Advice Goddess Columns

Dark Clouds On The Verizon
What will happen if one of these calls goes to voicemail? Kim Jong Un will unleash an electromagnetic pulse bomb on the U.S., and the power grid will be fried for 40 years -- or the neighbor will have to call back to tell your girlfriend the ingenious thing she did to perk up her banana cake?

SWAT About A Friday Night?
Many men have had success getting the attention of a woman who works in a bank by coming in wearing pantyhose over their head and handing her a note...

When You Wish Upon A Sleazebucket
Determined as you were to keep believing you'd found your Mr. Husband, you cut up all the red flags and did a remarkable job repurposing them into throw pillows...

A Breath Of Fresh Stare
There are sometimes great barriers to two people coming together -- warring nations, conflicting religions, violent family feuds, and other students seated in nearby desks...

Will You Flash Mob Me?
A woman isn't going to say no to your marriage proposal because you didn't hire Beyonce to sing "Put A Ring On It" and spend a year training a humpback whale to swim by at exactly the right moment and shoot the ring out its blowhole...

Stammer Time
It's good to keep a woman guessing -- but not as to whether you want her to go out with you or give you the Heimlich maneuver...

Speed Mating
There are two surefire ways to see that a guy sticks around after sex on the first date: handcuffing him to the headboard or developing magical powers to control men and small appliances with your hair...

The Math To True Love
When you're looking into a woman's eyes and there's that awkward moment of silence, there are plenty of things you can say besides "I love you" -- like, "I was going to say something, but now I'm not" or "Have I told you I've started drinking the blood of freshly killed unicorns?"

Overthinking Of You
Can't you just let him get his information about you the old-fashioned way, by sneaking over with a tall ladder and peering through your blinds?

Ex-Rated Movie
Katharine Hepburn could have made a sex tape without anyone ever knowing, because after the 8 mm film got transferred to video, her image would have been hard to discern from that of Ernest Borgnine, Sasquatch, or Yogi Bear...

Jest Not That Into You
If a woman agrees to go out with you, it isn't so she can finally find out why the chicken crossed the road...

Madame Ovary
It's pretty hard to confuse a medical exam room with a singles bar -- unless the singles bars you've experienced have men leaning over and asking women, "So...when was your last period?" and "Do you leak urine?"

Bed, Bath, And Beyond Disappointing
Ideally, if you're surprised on Valentine's Day, it isn't because your boyfriend's given you that gift that says he cares enough to look under his mom's bathroom sink and see what's still in the package...

Gratitude Adjustment
Grunt, glare, and incinerate 55 giant slimy things from outer space. (How to get the girl when it isn't a chick flick)...

Hawaii Five-No
You don't mention anything about his being horrible to her or even just making her persistently unhappy, like by promising to have children with her and then insisting they have goldfish instead because they're cheaper...

Beta Path To Love
Any guy can learn Pickup Artist techniques. Any guy who is 6'2" and has a jawline like cut glass is more likely to have them pay off...

Indignation Wants To Be Free
"Social networking, at its worst, is like drunk dialing not only your rotten ex but everyone in his zip code..."

Unhappy As A Clam
You're at a party. You reach in your purse for your lipstick, and a tampon flies out and lands in the hummus -- upright, like a little plastic-wrapped gladiator spear. You can duck your embarrassment -- or you can own it...

When Horndog Met Sally
The guy's style of romancing is right out of "Sleeping Beauty": "Hi...oh, sorry...you sound tired...anyway, I was wondering, would it be okay if I stopped over and we had sex?"...

The Gift That Keeps On Giving You The Creeps
Nothing against white rabbits with pocket watches and hookah-smoking caterpillars, but what woman buys this for any man who does not moonlight as a gay British country decorator with a love of whimsy?...

Vroom With A View
An impulsive relationship is something to have with a pack of mini-cupcakes in the supermarket checkout line. If they aren't all they seemed to be, you'll probably complain a little -- that you wasted 79 cents, not the "best years of your life" and the last of your viable eggs.

Life In The Fastened-To-Her Lane
"Love is all you need," lied the Beatles...

Nobody To Codepend On
Marriage as a mental health cure? Um...some states require a blood test before you marry; none tests to make sure you aren't cuckoo for more than Cocoa Puffs...

Curb Feelings
...You'll look less like you're dying inside when the woman treats you like you just walked up and said, "Hi, my name is Rapist!"

Talk Blurty To Me
"I love you," said right away, suggests that you have great admiration for a woman's unique and special qualities, such as being female, human, and willing to return your calls. ..

Her Suction Cup Runneth Over
Texting your girlfriend a few extra "luv u babe"s or "thinkn of u"s during the workweek isn't the first step to carrying her everywhere with you in a giant BabyBjorn.

Not Just Another Pimply Face
In any relationship, there's an inevitable erosion in hot and steamy, but you're with the wrong woman if your sex face could easily be mistaken for your standing-over-a-septic-leak face...

Deck The Halls, Not The Guests
Just wondering: Is there any real worry that people at the Christmas party now suspect your wife has had sex after marriage?

New Kid On The Bloc
Paraphrasing Kant on how people shouldn't be treated as means to an end, "Don't be a user! That's, like, so bogue"...

Casing Amy
Wait. You're a heterosexual man who has the hots for hot women who get it on with other women? Weird.

His Back To The Wallet
Boyfriend of modest means dating a rich woman: It's a losing battle, giving jewelry to a woman who prompts thoughts like "Is that a diamond on your finger or have they discovered a new planet and given it to you to wear?"

Fifty Shades Of Gay
The next time a guy comes up and says, "Hi, I'm Jeremy. I'm your waiter," you could just grab your girlfriend's boob and say, "Hi, we're Samantha and Karen, and we're life partners."

Unlucky In Shove
In love, it's the little things that count, like keeping your boyfriend's food warm while he's in your closet talking to another woman...

