Yea, I am glad to see I’m not the only person here who finds this discussion a bit Eurocentric. 

Grills are still a thing in the former Soviet republics. They emerged from necessity and not so much fashion though IIRC.

Be careful where you emigrate, there are even nosier and more meddlesome cultures out there in the world. 

starred for “mezunga” I have also seen it spelled “muzungu” 

Greasy pehlivan wrestlers especially apt here.

Nope, you can still tell there’s probably a woman under there somewhere. Va-va-voom.

I am a bit surprised by the either/or of much of this comment section. I was (and still am) the sort of weirdo black person who likes what she likes for many different reasons. “Don’t Limit Yourself!” was my battle cry from high school on up when these kinds of debates, questioning racial identity based on preferences…

Yep, I felt a bit weird taking guitar lessons in high school until I found Jimi. You don’t always need permission, but precedent makes an awkward black nerd feel a bit less so. Same with being the only black kid in my Russian classes — so the language of Pushkin is not such a ‘white’ thing after all? Gives you a…

This — often the more you explore “white” culture, the more black you find in it.

Ska is originally Jamaican. Bob Marley was in a ska band before reggae developed IIRC.

YMMV but I find that the local open-mike scene in my city is dominated by “nice-guy” standup comics spewing TMI and self-loathing masquerading as humor. There are also plenty of “poets” reading their bitter screeds about the girls who friendzoned them. Some of them are such cliches that they even wear fedoras. I had…

And you can read your fortune from the dregs after you’ve finished it.

“Polyethylene” is the dealbreaker word.

Yeah, in my area if I am having a reasonably intelligent repartee with some guy on OKStupid, his idea of “the next level” is inevitably to offer me a WhatsApp number. I can see he just wants to continue the penpal thing indefinitely at this point, and I am perhaps unrealistically seeking something literally tangible,…

Why should he? His issues are making him money, unfortunately.

This also explains why they follow total strangers in the street trying to get some play.

I went back and looked because I was also shocked, but that was more like the writer’s interpretation of this guy’s actions. Which seems pretty accurate, unfortunately.

Sorry to hear about your trouble. Also offering moral support and wishing you well.

My all-time favorite birthday song, popularized by a crocodile in a Soviet animated kids’ show:

Not to forget unsolicited opinions from cats.