Алиса Пермякова

Larisa knew how to make an impression. Calm and level-headed, very intelligent but not in the least vain about it, an excellent listener with a superb feel for the person in front of her. And a very fine feel for style, too. She was a pleasure to talk to, and she answered the test questions honestly and with humour, sometimes drifting aloud into dreams and fantasies, sometimes, on the contrary, pinning down a situation in life with great precision. Interviews like that are the least like work of anything; they are more of a pleasant conversation with a fascinating person.

Sometimes, matching people with their ideal partners, you catch yourself wondering what exactly is so ideal about it. There are features of such relationships you would not wish on your worst enemy. And yet the two people involved are happy and keep playing their game with relish, because it answers everything they are asking for. Couples like this are far less rare than they seem; more than that, they walk into our favourite films almost as archetypes and give them a flavour of their own. You meet them in your own stairwell, among your friends, on the underground or in a shopping centre.

All the most beautiful things in the world are born where opposites meet. The magical colours of sunrise and sunset are born where day meets night. Dreams are born where sleep meets waking. Desires are born on the edge between the permitted and the forbidden — and romance... Romance is born where emotion meets logic, reason meets feeling. It is both reason’s attempt to awaken feeling in itself and feeling’s striving to merge with reason in order to express the inexpressible. It is an idea that reigns

Ever since the world began there has been an unspoken argument among women: should you wait for your prince or hunt him down? Does the woman win the man, or the man the woman? Who makes the first move, the man or the woman. Openly or not. And what counts as a first move anyway: a hello, asking for a phone number, an invitation for coffee, or simply an interested look? How do you tell whether the other person wants a relationship at all? What kind of relationship do they want: a couple of pleasant evenings, or one for life? Do they want a relationship with you in particular? Millions of young people