Background Checks And Balances
Before you even sit down at the restaurant, there's a good chance your date's hacked into your Facebook page, dug up your parole officer's home phone number, Google-Earthed your house from space and then zoomed in to see how you look weeding in a bikini...

The Son Almost Never Rises
Of course it grates on you, providing free room and board to an adult man whose main source of income is birthday cards from grandma...

Foreplaying Hard To Get
First date sex doesn't just happen, like, one minute you're looking for a little dish for the olive pit from your appetizer, and the next, you're in the guy's bed staring at the water stain on his ceiling...

The Happiest Place On Girth
It's not like you spent the year locked in a room with Ben & Jerry and Colonel Sanders, yet here you are thinking people must look at your butt and wonder whether you beep when you back up.

Jenny From The Blocked
Like the 24-year-old part-time model you're competing with on the online dating site, you are female and have owned swimsuits...

Spawn Juan
Maybe they're hoping getting you to like kids'll be like getting a 6-year-old to eat his green beans: They'll just pour some ranch dressing on the kid and you'll suddenly find him appealing.

The Sorrow And The Pretty
You've gotta give a guy points for an original spin on a tired pickup line: "If I said you have a beautiful body, would you let me sob on your shoulder about my mean wife?"...

Breaking The Unsound Barrier
The self-removing problem girlfriend is the next best thing to a bag of trash that grows legs and walks itself out to the curb...

The Way Of The Nailgun
Wanting the man you love to be around to cook dinner with you isn't exactly a freakish sexual fetish...

Mao Tse-Tongue
Sure, it's got to be hard to watch her violate a tomato, but maybe the "right way" to dice one is the way that doesn't break you two up...

The Call Of Doodie
Shared sleeplessness after the baby comes: "Just because the booby with the drinks in it is on only one of you doesn't mean there can't be catering..."

Silent Knight
When your thought is "I think we should start seeing other people," it isn't supposed to mean making your girlfriend spend a week with your grandma and 62 of your closest relatives.

Four Wettings And A Funeral
Dr. Seuss is not a couples therapist. "Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You?" needs to be followed up, at least one night a week, by Mommy and Daddy making some sounds that don't come from the horsie, the rooster, or the hippo...

I Got Spew, Babe
What you're really arguing for is, "Why shouldn't I be able to throw all self-discipline out the window and have the man I want drop down my chimney like Santa?"

Schlong Story Short
As devastating as it seems that his penis refuses to stand up anymore, it's no reason to have a funeral for your entire sex life. (If your stove broke, would you stop eating?)

Splendor In The Grass Cuttings
It seems your cabana boy needs a sign-up sheet.

Steaks On A Plate
The question isn't whether opposites attract. The question is, Would they spend the entire evening fighting over whether one's chicken bone touched the other's frying pan?

Hell In A Hen Basket
From the way you describe the guy, it sounds like his testosterone level is somewhere between zero and "crying softly while hiding under the bed"...

Mean And Hungry
Sadly, shopping local often involves ducking the locals. (If only the salad bar came with a sleaze guard.)...

Scold Mountain
Obviously, a woman can have sex on the first date -- but because men tend to devalue women they don't have to chase, she's taking a risk unless all she wants is a little nail and bail...

Brawl In The Family
You counted on two people to be the mature adults in your life -- and then the "honey, do" list became the "honey, die" list...

The Tweakest Link
It must've been a kick to get it on with a real bad boy instead of the kind who pulls up on a Harley wearing a leather jacket he bought at the mall...

All Tied Up In Hots
Women think of themselves as sex objects. (Oh, did you think women wear plunging necklines and a little gold charm dangling in their cleavage to frighten away mosquitoes?)

Apocalypse Meow
Imagine if Hillary Clinton, as secretary of state, communicated like so many other women tend to. Forget the direct approach. She'd roll her eyes behind some prime minister's back, burn sage after he leaves, and make the Joint Chiefs hold hands and chant, "Shine white light on our borders and restore our protective womb of national security!"

Homo On The Range
Yes, people on dating sites misrepresent themselves. Sometimes, it's unclear whether they're even in the same species...

Alive And Welded
Your girlfriend makes intestinal parasites seem like bong-hitting slackers...

He Leicas The Last Lady
He married you, and probably not just because you were both in Vegas and he had a Groupon for the Elvis wedding chapel...

Catfight Club
Assuming you aren't members of a polygamous religious cult or regular guests at parties where everyone throws their keys into a big bowl, a relationship is generally understood to mean two people prioritizing each other over all others...

Two Shrieks To The Wind
You're into animal magnetism -- like the jackal on the downed cow...

Bride And Zoom
It's easy to find a lot in common with a guy when you're both living thousands of miles from home: "Wow -- you live in a mud hut?! I live in a mud hut! You have a hole for a toilet? I have a hole for a toilet!"

Gone With The Schwinn
You'll certainly get more dates than you do with your current strategy: "A beautiful woman is looking at me! Quick, unlock the bike and speed away!"

The Dark Mite
Unfortunately, on the alpha male scale, you're pretty much Hello Kitty...

Just Tasing
Women just love it when a man pulls the chair out from under them or leans over and says, "Shall I compare thee to a box of Summer's Eve?"

Life Is What You Fake Of It
Well, you do have a great way to get those pesky flesh-and-blood guys off the phone: "Gotta go. Just heard my boyfriend's unicorn pull up outside my apartment"...

Fools Rush Inn
A man can have a crazy thought fly into his head, like "We've emailed three times already. Let's spend 44 hours together in bed!" If he's in possession of the Adult Social Skills worksheet...

Attention Defici--Oooh, Shiny!
Having ADHD is like trying to think while being attacked by a flock of crows...

Love Me Tinder
As a parent, you're supposed to be in the business of buzz-kill, not only setting boundaries for your kids but modeling the mature, adult thing to do. For example: "Come on, kids -- I found this hot stranger we can live with!"...

