Adulthood Is Kinda Unsexy
★ The June Issue
WHAT DID THE INNER CHILD DO AFTER TRAUMA BAR CLOSED? CHANGED INTO MESH AND SPLIT A CAB TO SISY.
Do y’all still relate to Lorde?
I used to relate to Lorde in the early 2010s. When she was a teenager. When I was a teenager. This was the sweet spot.
The first line of the first song of her first album is: “Don’t you think it’s boring how people talk?” Ugh. Peak parasocial poetry. A special flavor of suspicion toward the world that only someone with a half-formed frontal lobe can deliver. The kind of eye-roll you can afford when you’re sixteen.
Three days ago, Lorde dropped a new record. D., a West Berliner whom I very much adore, and whose taste outpaces mine by several city blocks, informed me about it over his birthday brunch.
The last line of the last song of that last album is: “Am I ever gonna love again? Do you understand?” Truth be told, I don’t understand. Not exactly. The echo hasn’t changed, but the room it’s bouncing off has. D. said I should get into it. I tried. I couldn’t.
In my mind, Lorde shall remain an upset teenager. And I shall remain the person who was upset right alongside her. Past tense. For better or for worse, I have seen a diamond in the flesh by now, albeit on someone else’s hands. And I am (secretly) proud of my address. I don’t want to go back to the version of myself that wasn’t.
Overheard at the Highsnobiety archive sale:
“I hate dealing with billionaires. He never even said 'thank you.' He just said 'noted.’”
Adulting is a terrible word.
It sounds like a chore. Like flossing. Does anyone really floss? My friend A. (Kreuzberg) certainty does. C. (Mitte) does, too. While they’re at it, do they feel adult-like? Does anyone? The Hauptstadt doesn’t demand that of you, which is both its charm and its hazard.
At the last edition of Mitte Daily’s Pétanque Picnic, this one guy, J., described Berlin as a land of misfit toys. “As long as you don’t have kids who look at you like ‘Dada,’ this is where you go to raise your inner child,” he said. “And a lot of people here are doing just that. Myself included.”
J. meant it fondly. He wasn’t wrong. Berliners tolerate the unformed. They welcome the work-in-progress. You can live in the dopamine loop of Späti beers, algorithmic validations, and Friday-night plans that start with “what are we doing tn??” and end in your friend’s bathtub, eating hummus with your hands. You can do that here. You’re not weird if you do.
The ability to do anything, anytime, with no rules or obligations sounds utopic when you’re young. Or lost. When left unchecked, though, it curdles. Even if you’re drifting, eventually, the drift is bound to become directional.
Overheard on Linienstrasse:
“You know how people say, like, here’s the ‘before,’ and here’s the ‘after’? Well, she is kind of like the ‘during.’”
We often talk about adulthood like it’s a switch you flip. A paper you sign. In reality, there’s no paper, of course. And yet, you are quietly registering for something. You’re choosing.
Not choosing the capital-A Adult life with a lease and life insurance, but choosing the kind of grown-up you’re going to be. Through your daily debris. Your ghost habits that may not always photograph well. Your little rituals of identity maintenance.
You become the kind of adult who brings an ashtray to Gipsdreieck picnics although you quit smoking in 2019. Maybe the kind who swears by only one tattoo artist, and it’s a woman in a basement in Moabit who works exclusively with red ink. Perhaps the kind who shows up to Fête de la Musique in Margiela and then pretends not to care when someone steps on your foot. Or the kind who texts “Wanna lake?” at 9:42 a.m. and is on the Ring by 10:03.
None of these choices are the choice. But they add up. And that’s the unsexy miracle of it. You cancel plans enough times, and suddenly, you’re the kind of person who cancels plans. You buy a basil plant and keep it alive? Congratulations, that’s who you are now. Someone who waters things.
Overheard at the Schleudertraum laundromat:
“My favorite movies are coming-of-age. The ones about young, fragile fag gays who bike in the woods. That’s cinema.”
Children live in chaos. Adults, ideally, create from it.
Find the narrative arc. Rhythm. Form. Because without form, experience just spills. And after enough time in the spillage—loose ends, endless scrolls, unpunctuated situationships—you start to want a sentence with a period. A season with a plot.
Form doesn’t mean compromise. The act of growing up doesn’t mean becoming a landlord or buying oat milk in bulk. It’s opting in to a self you can live with. A self you can carry, on the daily. Even here. Especially here.
Sixteen-year-old Lorde got it right on that first record. Man is not condemned to be royal. But man is condemned to be free. Y’know?
★ TBD Excitement
Lovers by the Water (this year’s edition involves a boat ride—an absolute must). Rave The Planet, f.k.a. Loveparade. CSD. Open-air classical music at Gendarmenmarkt. Patti Smith Quartet at Zitadelle Spandau. Eating swan-shaped baked feta at Luna D’Oro’s new beer garden. Not going to the lakes.
★ IRL of the Month
Mitte’s gay basement miracle, Betty F***
Mulackstrasse 13, 10119 Berlin
Tucked under Mulackstrasse like a secret you’re lucky to be told, Betty F*** is one of the last surviving gay bars in Mitte. A basement in both literal and spiritual sense. Sweat, disco lights, and the exact right amount of eye contact.
There are song requests, but they’re written on napkins (I requested All the Things She Said once and it felt like group therapy). There’s flirting, but it might involve yelling. There’s no telling what night you’ll have, but you’ll have one.
If you're still reading, congrats—you might be the kind of adult who reads newsletters. Now send it to someone who still uses the word “adulting” unironically. They deserve better.