Texting during calc. Skipping a week of school to ski in Switzerland. Eating endless desserts at Payard. Why is it that when something is forbidden—by our teachers, by our parents, by ourselves—we just want to do it that much more? And what happens when formerly forbidden things get a stamp of approval? Either you become totally debaucherous—hello, gross twenty-first birthday parties where people act like they’ve never drunk before—or the activity totally loses its appeal. (Remember when you were six, and all you wanted to do was cross the street by yourself? Now, wouldn’t you just rather be driven everywhere via town car?)
The same applies to love. If you’re faced with the choice of going out with a guy whose mom is your mom’s best friend, or a smoldering stranger who’s barely allowed in your building because of his shaggy hair and bad boy rocker look, is it any question who you’d choose? They say the heart wants what it wants, but I’d like to add a layer to that: The heart also wants what it can’t have.
your mail
q: Chère Gossip Girl,
So, I am living in New York and going to school here and I met a darling American boy and had hoped that we’d spend this weekend of thanks together in his town house, but today he just informed me he is heading on an unexpected tropical island getaway and is not bringing me. What to do?
—tragique
a: Dear T,
Sadly, it seems you may have been this guy’s belle de jour. My advice: Take a tropical vacation of your own.
—GG
sightings
H and a bevy of St. Jude’s swim team boys, getting in a town car and heading toward Teterboro airport. Out of the pool and into the ocean? J and G, racing through the swimsuit section at Barneys—last-minute shopping? Hurry, or you’ll miss the plane!… A sad-looking J.P., all by himself watching a matinee of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg at the Paris Theater in Midtown. S and an elderly, pearl-wearing lady getting matching tattoos at some gross place on St. Mark’s. Talk about cross-generational bonding!
You know you love me.
gossip girl