Author: Ann Shoket

What It Really Feels Like To Be 25 in 2016

By Ann Shoket

Before you get swept up in the nostalgia of your own quarter-life crisis (crap bosses, three roommates, teeny tiny apartment, bottle service clubs, falafel at 4 a.m., hot dates), there are some women I want you to meet. These girls are living the 2016 version, where hookups are negotiated on Tinder, the boss is just as likely to be a girl who graduated a year ahead and likes using her newfound power to make you feel small and there’s not a single boozy brunch that isn’t documented on Instagram to elicit FOMO among all your followers. So while you’ve been there, there are a few things that 25(ish)-year-olds want to clear up for the older generation about what their lives are really like. It’s Sorta Lonely “On a recent, teary phone call with my mom about feeling stuck at work, I said, ‘I need to let myself cry about this, and when I’m done crying, I need someone to pick me up and help me figure out what to do. But I don’t know who …

Ann’s Note: Honor Your Inner 25-Year-Old

By Ann Shoket

Once a month for the last year, I’ve hosted a series of dinners at my place with young women in their 20s. Dinner is overselling it; it’s fancy frozen pizza and many bottles of rosé. We talk about the itchy emotions you feel around being young, hungry and ambitious — it’s a continuation of the conversation I had with young women for more than a decade as editor-in-chief of Seventeen and, before that, as one of the founding editors of CosmoGIRL. The young women are from different parts of the country and work in different industries (but they all have the most amazing hair I’ve ever seen — truth!). Some are paying the bills with crappy by-the-hour jobs, hoping that their side-hustle start-ups will pay off. Some are forging new territory in digital jobs that didn’t exist five years ago. Some have finally found the gig that allows them to marry their passion with getting paid, and now they want to know when the relationship part of their lives will get sorted. The details of …