Before Mercedes and I started dating, she was with another girl, Marie. Mercedes and I were getting to that level of friendship where we told each other everything, which meant that I heard all about her makeout sessions, backseat romps, and charming conversations with this other girl. Since I was developing a crush on Mercedes, I couldn’t help but to get a little jealous.

After Mercedes and I started dating, she would still text and hang out with Marie, and they even went on vacation together for a week (Mercedes said it had been planned for a year, and it couldn’t be cancelled). Again, jealousy reared its ugly head. 

Any time Mercedes associated with Marie, I would become the green-eyed monster. (This may have something to do with the fact that Marie was the first girl Mercedes dated, and I felt like she had somehow secured a permanent place in Mercedes’ heart.) Because our relationship was really fresh, I kept my feelings a secret. I didn’t want to be that girlfriend who was super insecure and jealous.

My jealousy and negative emotions reached a boiling point (and, I think, rightfully so) when Mercedes told me that Marie had sprung a kiss on her while they were at a tanning salon. (Mercedes claimed that the kiss was a complete surprise, and said that she didn’t kiss her back.) All at once, I word vomited my feelings, and told Mercedes exactly how I felt about her friendship/relationship with her ex. After the kiss, and after hearing how I felt, Mercedes started distancing herself from Marie.

Here’s the other side of the coin. My mom has been dating her boyfriend, Tim, for a while now, and things seem to be going pretty well. They get along great, they have a lot of fun together, and Tim never gets jealous or feels insecure. That lack of jealousy/insecurity is a good thing, right? Well, not according to my mom.  Continue reading →

Well, let me first say that I absolutely love this boy to death. We were only together for like a month but we were with each other every day and it was perfect. It wasn't even that long of a time yet I fell so hard, so fast. Everything was just perfect. Well, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, he just dumped me and told me that he wasn't ready because he's really scared. He's scared because he was hurt so much in the past and the girl he was with just left him out of nowhere so... I let things go.

Then a month later, he tells me that he's sorry and wants to try again, so we do. However, this time it's different; he doesn't talk to me for days and he barley sees me. I asked him what was going on and why he barley talked to me and he tells me that "he just doesn't know what he wants, and that I should move on." I told him that I didn't want to because I loved him and I remained for like two months, but then I realized that I wasn't getting what I wanted and it made me more upset to stay. We just stopped talking again.

Then, a couple of weeks later, I messaged him to say, "I'm going to fight for you, because you're who I want to be with," and he messages me back and says, "I want to try again but, I just feel like I'm going to hurt you." Of course I don't listen.

This time we see each other and It is just magical. I even got my ass grounded because I didn't want to come home. Following that, I don't hear from him for a couple of days so he texts me and says, "What's going on? Why haven't you texted me?" and I say, "I was waiting on you to do it." He replies, "You're just playing games," and I say, "No, but you should be putting in the effort, not me." He just kept asking me why I wanted to be with him. Continue reading →

The title of this post is the tagline for the dating site Ashley Madison. Ashley Madison is like any other dating site: you create a witty profile, put up an alluring picture, and send flirtatious messages to other members. However, Ashley Madison differs from the other sites in one big way – it’s for people who are already in relationships, and want to cheat on their partners. 

The front page of the site features an anonymous woman, her left index finger posed in front of her pouted lips to make a “shh” gesture. Her ring finger bears a gold wedding band. Below, the website boasts, “Ashley Madison is the world’s leading married dating service for discreet encounters.” The site also claims to have over 20,715,000 members. Now that’s a lot of infidelity.

To register, you first choose your gender and relationship status. Attached male seeking females? Single female seeking males? Male seeking males? (For the lesbian/gay statuses, it doesn’t ask if you are attached or single.) Later, you provide your “limits,” and must select between the following: something short term, something long term, cyber affair/erotic chat, whatever excites me, anything goes, or undecided. The site also asks for your height, weight, body type, and ethnicity. Apparently the site's users are as shallow as they are unfaithful.

I also checked out the FAQ section of the site. When asked if Ashley Madison encourages infidelity, it said: Continue reading →

I was reading a piece Samantha Daniels wrote for HuffPost about the 10 types of women that men DON'T want to marry the other day. I would consider myself a fairly introspective person so I was going through and seeing if any of the descriptions applied to me. Here I've listed a couple of examples of the undesirable types that men will not marry (according to Daniels):

Miss "Bossy Pants": This woman usually can't help herself; she has bossy in her DNA. When a man first meets her, he might think this character trait is cute, for awhile. However, once he starts to feel like he is in grammar school being told what to do by his second grade teacher, he will give this woman her walking papers.
Miss "I Live For You And I Have Nothing Else Going On": This woman is very difficult for a man to date, let alone marry. At first, he is flattered that she is so into him, but very quickly, he feels overwhelmed and suffocated by her. As a woman, you must have something going on in your own life so that you are not just waiting by the door for him to come home.

