Emily Ratajkowski is living her best life, judging by some photos and videos she shared on Instagram.
Currently in the midst of a European vacation, the model and actress displayed an array of photos, ranging from her bikini-clad self sipping a frosty beverage beneath an umbrella on a beach chair to a selfie while attired in a different string bikini — and even a shot in which she’s wearing nothing at all, strategically positioned behind a wine glass.
Also featured is some video in which she showed off her dance moves while cavorting on the back of a yacht while speeding through the water.
“julio/Ιούλιος/july,” she wrote in the caption.
An Essay About Dating
Of course, model and actress are just two hats she wears.
Another is single mother to son Bear, whom she shares with ex-husband Sebastian Bear-McClard.
In an essay she wrote for The Cut back in June, she elaborated on her journey as a single mom when she decided to begin dating after her divorce.
‘Compulsively Dating’
As she wrote, she found herself “compulsively dating in order to figure out what kind of woman I wanted to be.”
She writes about how she felt after her marriage broke up, particularly how she was perceived by others.
“I hated the condescending way people looked at me in the wake of my breakup. Their furrowed brows, the pity in their faces as they delivered an “I’m so sorry, Emily.” I couldn’t stand my pathetic reflection in their eyes. They saw me as someone who was unwanted, who had been left. A reject with the burden of a needy, hungry, two-foot-tall sidekick,” she wrote.
Just What She’d Tried to Avoid
Continuing her essay, she wrote about how she’d spent her adulthood trying to avoid becoming a single mother, and then found herself in that exact position.
“Even as a kid, I reasoned that of all the things I could grow up to be, it was crucial to avoid becoming a single mom. The term itself could be lodged as an insult,” she wrote.
“Having a child with the wrong man was the fastest way to ruin your life as a woman — it meant having no freedom, no choices, no emergency exit. All baggage and no security,” Ratajkowski continued.
A Dating Persona
It was for that reason that when she decided to re-enter the world of dating, she created an alter-ego for herself.
“The character I’d learned to embody after my divorce, in my period of compulsively dating, was a villain: Poison Ivy. Catwoman. Sexual but scary. And she drank gin martinis. Many, many gin martinis,” she wrote.
“She was not tragic. Nothing close to a victim. No one needed to feel sorry for her. In fact, they should all be jealous,” she added. “‘Divorced single mom’? What about, instead, ‘a woman who needs nothing from men’? I already had the kid and the motherhood experience so many of my friends secretly coveted while pretending to date casually. I had no illusions about the romance of marriage or a shared life together. I’d learned the hard way that being alone was better than most partnerships. I’d seen too much, discovered what many women do only when they get divorced in their mid-40s. I’d lived through the failure of a unit, yet I was barely into my 30s. This was my villain origin story.”
A Cavalcade of Bad Dates
She went on to describe some of the men she wound up dating, including “Elder Millennial,” along with “Vegan Graffiti Artist with impeccable posture … Spanish Gen-Zer who couldn’t stop sending me nudes, heavily self-medicated Son of a Billionaire with questionable politics, several Italians, and, of course, another DJ.”
Ultimately, Ratajkowski did not find her perfect match — although she did receive an education.