Mommy Disappearest
"Honey, I know you wanted a car for your 17th birthday, but I thought I'd give you abandonment issues instead"...

Better Luck Nest Time
In her defense, she does have more contact with you than the guy whose stock photo came with the frame...

You Deplete Me
What do you say to a friend you're dumping, "We can be strangers who wordlessly pass each other on the sidewalk!"?

Bitter Homes And Gardens
Apparently, what you thought was her sex face is also her "Did I schedule that parent-teacher conference?" face...

Making Shove Last
Love might be the answer to some things, like who to get chocolate for on Valentine's Day, but it doesn't make you a great communicator...

Dew Drop Your Pants
He has to be reasonably hot, be reasonably hetero, and say things that make you feel really special, like "This seat taken?"...

Snail Male
When you need to break up with a woman, you'd think she'd at least have the decency to cheat on you, clean out your bank accounts, and hit kittens over the head with a two-by-four...

Mourning Breath
Your long-distance love's year-long no-show sounds perfectly reasonable -- if, for him, getting out of work early means digging a tunnel with a sharpened spoon so as to avoid the electrified razor wire and the armed guards....

Deflower Arrangement
"I've been saving myself for a virgin sacrifice on the edge of an active volcano..."

Captain Hookup
While you don't need a penis to bang out a memo that lights a fire under the sales staff, there's one pretty surefire way to have an emotionally easier time having casual sex, and that's by becoming a man...

I.C.U. Naked
What somebody seriously ill lacks is the stuff that makes life normal -- the relatively trivial things they did and talked about back when the only doctor they encountered daily was Dr Pepper...

Thrilla In Vanilla
We can't rejigger whom we lust after -- any more than we can convince ourselves that something that smells like ass really smells like lily of the valley...

Getting Into Your Genes
You were probably picturing yourself as more of a sex machine than a sperm dispenser...

Motherly Shove
Moms say the darndest things: "So, dear...how much do you owe in student loans and have you seen my son's winkie?"...

Look What The Catty Dragged In
Close friends tend to leave stuff lying around in each other's life -- but stuff leading to questions like "Hey, did you forget your phone on my coffee table?" not "Hey, did you leave your knife between my T4 and T5 vertebrae?"

We'll Always Have Parasites
Nothing says a man's open to a relationship like his ex-wife's 3-year-old box of Kotex...

Wedding Her Whistle
"I'm ready to be married. Oh, also, once a month, I'll try to rip out your internal organs with a shrimp fork. Any takers?"

Youth Is Fleeing
How uplifting, spending your weekends watching Generation Y getting hit on by Generation Why Are You At This Party?

Attila The Honey
Relationship privacy: After two years of having sex with a guy, you'd think you'd at least be allowed to have a spy drone follow him to the office...

It's Reigning Men
You actually have to go out and answer the question "Who am I?"; you can't just cheat off whomever you're sleeping with.

I Get A Kickball Out Of You
"Would you mind ducking your head so I can see if that woman across the room is hot?"

Last Tango In Suburban Living Room
How nice to have time to catch up with your friend -- to learn how her job's going, what's happening with her family, the kind of faces she makes while being dry-humped...

Mused And Abused
But, wait -- if you and your girlfriend have a fight and nobody comments on it on Facebook, how do you know your lives are worth living?

Meek Him Halfway
Playing dead is a successful strategy when you're being chased by certain types of bears. When you're hoping to be chased by a man, you need to go over and say hello...

Baby Makes Flee
You can get accidentally pregnant, but you can't accidentally adopt a child, as in, you're driving along one day, glance into the back seat and notice a 6-year-old Romanian orphan coloring on the headrest...

Cheatapalooza
You said "I do," not "I'd do a rock star first chance I get"...

Vulture Capital
Boundaries aren't such a bad thing; they keep the cows from roaming the freeways...

Life Is Methy
Random urine tests can say a lot about a person, like that she either got the dog to pee into a cup or could one day give birth to a fine litter of Labradoodles...

Inner Booty
Unfortunately, it takes outer beauty to draw a man close enough to find out how wonderful a woman is on the inside...which is why cosmetics companies make bajillions with stuff like L'Oreal Visible Radiance and not L'Oreal Sandwich-Making Kit To Feed The Homeless...

Romeo Must Dial
A person's nonverbal expressions can tell you many things -- whether they're tense, angry, socially awkward -- but probably not everything you need to know: "Uh-oh...that's the posture of a man with human remains in his freezer."

Carpy Diem
Of course "Romeo and Juliet" is the great love story of all time. What were they, 14?...

Fastidious And Furious
Your boyfriend could be more open-minded: It's not just a kitchen; it's a probiotics wildlife refuge...

You Lite Up My Life
When you tell a man "I just wanna hang out and have fun -- sometimes naked," you actually mean that. It is not secret womancode for "Love me, or I'll cut up your shirts, set your lawn on fire, and stand under your window at 3 a.m. screaming, 'MY UTERUS IS BAAAARE!'"...

Stare Way To Heaven
"Sky's the limit!" "You can do anything you set your mind to!" These are fantastically inspiring things to tell a person -- when he's about to enter preschool and you're trying to teach him to use the potty...

Manure And Wife
Brides-to-be can easily lose touch with reality. They start by pricing the VFW hall, and before long it's "Oh, is the International Space Station booked?"...

Doctors Without Borders
A person might "get points for honesty," but if he's somebody's boyfriend, he'll get lots more points if his honesty involves statements like "The lady doctor who just palpated my groin was a ringer for Lou Ferrigno"...

Bodies At Rust
Tempting as it can be to tear off each other's clothes and rut like wild animals on the first date, it can be less than conducive to a desire to meet up again to ask things like "So...where'd you go to middle school?"

Beer Your Soul
The line from Cole Porter is "Birds do it, bees do it," not "birds and bees get a committee together to discuss it"...

Lard Of The Dance
Some women just can't appreciate their husband's collections: comic books, shot glasses, broken-down cars, chins...