Miss "I Have Daddy Issues": This woman usually dates older men and deep down is looking for a father figure, not a boyfriend or husband. Initially, her guy might like how she looks to him for approval and the answer to all of her questions, but soon, he realizes that he wants to have sex with a real woman, not someone who is stuck in her teen years trying to get Daddy to notice her.

These three examples stuck out to me personally because I think components of them apply to me in one way or another. In terms of bossy, I wouldn't consider myself bossy, but I do think I am an extroverted person who knows exactly what she likes, knows how to get things done, and is very decisive. I have a fairly dominant personality at times that I'm sure can come off as bossy at times, of course I don't mean it to! Continue reading →

My boyfriend is in his mid twenties, and we have been together for two years. One problem we have is his obsession with pictures of other girls and his public display of gawking at them. In his phone alone there's about one picture of me to every seven to eight pictures of other half naked to naked girls. These are pictures off Google and other websites so it is no one we know personally. Also on his Instagram, he is following mostly girls—mostly naked in sexual positions. Again, they are models like suicide girls which is a big one he follows.

The display screen of your followers is eight pictures, usually all eight pictures are just of these half naked girls. A lot of our friends have pointed it out to me how much he likes and follows these girls. When I talk to him about how uncomfortable it makes me feel, he says I am too sensitive. Continue reading →

University of Connecticut has recently put it's foot down when it comes to matters of teacher student relations that extend anywhere past the classroom and potentially into the bedroom. Now I remember reading some of your comments on my last piece about some of you becoming involved with your TA's or professors, no judgement, of course. Under this new jurisdiction, if you went to UConn, some of you could've been facing disciplinary action!

The university commented on the matter, "Any amorous, intimate, or sexual contact is covered under this policy, regardless of duration and regardless of how traditionally 'romantic' (or not) or long term (or not) the encounter may be... One-time encounters are included. The intent of the Policy is to capture all such encounters or propositions for such encounters, not just long-term, established relationships." The new rules apparently were brought about because of an investigation into the sexual misconduct of one of UConn's music professors.  Continue reading →

It's a little after nine o'clock on the night of my fourteen-month anniversary, I am sitting alone in the living room. I made dinner, got out the china and the candles, put on a dress, did my hair and makeup. After dinner he came in the living room, turned on the football game and promptly proceeded to fall asleep. He went into the bedroom and is now passed out. I know he works hard, but is it too much to ask or a little romance on our anniversary?

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With the fall semester less than a week away, I’m looking forward to seeing friends, and I’m wondering if I will cross paths with any exes. (I don’t think any of them go to my university, but I don’t know for sure.) In high school, I didn’t need to wonder. I knew I would be walking by, sitting next to, or working with guys that I had dated, and I was never quite sure how to best handle these inevitable ex encounters. Continue reading →

"I thought my love for Andrew was my belief system. Now I needed to find a new religion... Love had taken us halfway around the world and back. Or maybe it was only the idea of love. But it left us quietly in the arrival terminal of the San Francisco airport. And how could love do that after all those nights arranging the mosquito netting carefully over each other’s heads?" -- A Pact to Make the Heart Grow Fonder?

2 people, madly in love, decide to do an experiment. A year without sex. A pact to abstain from sex with each other, with anyone. After those 365 sexless days and nights, they would take a trip out of the country, to Southeast Asia, and have sex for the first time in a year. It's unclear what the two thought would be accomplished from this experiment. Maybe they wanted to see what role sex played in their relationship, maybe they wanted to see how long they could abstain, I'm not sure, but what resulted is a heartbreaking account of love, distance, and loss.  Continue reading →

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Before I tell you why I am out 200 bucks because of a broken friendship, let me tell you the background story.

I met this girl through my brother. They dated for six months, and the relationship didn't work, however, we kept on being friends. Hell, even became best friends! We went clubbing and hung out all the time when we weren't at work. She even called me her "little sister"... She’s an only child and I never had a sister either—only brothers.

During that time we hung out, she met my male best friend. We have been super close since the age of 13, though never anything romantic. We were a trio of fun! However... things started to become a little sour when they wouldn't invite me to their outings.

Continue reading →