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Zoya Patel

Zoya Patel

Zoya Patel is an author and freelance writer from Canberra.

Most people under 40 prefer a text message to a phone call.

I don’t make phone calls, even in an emergency. Why you should never ring someone under 40

When my phone rings, I feel irritation mingled with fear. In the 15 years my partner and I have been together, we have spoken on the phone a mere handful of times.

  • Zoya Patel

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Checking the social media accounts of former friends can send you spiralling.

I couldn’t stop stalking a former friend on social media. Then she caught me

I know I’m not alone in turning to social-media stalking as a way of processing negative emotions, especially in the context of friendship or romantic break-ups.

  • Zoya Patel
Despite being booked through to Brisbane, our suitcases turned up on the luggage carousel.

An experience at a Paris airport showed me what it really means to be Australian

A strong sense of patriotism doesn’t come naturally to many of us, but there’s nothing like being in a foreign country to realise how you have been shaped by your own.

  • Zoya Patel
Cabanas and beachgoers at Safety Beach on the Mornington Peninsula.

My family wound up in an altercation at the beach. I wondered if we were welcome

OK, yes, I am invading your precious beach town. But we summer tourists bring good things too.

  • Zoya Patel
Parents often give non-parents a rose-coloured account of the experience.

If you’re on the fence about having kids, don’t do it

My son is about to turn two, and while he has changed my life in incredibly positive ways, he has also irrevocably altered it in challenging ways too. Parents should be more honest about this.

  • Zoya Patel
Unlike most Australian babies, my son began childcare when he was just four months old.

Facing other parents’ judgment, I put my baby into childcare at four months

Where most parents take a year out with their babies, our son began childcare early because, as the old saying goes, it takes a village.

  • Zoya Patel
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Our society expects you to pay a privilege for being single.

Forget nepo babies, the new social privilege is being in a long-term relationship

When my friend was forced out of a cafe because she was on her own it became clear to me that we have gone too far in prioritising people in relationships.

  • Zoya Patel

According to these influencers, people like me are the problem with Australia

I told myself these attitudes were outdated and were bound to become less common with each new generation. These videos show that clearly, I was wrong.

  • Zoya Patel
Tourists jostle to photograph Leonardo da Vinci’s The Mona Lisa at the Louvre Museum in Paris, France, in August 2024.

Jostling happy snappers are ruining art galleries for everyone

Taking photos in galleries is not only disruptive to the people around you – it detracts from the whole point of galleries in the first place.

  • Zoya Patel
Zoya Patel went into labour on Christmas morning, six weeks early.

I was hot, bothered and pregnant. Then my waters broke on Christmas morning, six weeks early

A 3am trip to the hospital, riding in an ambulance and an unexpected arrival – it felt like the plot of a Christmas movie.

  • Zoya Patel