Memory Bank Fraud
Where are the little mind movies of her children? Or as you call them, "dealbreakers," not "dealbenders"...

The Spinster Cycle
Yes, you can have it all -- a high-powered education, a high-powered career, and the perfect high-powered man to go with. Of course, it helps if you're willing to relax your standards a little, like by widening your pool of acceptable male partners to include the recently deceased...

Have A Peasant Day
You'd like to point out that your chore wheel is not a Ferris wheel. Or is it?

Meek Her Want You
Your business card will come in handy -- if she needs to fix her car's CD player or pick something out of her teeth...

Looking For The Gaia Next Door
You can wish for the gorgeous, artistic, shamanic perfect man -- along with world peace and all the hemp bacon you can eat...

Sperm Limits
You can't just sit down on the first date and ask a man if his semen has a lifeplan...

Dim And Her
Is there a chance you cheated on your IQ test?

I'm With Cupid
Nothing says "I love you" like installing a keylogger on your partner's laptop...

Some Unenchanted Evenings
You two have a fairy-tale romance. Unfortunately, it's the part of the fairy tale where two elves stand around scratching themselves in a mud hut...

Once You Go Lewis Black...
Just because a convenient subject for humor presents itself (or you happen to pick it up in your car and take it out to a restaurant) doesn't mean you should seize the opportunity...

Shove Thy Neighbor
You'll be lonely some night and want a snuggle, rationalize all the reasons he isn't so bad after all, and before you know it, there'll be a familiar barnacle attaching itself to the beer tap on your hull...

Idle Worship
It's the teenage fangirl approach to being a man...

Code Goo
You've got to put the meaningless back into meaningless sex...

World Wide Web Of Lies
The male brain is quick to note that eHarmony could be the ticket to eHarem...

Witchful Thinking
A "love" like hers sends chills down a man's spine -- that is, when the man happens to have one...

Baby, I Need Your Oven
According to needlepointed pillows, the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. Actually, it's through his sternum with a big saw...

I Smell A Rut
Some model their marriage on their parents' and some on their parents' car lease...

On Crowd Nine
Like many people around the holidays, your thoughts turn to the have-nots: "Hi, I believe you have not heard that I'm having sex with your new boyfriend."

Axing A Girl Out
This is not exactly the behavior of a man obsessed, brimming with jealous rage. Chances are, he just thought, "Hmm, I could hit that." (And I very much doubt he meant "over the head with a shovel.")

Brief-Stricken
Unfortunately, the elusive female orgasm is especially persnickety when one's partner sets up a sexual ambience reminiscent of one of those movies where Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson are staring down a ticking time bomb...

Epic Frail
A person falls down on the sidewalk in front of you. Do you just step over him? Or do you stop and take his wallet and then step over him?...

The Cad Catalogue
Deep down, you know that love -- real love -- is never having to say, "Are you cheating on me with your ex-wife?"...

If The Shoo Fits?
It's tough attracting the ladies when you have transportation issues: "I'll be over at 8. Wanna run behind my bike, or would you prefer to balance yourself on my handlebars?"

Blister Wonderful
When you start to care about somebody, it's nice to give him little romantic gifts -- flowers, a gourmet cupcake, a sweet card, weeping genital sores...

Her Best Friend's Waiting
People commonly think love is only supposed to come in groups of two, like on the ark...

Poach Class
If they're going to be relegated to meaningless anonymous sex, they'd like it to be with you...

Pest Wife Regression
To be human is to be small and petty. (To be successfully small and petty is to not let it show.)...

Speaking Ill Of The Dud
You point out when she's got spinach stuck between her teeth. You'd think she'd be equally appreciative when you point out that she's got a soulmate stuck in some other woman's cleavage...

Give Till It Hertz
It cost you, what, $3,000 -- the price of a TV the size of a small European country -- to have her personally deliver the news that she wouldn't be having sex with you?

Odd Manischewitz Out
JDate advertises that its mission is sustaining "Jewish traditions" -- apparently including the tradition of pissing off one's parents by getting together with a Catholic...

Snorting Hope
It must have been hell for you in your previous relationship when stopping your boyfriend's self-destructive behavior only involved putting out messages like "Just say no to chicken-fried steak and the occasional cigar"...

You've Got Stale
Do you also suspect Banana Republic is going out of business every time they update their store windows?

Slipping Beauty
You're the one who's obsessed with getting in another woman's pants -- being able to wear his ex-girlfriend's skinny jeans, and not just as arm-warmers...

Adjusting The Shudder
Some people's photos look best with some clever cropping. Apparently, yours look best if you crop out your head...

Flee Circus
Men are into the thrill of the chase, not the thrill of a woman who's on them like a tick on a dog no matter what they do...

Between A Walk And A Hard Place
Sure he wants to go on a hike -- a hike your skirt up over your head...

Whiff The Wrong Man
It seems those health class videos about getting your period -- "You're a woman now!" -- were a tad incomplete. One week a month, you're also Chuck Norris.

All Work And No Foreplay
Eighty percent of sex is just showing up. (The other 20 percent is remaining conscious while you're having it.)

The Benefit Of The Dowdy
"What's on the inside is what really matters"...until what's on the outside is a hot, shapely, newly available divorcee collecting their husbands' eyeballs like the Pied Piper commandeering the rodent population of Hamelin...

Prince Harming
Love is patient, love is kind, love is surprised you aren't more accomplished and thinks you're kinda uggo when you're anxious...

Semicolon Cleansing
"O Romeo, Romeo...eeuw, Romeo...you're wearing dad jeans and a T-shirt with a wolf on it, and not in an ironic way."

Helen Of Toy
You no longer need to chase her (you just reach over in bed and give her a gentle shake so she'll stop snoring like an old wino)...

Mitey Aphrodite
"If you love something, set it free" is, I guess, helpful advice for those whose first thought is "If you love something, lure it into your house and lock it in your basement"...

