My friend Kurt has been dating his girlfriend, Jess, for several months. Though I’ve never met her, I often ask how the two are doing, and the answer is always some variation of “good” – well, until now. Yesterday, Kurt revealed that he has decided to break up with Jess, but not quite yet. He said he wants to wait until it’s a better time. 

When Kurt said this, I titled my head in confusion. “There’s never going to be a good time,” I said. The way I saw it, break ups just suck, regardless of the day of the week. Plus, by making the decision now but prolonging the action until later, he’s wasting his time and Jess’s.  

Kurt smiled (clearly not too affected by the whole thing) and said, “True, but some times are better than others. I mean, you wouldn’t want to break up with someone on their birthday or on an anniversary. That’s just cruel.” I guess he has a point, but at the same time, I wouldn’t want anyone to date me (or continue to date me) just to do me a favor.   Continue reading →

This post was submitted by Lori.

I realize that this site is for dating issues, but I'm starting to feel very emotionally drained by my guy friend—who I'm not even in a relationship with.

Note that I rarely text, call, etc. I am a bit of a pushover and only brushed this incident off as my personal fault. However, our friendship just has so many ups and downs. I do have to mention that I think this is just his personality. He's very affectionate and needy, but I'm so opposite of that. The constant needing my attention is really draining, and I feel bad for saying this... but I just don't find hanging out with him enjoyable anymore. It feels like an obligation at this point. He also has a very controlling personality and gets mad easily. I always feel like I'm walking on water around him....

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Next Wednesday, my fiancée and I will celebrate our five-year anniversary. In years past, before we had to support ourselves financially, we celebrated in big (read: expensive) ways. But this year, my fiancée says she doesn’t want to receive or do anything special. I can’t help but to wonder – is she really over anniversary gifts and celebrations, or is she just trying to throw me off?

I’ll briefly run through how we celebrated our other anniversaries. For our one year, Mercedes sent me on a scavenger hunt with a gift at each location, including a Sex and the City box set (you can judge me all you want) and an engraved bracelet with the date we got together. In return, I poured my creativity into a scrapbook that chronicled our relationship.

For year two, I took Mercedes to a nearby resort and spent way too much money on dinners that were way too small. (They were the best steaks we’ve ever had, though.) On our third year, Mercedes bought us tickets to a Penn State football game while I covered the hotel room, and on our fourth, we celebrated by traveling home and spending time with family and friends. Continue reading →

We had to plan. We had to talk about what would happen in these next couples of weeks, months, or maybe even years. We had to talk about living together, or not living together, jobs, our relationship, staying together or breaking up, everything! Those conversations aren't easy, but they are necessary. It's so imperative that you and your significant other are always on the same page, or as close to it as possible. It makes things so much easier!

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Ah, dating is simply not what it used to be – and that may not be a bad thing. Here are 10 cringe-worthy dating tips for women, circa 1938.

1. “Do your dressing in your boudoir to keep your allure.” Yeah, mystery is great! I mean, you wouldn’t want him to know how you put a shirt on, would you?

2. “Makeup in privacy, not where he sees you.” Maybe you were born with those unnaturally red lips. Make him wonder.

3. “Don’t sit in awkward positions… and if you must chew gum (not advised), do it silently, mouth closed.” Posture is everything, ladies. Leave the slouching and the gum to the girls who will be forever alone.

4. “Don’t talk while dancing, for when a man dances he wants to dance.” Talking is so 1880s.

5. “If you need a brassiere, wear one.” ‘Nuff said.  Continue reading →

Okay, so if I wasn't completely confused before, I wouldn't be THIS confused now...

I've known this guy for about three years now. I admit, I don't "know know" him. I know that he's funny, compassionate, and very outgoing. I caught him staring at me once, smiling like an utter idiot. Now, I would assume that he did that to be funny and get a reaction out of me... but I really don't know. This is high school we're talking about, and believe me, I haven't been "around the block" a lot. He's also a very "touchy feely" type of guy.

He can at times come off as a very loving person due to family background, but not frequently enough to make me certain. He would always find an excuse to touch me. This closeness included rubbing my back, to playing with my fingers... what does that mean?!

Now, being a very good friend to his little sister, I went to a semi-formal dance with her and another friend. He came with a date though, with whom I did notice he would stray away from a lot to talk to his other friends. So, I'm guessing that may mean he's not that interested? Anyway, he ignored me quite a bit; never staying around the same area I was in for longer than 5 minutes. Then, out of the blue, he came up to me as I was talking with a friend and asked, "So how are you doing?"

