If you're staying up late "poking" other guys on social-networking sites and trying to collect online friends, it's time to reevaluate.

-By Ian Daly
-Photograph by Pascal Aulagner

The skirmish erupted last March.

It all started when Jeb added two of his old buddies, who knew each other, to his Facebook profile. One of them added Jeb as a friend but didn't add the other person—even though both were on Jeb's friend list. What ensued was a bizarre, jealousy-fueled fracas. Angry posts were left. Hate e-mails were sent. But this drama didn't unfold in a high school. Jeb is a 35-year-old marketing director in New York City. And his friends?

"They're 35 and 36," Jeb says. "They both had great jobs, both had two children—but then all of that was completely forgotten and they were back to sophomore year. It was total regression."

What began as an inspired trend has officially been done to death. PLUS: Insistent that skinny ties still have life? Tell us why in our comment section below.

-By Katherine Wheelock
-Photograph courtesy of Landov.

It's not like it wasn't time for an adjustment. As recently as a couple of years ago, the standard American tie was essentially the wide, straight-cut variety that your algebra teacher wore. That model's slim-down began on the runways, driven by nostalgia for a time when men dressed better (for those not steeped in fashion-industry rhetoric, that time was the fifties). From there, it clambered to greater visibility on the necks of spindly rockers: Pete Doherty. Fabrizio Moretti. Ryan Adams. Then, like any epidemic, it spread—to Jude Law. Orlando Bloom. Zac Efron. Even Daniel Craig wasn't immune. At a recent movie premiere, Josh Hartnett had on a tie so borderline-bolo it looked like he was wearing an avant-garde collared shirt with a stripe down the front. The celebrities were followed by packs of knee-jerk adopters—mostly media types. And that's when things went very wrong.

Married to a Food Network superstar, John Cusimano is at the helm of an empire. PLUS: Discuss living under the shadow of a leading woman in our comment section below.

-By David Amsden
-Photograph by Norman Watson

In most respects, John Cusimano's life is perfectly normal. He is a dude from Long Island, 40 years old, with a law degree. He has shaggy, semi-feathered brown hair and a permanently benign expression—"he's the opposite of someone who stands out in a crowd. He spent his high-school days collecting classic-rock records, fiddling with guitars, dreaming of rock stardom, and playing in a little garage band. "We called ourselves the Cringe," he says, "because the music kind of made you cringe." They were terrible, yes, but after Cusimano got older and moved to Manhattan, and even later as he started working at various law firms and got engaged, he never stopped believing that maybe, just maybe, the day would come when he could take the Cringe to the next level. There's nothing odd about this. There are plenty of grown men in the world who cling to adolescent dreams, no matter how ridiculous or unattainable they may be.

You gush about how your buddy's funny, smart, and in really good shape. Congratulations, you have a man crush. PLUS: share your opinions on this topic below.

-By Simon Dumenico
-Photograph by Matthew Monteith

Valentine's Day, of all things, for Timothy Ferriss to realize he had a man crush. "I was setting up a lunch with a friend of mine," says the 30-year-old entrepreneur, who lives in San Jose, California, "and he suggested that Thursday. I agreed, but then he wrote back, 'Oh, I completely forgot it was Valentine's Day—I don't know if you have plans to keep.' So I wrote back, 'Uh, well, that's why I asked you. You're my Valentine's date!'" Ferriss was joking with his friend; both are straight. "But then," he says, "it turned into this ha-ha, like, shoulder-punching exchange, where we were very awkwardly expressing that, yeah, we're cool dudes, we like each other—let's hang out. It was like a requited man crush."

In response to the article in our January/February 2008 issue, which you can also find here, Fabio penned this note (click on the image to enlarge). Yes, the letterhead is embossed in gold with his signature.

How does the biggest teen-brother band in America since Hanson fend off the screaming girls? With purity rings, of course.

-By Jeff Gordinier
-Photograph by Jason Fulford

Discuss the pop stars' purity in the comment section.