Girl With A Wait Problem
Yeah, okay, on a realistic note, you'd probably feel a lot less hurt and threatened if she were talking about some guy at the wedding slipping her a roast beef sandwich...

Meet Joe BlackBerry
Once you've spent more than a few naked hours with somebody, you can text them to tell them you're late, but not that you're never coming back...

That Witch Does Not Kill Us...
That's why my boyfriend, who's not exactly a people person, claims he's starting a nihilistic social network called "Quitter." (Posts are zero characters, and you're asked not to join.)

Can't Twin 'Em All
The last thing you seem interested in is taking responsibility for sticking with a partner who treated you like a gymnast in the Humiliation Olympics...

Fraud Prince
For some, a wake-up call is a gentle nudge or the delicate tinkle of a fine watch; others need to be bludgeoned over the head with an alarm clock...

Vulture Shock
Without gossip, people would have to sit around talking about particle physics, the economic downturn, and what's going on in Libya...

This Is Where You Draw The Spine
Your boyfriend -- let's call him "Werner von Bendover" -- is a suckup of legendary proportions...

Wishful Finking
The average wife doesn't snoop through her husband's cellphone history because she has a funny feeling that he's got three other families in three other states or that he's a weekend serial killer who dresses up as a clown...

Guru, Interrupted
How fun that you never know whether you'll be enjoying breakfast with your husband or petitioning him for a new trial!

Wait Training
Texting a girl the day after a date says a guy's interested. Texting two weeks later says he's explored every other option, including hookers and suicide, and settled for her...

Spring, Chicken!
You're only worried about causing another woman pain, not whether your crow's-feet are starting to look more like pterodactyl claws...

Thin Line Between Love And Height
There's adding a couple of inches to your height (with elevator shoes), and there's going from circus act to starting forward...

Piece Treaty
Before long, he'll be stumbling through the door all skanko at 11:30 p.m., and his wife'll look up from her Sudoku and chirp, "Did you have a nice night with the hookers, dear?"...

Sex And The Cellar
Living at home puts a certain crimp in sexytime. A woman can't help but picture getting it on with you only to have your mom interrupt with "Hey, you kids, just lift your feet while I vacuum"...

Hold Me, Tightwad
There's a time in a man's life when he shouldn't expect to contribute to keeping a roof over his head, and it's when he's waking up on sheets with little cartoon spaceships on them to go to his day job -- attending fourth grade...

Too Mosh Information
Think hostage situation with linguini and roving violinists...

Frozen Dude Section
What do you say in the supermarket, "Lemme buy you that head of cabbage"?

Senior Momentum
He used to enjoy "long walks on the beach" but now enjoys long walks to the salad bar. (If you listen closely, you can hear his pacemaker.)

Booty Rest
"Barrier methods" of birth control like condoms, a diaphragm and the cervical cap aren't 100 percent effective at blocking sperm from entering the uterus, but one barrier method is: the 6-year-old between you in bed asking, "Can I have a Popsicle?" "Do cats have bellybuttons?" "Who will take care of me if you die?"

The Clique And The Dead-Tired
What kind of friends do you have that they'd come over for parties and inspect your home for signs of sexual activity?

The Full-Of-It Monty
Leaving the house without a blindfold shouldn't be considered a form of consent...

Don't Go Seiko On Her
Three-day rule? I like the 30-year rule: "Hello, Tammy, you might not remember me, but I took you out for drinks in 1981."

Coma Sutra
Basically, you're expecting her to make love to you like a wife named Bob...

Creature From The Slack Lagoon
It's kind of tough to get more than a dead-end, minimum-wage job when the answers to "Where'd you go to school and what did you study?" are "Meadowood Elementary" and "Babar the Elephant"...

Not Into Thankings
After he thanked you, did he ask very politely how much a second hour would be?

The Shopping Cart Before The Horse
It's a really bad idea for a guy to give flowers to a girl he's just meeting, unless she's just won the Kentucky Derby. In that case, he could also slip her a carrot and slap her on the rump.

That Special Thumb One
There's a reason he won't contact you during daylight hours, and it isn't because he's a vampire and that's when he lies in his coffin watching Judge Judy on his iPad...

The Princess And The Pee
The water conservation-minded have that saying, "If it's yellow, let it mellow," but they mean in the toilet bowl, not in the living room...

Urine For Surprises!
He could've been calling his wife or his bookie or enjoying a mid-date masturbation break. Or, maybe he just needed a good cry...

Meek And Potatoes
When a woman flirts and flirts with a guy and he still doesn't ask her out, she knows there must be a reasonable explanation: 1. Hairball stuck in his throat. 2. He sprained his tongue. 3. He's temping as a monk.

Boy Meats Girl
Note that there's a restaurant called Hooters but none called Testicles...

Sane-Sex Attraction
Clearly, we should ditch these complicated human relationships for a simpler kind of love -- the one we'd share with a partner who's beyond happy as long as we keep throwing it a dirty tennis ball and dropping pieces of food on the floor...

Custer's Last Nightstand
Are the throw pillows plotting against you? Has his trash been talking trash about you again?

When You Wish Upon A Ringo Starr
It takes a rock off the planet Krypton to disable Superman. For you, it's five Rolling Rocks and a drunken hookup.

Aisle Be Embarrassing You
There are public people and then there are private people, like my boyfriend, who'd react to a surprise birthday party with the enthusiasm he'd have for a surprise prostate exam...

Under The Cover Of Nightclub
Sometimes, treating a woman like crap comes with a substantial grace period...

Bus Case Scenario
It's fun to vacation in if-land for a moment or two -- like, if I had a TV show, I'd have a cook and a driver and a monkey to massage my feet under my desk. But, I don't have a TV show, and monkeys throw feces...

Extreme Meekover
Dateless guys like to blame their situation on how "nice" they are -- as if nothing zaps a guy's mojo like being the kind of fellow who'd bandage a bird's wing or drive an old lady to the store...

