Seksopolis: How Young Croats Terrorize Older Croats

THE PROBLEM WITH COUPLES

Perhaps I’m mistaken but it seems sex and fun in this country seem to be for only those in their twenties or younger. This summer, as always, local newspapers are full of articles about “sexy beaches,” “sexy islands,” “sexy destinations,” and even “bubble parties,” but none of the pictures published alongside those stories shows anybody over twenty.

If, perchance, you find yourself in a bar, club, or disco after midnight and your age happens to be around thirty, people are likely to look at you as if you were a shriveled old grandmother. If, however, you are over thirty-five, you’d better hurry home. The most extravagant events for those of middle age (that is, everybody between thirty and a hundred, or over) are openings of exhibitions, theater premieres, parties at people’s homes, children’s birthdays and some such. This is why it is so strange that my husband and I have been having a lively nightlife recently. It was mainly with guys who have left their other halves behind to take care of the children, those who came out looking for a fling, or those whose wives live in a different city (or country). Basically, lovely types. In the past, when we tried to be friends and go out with couples, we would regularly end up at home before midnight because couples are full of some obligations or others, which mean they can’t stay out and play. Or they have small children and have therefore barricaded them-selves in their flats and aren’t coming out, ever. In our ten years of marriage we never found a couple we could hang out with and sip endless cocktails with, but just as this started to bother us we discovered that those who are trying to sneak out of their marriages suit us much better than those who are trying to get the most out of life a deux. Harmonious couples, and then with children, make us shiver. We say that they remind us of our parents, and some even worse things. We can’t go out with them to clubs with “live” Brazilian dancers, who have become all the rage in the capital and on the coast.

I only found out what a “live” Brazilian was after a waiter in my favorite bar in Split came up to me and whispered that I had to go to a certain club because “they” were there. That night husband and I were in great company: one of our friends who broke up his relationship of six years a minute before walking up the aisle and his friend, who, though married, tries hard not to spend a single night at home. I...