Image credit: Photograph by Jason Fulford

On a quiet Friday morning in a dressing room at Madison Square Garden, the Jonas Brothers hold out their hands to show off their purity rings. Kevin, Joe, and Nick Jonas—the teen-pop trio who stand, at this very moment, on the brink of hugeness—wear the metal bands on their fingers to symbolize, as Joe puts it, "promises to ourselves and to God that we'll stay pure till marriage." Joe is 18. His ring is silver and adorned with a cross. "It actually ripped apart a little bit, just on the bottom, here, but I didn't want to get a new one, because this one means so much to me," he says. Nick, who is 15, says, "I got mine made at Disney World. It's pretty awesome." Kevin, at 20, is the oldest of the three, and while a punk-rock purity ring from Tiffany might represent the ultimate oxymoron, that's exactly what he's going for. His silver vow of abstinence is covered with studs. "It's pretty rock and roll," Kevin says. "It's getting banged up a little bit because of the guitar."

If your thirtieth birthday is in your rearview, lose the rebellious-teen uniform.

-By Katherine Wheelock

Still clinging to that earring and biker jacket? Tell us your thoughts on dressing younger than your years right here.

Image credit: infgoff.com

Call up a mental picture, for a moment, of Dina Lohan. In your mind's eye, the 45-year-old stage mom is probably wearing a low-cut top and a denim miniskirt. Maybe a pair of UGGs. In other words, an outfit a lot like one her 21-year-old daughter would wear. If you're reading this story and you're a 35-plus-year-old wearing a faux-vintage Urban Outfitters T-shirt and plaid Vans, you and Dina Lohan have a lot in common. Only, not having a honey-colored spray-on tan and highlights, you don't look as good.

An unusual wash is one thing. Denim embroidered like a throw pillow is another.

-By Katherine Wheelock

How do you take your denim? Defend bedazzled jeans—or stand up for basic blues—in the comment section below.

Image credit: NINA PROMMER-GLOBE PHOTOS

The torn knees, the bleached thighs, even the girlishly embroidered back pockets—those could have been predicted. But no one saw this coming: At the Country Music Awards a few years ago, the person in the most jaw-droppingly ornamented denim outfit—the country-western equivalent of Louis XIV's brocaded finest—wasn't Dolly Parton, it was Keith Urban. Granted, it was the Country Music Awards, where the red carpet isn't exactly a parade of Jil Sander minimalism, but Urban's clingy jeans, covered with doily-like embroidery, represented a tipping point.

He might star in the fantasies of middle-aged women, but Fabio is not to be messed with.

-By Karl Taro Greenfeld
-Photograph by Danielle Levitt

Tell us what you think about his resurrection from has-been hell in the comment section below.

Image credit: Photograph by Danielle Levitt

Fabio is standing next to a white-tiled island in his kitchen (contents of the Sub Zero refrigerator: supplements, water, and cranberry juice), checking his messages. He's wearing cowboy boots, jeans, and a leather shirt unbuttoned to his navel. The hair is stringier than it looks on the covers of romance novels. The eyebrows are bushy, the green-blue eyes sparkly, and the teeth inside the thin-lipped mouth capped [click here to see Fabio's response]. His chest is waxed and his pectoral muscles are bulging. He looks like a muscular, anthropomorphic ostrich wearing a Jennifer Aniston wig. The reality-show producers, Fabio laments, call regularly. Dancing With the Stars, The Surreal Life, MTV Cribs. He has turned them all down. Fabio knows full well that even in his prime, he was a joke—a hot-flush fantasy for romance-reading housewives who could pump a bodice ripper's sales into six figures. But the whole time, he says, he was thinking, Laugh, mock me, I don't care.

An invitation to a black-tie event isn't a license to bastardize the penguin suit.

-By Katherine Wheelock

Speak out in favor of the red-tie-with-tux look—or trash alternative black tie altogether—in the comment section below.

Image credit: WireImage.com

Black tie should be one of the sweetest phrases a man can hear. It means you won't have to think about anything when you get dressed that night. You won't have to fuss over whether you should go tie or no-tie, or bicker with anyone about whether you can get away with jeans. You'll wear a tuxedo—which, if you've graduated from a backpack to anything made out of leather, you probably own. But for some guys—most conspicuously, celebrities—the words black tie have become a cue to rouse their inner George Clinton.