So, His Wild Oats
This is the time for a man to play the field -- or, in Tennyson's words, "When sprung, a young man's fancy turns to ill-advised sex with a string of bar sluts."

Fade To Blackheads
Just think where you'd be without her. Well, probably in a sexually and intellectually fulfilling relationship, but with much larger pores...

The Ultrasound Of Silence
...Then there's the really fun part, when WE get strapped to a table, legs spread, and we're surrounded by strangers shouting "Push! Push!" (As if it's sheer laziness that keeps a person from squeezing a Mack truck out a carport-sized opening.)

Mommy Dirtiest
A mother doesn't risk her relationship with her daughter for just anything. In your case, somebody has to say hi...

Will You Still Shove Me Tomorrow?
Before you know it, you're thinking, "What was it, a year ago, he was promising me the moon, and now he can't even bring home the right freaking pepper?!"

Regression Toward The Meanie
"Mature love"? At best, that sounds like a porn mag put out by the AARP or some old man's pickup line: "Something tells me you aren't wearing any Depends."

Nodding Off Hill
I must have missed that fairy tale -- the one where the couple get married and go off to live happily ever after in the house with the white picket fence and the 2.5 boyfriends...

Keeping A Lady Hating
There's a good chance your girlfriend spent a substantial part of your four years together waiting for you to pop the question, and not the one that goes "So, did you get all of your stuff out of my place?"

This American Strife
You rattled off details, down to the brand of incense, as if they were random enjoyments that came to mind, not the foreplay report from your last relationship...

Love Is Bland
He can't be gay, 16, or wearing more Lycra, sequins, and tassels than you are...

Too-Big Love
Not many women in their 40s can find their way into barely legal bliss. (What did you do, park outside prom and hand out Tootsie Pops and cans of Schlitz?)...

Take A Rein Check
We all know men talk differently when there are no wives around. (Especially to the stripper.)

Miffed Connection
Chances are, she liked you and then felt insulted that you never called again despite the strong signals she gave you: stony silence, followed two years later by a gauntlet of her drunk friends.

Leave Actually
Of course, in the heat of love, you say, "We'll always be friends," and not, "If we ever break up, I'll go around my house and cut your head out of all the pictures, burn the sheets, and put everything you ever gave me in a plastic shopping bag and drop it off at Goodwill"...

Barenaked Laddies
Just wondering...when's the last time you saw a man enter a strip club with a big plastic vagina strapped to his head?

All's Ferret In Love And War
Facebook is just the place to find answers to all of life's big questions: Which Pokemon character are you? What color gummy bear? How long would you survive a zombie apocalypse? And then, are you one of the skanks my boyfriend cheated on me with?

"Can You Here Me Now?"
A woman can be a little premature in setting up who wears the ball gag in the relationship. ..

Must Love Dogs In Bed
A guy can respect that your dogs are important to you and still feel that the ideal bedmate isn't something that spent the evening licking a dead squirrel and then going around sniffing all its friends' butts...

Managed Frisk
When a heterosexual man has a one-night stand, which three words best describe how he's likely to feel afterward: "used, degraded, dirty" or "lucky, lucky, lucky!"?

Spanking The Junkie
A guy can show his girlfriend his Hot Wheels collection and she's unlikely to start fretting that he'll be having sex with her but picturing Bobby Unser...

With This Ring I Thee Dump
It now seems that those hours he spent planning a future with you would have been better invested in playing "Killzone 2" or balancing a ball on his nose...

Dater Processing
If you took all the utterly inane revelations off Twitter, you could probably run the entire enterprise off an old PC in somebody's garage...

Ingrate Expectations
This has to leave you wondering what happens if you get seriously ill. Do you wake up to him tapping your chemo tubing, "Ahem, Missy...we haven't had sex since you had hair"?

Say Cheesy
In online dating, every picture tells a story: "Consider this proof I was once 10 years younger, 20 pounds lighter, and had an entirely different head"...

Menopause In The Heterosexuality
"Experimenting" with somebody who isn't your spouse is called cheating, regardless of whether you're "Chasing Amy" -- or in your case, Chasing Amy's Mother...

Queasy Credit
"Hey, honey!" you call to your girlfriend, who looks up from the sink where she's rinsing out plastic bags to reuse...

Queer And Present Danger
The truth is, a gay wedding is generally just slightly more gay than weddings already are...

Speed Hating
There are certain basic questions you need to ask yourselves before having a child, and they're things like "Can we afford this?" and "Who will stay home with the kid?" not "Have we had a third date?"...

Blocked Swan
The first one to remark on how glorious the sunset is doesn't get to take it home. The same goes for some cute guy at a bar...

You Make Loving Fund
Here's a woman who always has your best interest at heart. In fact, she's willing to offer you several percentage points less than you'd get at Payday Loans...

One Surprise Fits All
I find that nothing says "I love you" like a case of anaphylactic shock -- when the dinner meant to take a guy's breath away becomes the dinner that causes him to stop breathing...

Triumph Of The Willie
Yes, we see that all the time: One week, a guy's surfing the net for busty blondes; the next, he's got the hots for the neighbor's Labradoodle...

Extremely Old Spice
Never mind that this attention was utterly unprompted by you, that you're both married, and that he's twice your age, meaning that the movie stud he most closely resembles is Yoda...

Getting To Null Her Better
She's a girl, not an acorn you store up in case it's a long winter...

Home Is Where The Fart Is
When somebody asks, "So, what first attracted you to your wife?" I'm guessing you don't answer, "I'd have to say it's pretty much a toss up between the toxic farts and oozing open sores"...

Love Has Come To Sty
There are people who march out into the world looking completely put-together, and then you open their front door and see that the only clutter-busting tip you could possibly give them is "Strike a match and run"...

"I'll Have The Scrimp Cocktail!"
Just think of the "fun game" he had in store for date two -- probably something like "Close your eyes, Babe, and pretend we aren't under a bridge waiting in line for free soup"...

