jessica mindrum

Concert tickets should not be priced more than $450-$500. Idc.

Gen Z is doing a Colonial Williamsburg-level recreation of Obama-era twee Millennial culture in Chicago’s Blue Line neighborhoods.

moment in your twenties when you look around a room full of people who used to kiss like they were trying to crawl inside each other’s lungs, and suddenly all of them are talking about rent, dog food, joint Costco memberships… and you realize the make-outs died somewhere between “we’re official” and “whose turn is it to buy detergent.” Nobody warns you how quietly kissing becomes… logistical. Early on it’s embarrassing how much you want each other. Backseat heat, hallway pin-ups, kitchen counters, stupid giggles, smudged lip balm. You kiss because you can’t not. Because the sight of their mouth does something stupid to your spine. Because it feels like free oxygen. Then time passes. And somehow the same mouth you once wanted to bite becomes the mouth that asks “did you switch the laundry” or “should we defrost the chicken.” You kiss goodnight like clocking out. You kiss hello like a receipt. You kiss on holidays for photos. Slow death by routine. Not on purpose. Not because the love is gone. Because life and exhaustion and familiarity sneak in like mold in the corners and no one notices until it’s everywhere. People in long relationships do kiss. Just… not the way you think. Not the pressed-against-a-wall, hands-in-hair, “if the world ends in ten minutes at least we died doing this” kind of kissing. More like “I love you but I am tired” pecks. More like “you’re here and I’m grateful” forehead touches. More like “we’re a team even when we’re barely standing up” kind of leaning. your friends won’t say out loud: make-outs don’t die naturally. They die when two people stop choosing them. Every couple hits that fork. Not the dramatic one. The boring one. The night where you’re both on the couch, half scrolling, half melting, and one of you thinks “I could kiss them right now” but doesn’t, because you smell like the day, because you’re bloated from dinner, because you don’t feel sexy, because it feels silly to suddenly act like teenagers. So you don’t. And the moment passes. And those moments keep passing. And after a while you both pretend the spark is a myth adults grow out of. the couples who still make out? They’re not magic. They’re just bold in stupid small ways. The guy who suddenly grabs his girl in the kitchen even though he has dish soap on his hands. The girl who climbs into his lap on a Tuesday night for no reason except her body told her to. The couple who decides embarrassment is a trash emotion and kisses like idiots even if the dog stares. The ones who remember that kissing is not foreplay. Kissing is connection. Kissing is medicine. Kissing is “we are still alive together.” Most couples stop not because passion dies but because they become shy with the person who knows them best. Ask anyone who’s been in love for real: the best make-outs happen after the storms. After the fights. After the scary nights. After the moment where one of you cries into the other’s shirt. That’s when kissing feels like returning to the body you trust. is it true? Do couples barely make out? For a lot of them, yes. For a lot of them, no. It depends on whether they let comfort turn into emotional hibernation. real question underneath yours is different: “Does long-term love automatically dull the hunger?” the honest answer is this: Hunger changes, but it doesn’t disappear. It gets quieter until someone wakes it. If you ever end up with someone who still pushes you against the bathroom counter after three years, or kisses you at the fridge, or grabs your face at 07:13 before coffee because they missed you in their sleep… hold that. Not luck. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | That’s two people refusing to retire from desire.