I was in a funky mood all throughout the night. I would get sad because I missed all of the people around me that I've known for so long and hardly ever see anymore, to feeling angry at the fact I had the impression that the only reason guys were asking me to dance was because I was being pitied. After watching him ask nearly all of the girls to dance but me, and myself being asked and having kindly rejected due to my mood, I finally agreed to dance with a guy who asked me to end the night on a sweet note. Continue reading →

I was going to take my sister's kids for a weekend to California! It would have been their first time and they so wanted to go. But with three kids under the age of 14 and me alone, it would be a difficult trip without another adult. To sum the story up, my mom was unable to go (my sister's preferred other adult chaperone) and my sister wouldn't go. She wouldn't go because her husband said no. He felt that she shouldn't go if he was unable to go.

But get this. When I first proposed this trip to my sister she was so happy I suggested it. I asked why she hadn't just taken them since she wanted to go to California for the longest time. She said it was because her husband thinks that she would be jealous the whole time. That she would catch him looking at women thus ruining the whole trip with their fighting.

When she told me this, I was amazed. I knew beforehand that she had major jealousy issues and that he... is just a mess (makes it so obvious he is undressing a woman with his eyes and always gets caught and denies it when she say's something). I knew they had jealousy problems but come on, this is about their kids! Can't two adults be... well, adults for a weekend long enough to let their kids have some happiness? I realized that they basically keep their family trips to secluded places like camping and perhaps this is why. Because they are afraid of jealousy happening. Continue reading →

Pickup lines: we’ve all heard them, and we’ve probably all used them (even if only in jest). Some are hilarious, most are hilariously bad, and a few might actually get a guy’s or girl’s attention. Here, I’ve compiled some funny, dirty, cute, and awful pickup lines, along with the best pickup line I’ve ever heard, all for your reading pleasure.

Funny(ish)
- Baby, are you a parking ticket? Because you’ve got “fine” written allll over you.
- How much does a polar bear weigh? (I don’t know, how much?) Enough to break the ice.
- Are you from Tennessee? Because you’re the only ten I see. 

Dirty
- I made sure I washed my face today, because I wanted to give you a clean place to sit.
- Do you have a mirror in your pants? Because I can TOTALLY see myself in them.
- Would you like to try an Australian kiss? It’s like a French kiss, but down under.  Continue reading →

I'm 21 and he's 23; we met in early May and had been together until yesterday. We had a lot of small fights, but would always find a way to get back together. The last fight was different, although we did fight about this same issue a few times. I brought up a problem about us not being sexually compatible in bed, because I always initiated sex and wanted sex more than he did, which made me question his attraction to me.

It happened again—where I felt bad that he wouldn't put out and he kept saying that "he just wanted to lay and relax with me." That escalated to a bigger argument this time. He repeatedly said that he "couldn't believe we were fighting and breaking up over sex—something so trivial in a relationship," and that "for what it's worth, he loves me more than just sex." He then stormed out of my apartment. I didn't want to break up with him, I wanted to talk and compromise. However, we kept fighting, so I let him go that night. That was Sunday.

That night I tried calling him and it turned into another fight—he hung up and said we'd talk again tomorrow because it wasn't going anywhere. Monday came around, I called him up having heard nothing from him at all throughout the day. He was cold and didn't want to talk at all. I came to find out that his grandpa died last night, so I gave him some space because our conversation was dead silence.

Last night was probably the worst night—it broke my heart to think about it again. I called him up, and he kept saying that "he can't handle this anymore." His grandpa died, his dad tried to kill himself over it, and his mom is back in the hospital again (I think she's terminally ill—in and out of the extensive care). He said that this relationship is weighing him down and if I keep pushing him, he will kill himself. Continue reading →

Here’s the scenario: You meet this person named Devin (hooray for unisex names!) and the two of you have an immediate connection. You “click” in a way that you never have with anyone else. You've gone on plenty of dates, and you both think it’s time to make things official. But then, Devin says he/she has something to tell you. You get nervous, and hope it’s nothing that will ruin your potential relationship. Devin takes a deep breath, looks you in the eye, and says, “I’m bisexual.” 

Just to note, though I’ll be using the term “bisexual” in this post, you could substitute it out for pansexual (or any other sexual identity in which a person is attracted to two or more genders) and the topic would basically be the same.

For some, this news might be a dealbreaker. Maybe you don’t agree with bisexuality, making a relationship with Devin a moral minefield. Maybe (and I’ve heard this reason cited a lot) you don’t deal with threats to your relationship very well, and you don’t think you could handle Devin being attracted to both men and women. For whatever reason (and I’m sure there are others), you decide to forego the relationship.

For others, Devin’s bisexuality would be a total non-issue. After all, Devin wants to be in a relationship with you – does it really matter who else Devin has the capacity to be attracted to? You choose to enter into a relationship, and that’s that.  Continue reading →