Flight At The End Of The Tunnel
When a woman isn't returning your call, you want to hope for the best -- that it's because she died, is still in a coma, or was kidnapped by Bolivian terrorists while picking up a prescription at the drugstore...

An Unfair To Remember
You decided that the guy was finally feeling something for you, and not just feeling something in his pants...

Bland Of Brothers
A guy advertising for "a real woman" SOUNDS selective -- while not ruling out anyone on the planet with a working vagina...

Dirty-Something
You can probably count on an amputated hand the number of times a straight man has run up to another and squealed, "Those are, like, the cutest shoes!" In fact, it's a special day if a man happens to take note that another man has feet...

You Tech My Breath Away
In addition to the weirdness of posting your face on a big bulletin board to see if anyone might end up loving you, there's the weirdness of shopping for the love of your life in between bidding on a used tennis racket on eBay...

Deleting Him On
It's called "the chase," not the "call once and leave a message, then give up."

The Boors And The Bees
Maybe your cinema sex escaped notice by your fellow moviegoers, but if there's a wet spot for the next audience to avoid, they'd like it to be a puddle of Pepsi One...

Laddy Gaga
It can be devastating, the prospect of losing a woman after building a life with her and weathering tough times together. As for this woman, what have you weathered together, whether to take a table or sit at the bar?

Hourglass Half-Empty
You've got what so many guys want -- that classic movie star body. Unfortunately, the movie star body your boyfriend goes for is that of the guy who plays Harry Potter...

Plain And Suffering
In a 37-country study, kindness was the most desired trait in a partner for both women and men, but no man runs his car off the road turning to look at a woman because she volunteers at a children's hospital...

Till Death Grip Do Us Part
Love is a beautiful thing -- when expressed sparingly. In your case, well, you'll always remember that time he turned to you and said those rare and magical words, "You know, I think your left front tire needs more air."

It's A Bootyfull Day In The Neighborhood
According to Random House, "What Your Fifth Grader Needs to Know" is stuff like long division and where Spain is on the map, not the fact that your neighbor has a birthmark in the shape of Lebanon -- well below the equator. (That's in the as-of-yet unpublished "What Your Fifth Grader Doesn't Need to Know.")

Going Whole Hug
The woman you go out with four times and only kiss on the cheek and hug goodbye is the woman you call Mom...

Settle Sore
Sheep doubt nothing. Chances are you'll get further in life by questioning things than by living like something that ends up dinner and a sweater.

Lack Of Space, The Final Frontier
For many people, love is finding somebody, then doing whatever they can to see that they never leave that person's side. That did work for Romeo and Juliet. Then again, they were fictional. And dead.

Giving Her Paws
Usually, when they talk about a guy having manners from another time, they mean he's polite like they were back in the '50s, not when the Neanderthals were running around...

As Fat Would Have It
There's that saying, "The camera adds 10 pounds." Well, the Internet often subtracts 50...

When Plush Comes To Shove
Back when they couldn't show sex in movies, they'd let you know it'd happened by showing a couple having drinks and kissing, then cut to one of them in bed smoking a cigarette -- not sucking a thumb and cuddling a bunny...

Legume Squad
Why did the Tofurkey cross the road? Of course, to beg somebody to eat it.

Pier Pressure
In this economy, a lot of people are going without -- without meat, without medical care, without Princess Cruises with open bars and 24-hour karaoke...

Gregory Pecs
Take your cue from women's magazines, which are wildly lacking in shots of men with greased pecs chopping wood and other popular gay calendar outtakes...

Putting The Spark Plugs In The Relationship
Sorry, but you don't have a relationship; you have sex in a guy's truck...

Sloshed In Translation
I wrote, "Get some drinks in a girl, then casually touch her arm a few times," not "casually rape her in the alley"...

I'm Knot With The Band
It's hard to compete with all those girls showing off that princess-cut diamond in a platinum setting when all you have to show for your relationship is the ring your boyfriend's pint glass leaves on the table in a dive bar setting...

Wife Of The Party
Some people get fat after marriage; some people get family...

Gaunt With The Wind
Sure, your guy friends are fine with your body size -- because when they hang out with you, they might wake up hung over, not naked and spooning you with their face pressed into your back hair...

Acquaintances With Benefits
You, apparently, look like the sort of man they write about in romance novels, but are actually the other sort: the sort they write about in bathroom stalls...

Wuss It Something I Said?
When you like a woman, sure, be a gentleman, just not a Victorian gentleman -- avoiding all sexual contact until marriage and always walking closest to the curb so nobody's chamber pot of excrement splashes on her petticoat...

Pair Pressure
"Meet the one thing keeping me from dying alone and having my decomposing body go undiscovered for weeks"...

Petaling As Fast As He Can
Sending flowers to a girl you've had no sexual or even romantic contact with is only appropriate if the girl is a racehorse who just won the Preakness...

Giving Him The Dry Heave-Ho
It takes a special kind of person to stare into a toilet bowl of their own vomit and wonder what's in their inbox...

Rivals And Departures
You're on the bench, some other woman's in the bed, and you're hoping against hope that she'll sprain something...

Canine And A Half Weeks
If there's a challenge to your relationship, you expect it to at least come from a member of your own species -- one whose lingerie labels read "Victoria's Secret," not "PETCO."

Bye Now! (Pay Later)
If you've had a pretty good record with her up till now (you've never left her at the mall or anything), you might be able to worm your way back in...

Mouth Trap
With friends like yours, Snow White would still be in a coma...

Not Wanton Any
Yes, if only he were somebody totally different -- a man who can't wait to have sex with you instead of a man who probably redresses you with his eyes: Show cleavage, and he'll mentally put you in a poncho...

Lens Crafty
On the online dating ethics spectrum, posting a photo sans your glasses is like taking an extra mint at the bank versus holding the teller up at gunpoint...

