization is draining us, tricking so many people, myself included, into feel guilty and confused for not being satisfied by interacting with people who normally add so much to our lives. But both of the events I mentioned above left me feeling fulfilled. I'm not totally sure why, but I know it had something to do with the people in attendance meeting the occasions with their full energy and attention, thereby meeting the loneliness of this moment with equal and opposite warmth. Leandra dug into the topic of socializing in quarantine this week, and she identified a similar need to harness a sense of intentionality, not just in making plans, but in being present for them. We published a few other stories that tackle some of the slighter tweaks we're making to life right now: Harling wrote about a beauty product that was pitched to her as the key to making your skin look flawless on Zoom, I wrote about going nuts in the kitchen with an affordable ingredient that you can dress up any which way, and 160 people told us about what it's like to be swiping vigorously on the apps right now. Those stories and more are ripe for the clicking below. Oh, and if you get a chance, please do let me know what you'd like to read about this month. —Mallory I Suck at Socializing from Quarantine: A Plea to Change I Heard About It on Thoughtline: A Serum That Makes Your Skin Look… Perfect It's Time to Get Way Too Into Baked Potatoes 160 People on Exactly How to Date Online Right Now I Can't Wait to Have Side Conversations Again 16 Random Things From My Early 20s That I'm Unexpectedly Missing Lately You are receiving this email because you signed up to receive newsletters from ManRepeller.com Man Repeller editors endorse products we genuinely love. If you end up buying something through our links, we may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more here. Update Profile | Unsubscribe | Forward Man Repeller LLC 632 Broadway #602 New York, NY 10012 Add us to your address book