Want Salt And Pepper Spray With That?
In business, not taking no for an answer can be an effective strategy. Of course, the widget account doesn't have to wait tables to pay the rent, and it isn't picturing you following it home and standing in the rose bushes trying to peer into its bedroom...

A Blast From The Pest
You aren't her one and only; you're the pervy guy at Table 4...

The Larva Of The Party
Sartre once said, "Hell is other people at breakfast." An introvert sees no reason to narrow it down to a particular time of day...

Toon Deaf
You don't have to grunt and adjust yourself every two minutes, but if you're looking for a conversational role model, lean more toward Clint Eastwood in "Dirty Harry" than Kurt Hummel in "Glee."

Hannah And Her Scissors
A woman is most likely to be faithful to, well, to a man who's so insecure that he keeps her in a hole in his basement and lowers her food in a bucket...

Be Stale My Heart
There are things a man can do to make himself more articulate, and having sex isn't one of them...

Home Invasion Is Where The Heart Is
You can make your feelings known to this girl, but you for sure shouldn't make an announcement. (Announcements are for lost dogs, fire drills, and airplane gate changes.)...

Swept Off Her Feed
I signed on Facebook to the announcement "Josh Fakename is in an open relationship." Don't know the guy, never met the guy, but at least I don't have to wonder whether he's having sex with multiple partners...

Thin Line Between Love And Haight
Who says you can't take the man out of San Francisco? Just force him into the trunk of your car at gunpoint and promise him a bathroom break and a Snickers when you hit Bakersfield...

Light Boor
When the waitress first came, he had a millisecond to figure out are you a feminist, will you hate him for paying, accuse him of being personally responsible for lowering the glass ceiling 10 feet?...

The Woman Who Mistook Her Sinkhole For A Boyfriend
Even an emotionally together person can feel a little pang when their partner's going away for a time -- like, to Europe for a week, not to Rite-Aid for a box of tampons...

Single Trite Female
Good thing you're not on the parole board. You'd only need to hear a guy talk like a motivational poster -- "Good is its own reward!" "Tomorrow is a brand new day!" -- and you'd campaign for the release of some serial killer who kept all his dates in jars in his basement.

Thumber Romance
There are times when your date can't help but break away to text or take a call, like if he's got the other half of the missile launch codes and Luxembourg just attacked Staten Island...

Mystery Meet
A date, as a way to get to know somebody, is really fun -- for anybody who enjoys a police interrogation with two-for-one well drinks...

Every Clod Has A Silver Lining
While the original umbilical cord is still cut at birth, there are now aftermarket versions from Sprint, AT&T, and Verizon...

Serial Monotony
He might swear it's platonic, but can you see him goodnight texting some hairy buddy of his? "Yo, Frank, tuck me in?"

Searching For That Special Yum One
Chances are, the guy's just a doofus -- one who doesn't get that "You look beautiful" is a compliment and that what he wrote is basically "Hey, sex parts!"

Gilbert Grope
It's possible he isn't really drunk, just trying to con his way in, but that's for the cop who stops him to determine: "I can touch my finger to my nose just fine, Officer, but I'm having real problems getting my hand up a girl's shirt."

Rogained Another Fan!
Eventually, the pesky human aspect will probably be removed from dating, and a guy'll stay home repiping the sink while his avatar's out trying to unhook some other avatar's bra...

Sperm Wail
Women in their 20s are quick to rule a man out for deep character flaws like wearing Dockers, not knowing that you're supposed to hate Nickelback, and buying vegetables grown by multinational conglomerates instead of two aging hippies...

Bust Actress
There were some stories about a "Pirates of the Caribbean" casting call for extras with breasts that came from Mother Nature instead of Dr. Finkelstein...

A Whole New Bald Game
Starting around 2000, ultra low-rise jeans were in, but looking like you had a furry little pet peeking out from them was not...

Flee Collar
If honesty were actually the best policy, people would use it more often. In a mob hit, instead of making up some ruse involving fresh cannoli, they'd say "Tommy, come over, we're gonna garrote you"...

The Power Of Positive Sinking
Are you on a slowly sinking ship? Well, if this were the Titanic, DiCaprio and Winslet would've had time before the ship went down to have four kids, three affairs, and a bitter divorce...

Past Control
Sure, he feels jealous (and apparently, that you're sleazy, trampy, and not to be trusted)...

Wussy Galore
Masculinity, especially in young guys, appears to have gone the way of the rotary dial phone, the Betamax, and the spotted owl...

Let's Meek Love!
"Winking" online: You never get a second chance to make a really crappy first impression...

Needy Gonzales
Any guy can bring flowers -- it takes a really special guy to bring you his bedroom set and 36 boxes of his stuff...

Truth Theorem
You can get pretty reliable stats on cheating, providing you restrict your inquiry to two-timers with wings and a beak.

Bodhi Call
This hoohah about who you supposedly were to him in a past life only helps distract you from how you keep coming back in this one: as a bug under a man's shoe...

Flat Attire
Once you have a bit of a relationship with a guy, you can flatter him into a better shirt. ("You know, that Cosby sweater would look so much more attractive in the dumpster!")...

Better Pluck Next Time
Oh, what a terrible thing, promoting "American standards of beauty." Footbinding? Clitoridectomy? Naw, plucking tiny hairs above a woman's lip...

How To Pick Up Gorillas
When a woman sees you naked, you want her focused on jumping your bones, not on hiring somebody to jump you with a riding lawn mower...

About The Thighs Of It
It's women asking "Do I look fat in these pants?" while the parallel question from men would be "Do I look unemployed on this couch?" (Answer: Even more so when it's sitting out on the curb.)

Life Is A Gurney
I can just hear him trying to smoothtalk himself into your bed: "I've fallen and I can't get up!"

The Dawg Whisperer
Unfortunately, like the leopard and his spots, the wolf and his big-boobed, tatted-up she-wolves are not soon parted...

Advice Goddess Columns

Amy Alkon

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