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.

In the wake of a rejection, a persistent man might ask a woman out a second time, but you went straight to persistently creepy: bringing roses (in a vase!) and a love letter -- a level of romantic effort that's appropriate when you've been dating for six months and have developed deep feelings for each other. Note the words "each other," and the fact that the only interest this woman has shown is in having you sit in another waitress' section (ideally, one in the northern Yukon).

Okay, your feelings for her are growing stronger every day -- including the feeling that what she wants is beyond irrelevant. Think about how unhappy you're making this waitress. You're robbing her of her peace of mind, and if you start going back, maybe even her ability to pay her bills. I get that you have the hots for her, but you don't even know this woman. What could you possibly have said in that letter you wrote, "I love the way you look when you bring me extra salad dressing"?

Now, maybe you're afraid of the risks involved in having a real relationship; maybe you lack the experience and social intelligence to understand what one is. Instead of dealing with what's missing in you, you avoid it by turning this poor waitress into an obsessive hobby. This isn't love; it's stalking with a bottomless cup of coffee.

You are overdue for a relationship -- with a cognitive behavioral therapist, the kind that helps you understand and correct deep irrationalities in thinking and behavior. You're also way overdue for a breakup with your imaginary girlfriend. No need to say any goodbyes! Just give her the wordless gift of no more you. Permanently. Because, as you note, life's too short...to spend a chunk of it in jail, after you not only ignore her feelings but those of the judge that you need to stay 500 yards away from her at all times.

No, the fact that she probably wants you in jail really matters. The gap that counts is the one between delusion and reality: You aren't her one and only; you're the pervy guy at Table 4. Sure, in romantic comedies, the "harass your way to happily ever after" model always works for Ben Affleck or Adam Sandler. But, this is real life, in a diner, so they don't need dramatic conflict to keep people in the seats, just reasonably edible eggs and bacon.

As I've already e-mailed you repeatedly: STAY AWAY FROM THIS WOMAN. Act like you care about her by being kind enough to accept that she doesn't want you, and by respecting that she (not you) gets to decide who's in her life. Go get the therapy you desperately need, and when your therapist deems you emotionally healthy enough to date, pursue women who talk to you because they like you and think you're cute, not because it's their job to tell you they're out of meatloaf.

It's a party! You're in your element, making the rounds, meeting tons of new people, racking up invites to parties after the party, and your boyfriend's, well, probably in that little crawl space under the host's stairs.

Sartre once said, "Hell is other people at breakfast." An introvert sees no reason to narrow it down to a particular time of day. My own introvert boyfriend is charming and fun one on one, but his favorite kind of party is one that's canceled, and his preferred RSVP would be something Ving Rhames said on the set of "Out of Sight": "I don't want to talk to anybody I don't already know."

Ever since Freud decided (sans evidence) that introverts were repressed, narcissistic trolls under the bridge, extraversion has been considered the ideal and introverts have been seen as socially stunted. Introversion is also wrongly conflated with shyness, but shyness is fear- and shame-based -- quite different from seeing no reason to say anything to strangers unless you or they are on fire.

More and more, research points to a strong biological basis for personality. Brain imaging shows distinct differences in introverts and extraverts. Studies by neuroscientist Debra L. Johnson and others found that extraverts, who get energized from external stimulation like meeting new people, have increased blood flow to rear areas of the brain for sensory processing (like listening, touching, watching). Introverts, who tend to be more pensive and introspective, and are easily overwhelmed by too much external stimulation, showed more blood flow altogether (indicating more internal stimulation), over more complicated pathways, with more activity in frontal regions for inward tasks like problem-solving, reasoning, and remembering. Put that together with a Chinese study adding evidence that introverts get socked with a higher level of cortical arousal from stimuli, and you get the idea that urging introverts to be more outgoing is a bit like urging scissors to be more like a stapler.

So, can it work between you and a boyfriend who probably researches the host's wallpaper so he can dress to blend into the background? Well, maybe -- if you're independent enough to show up to most events without him as Your Date™. There will, of course, be times when it means something to you to have him there, and the compromise then is his to make. Be sensitive to his feelings, try to get there early (when the houseplant-to-guest ratio is greatest), and be okay with him eventually slinking off to read "The Life History of the Dung Beetle" or talking to the dog (who's sometimes the most interesting person at the party).

Just wondering...under what circumstances would a man (you?), on a date with a woman, be compelled to utter the phrase "Whoopsie daisy"? Dropped your knitting? Or, was it your Hello Kitty wallet and matching compact?

There are some women who like to date girlier types, and they're called lesbians. Otherwise, unless you're joking, and your date shares your sense of humor, you probably will see a cartoon puff of smoke in her wake if you talk like her elderly aunt. 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."

People on dates often blurt out dumb stuff because they're nervous and sitting across from somebody and have nothing on their mind but "I HAVE NOTHING TO SAY!" You can avoid this if you plan dates that have you going places, seeing sights, and showing off your keen powers of observation by pointing out things of interest; for example, "Wow, look at that man running away with your pocketbook."

Instead of spending your evenings giving your wife something to smile about the next morning at work, you're giving this seven-year-old fling of hers more late-night reruns than "Godfather II." Sure, she still sees the guy, but consider the environment. Yes, it's what I always advise a man who wants to stage a seduction: Put on a big pastel smock, sit between two little old ladies getting smelly perms, and give the woman a bird's eye view of his bald spot. Before you know it, he'll be telling her how he likes it, and she'll be begging, "Lemme take off my top!" -- in that secret language all the hussy hairdressers use: "Want me to take a little more off the top?"

You're right that marriage comes with boundaries -- and it's time you started respecting your wife's. You're her husband, not her owner, so you don't get to give her a list of acceptable topics of conversation: 1. "Nice weather we're having." 2. "Still nice weather we're having." Since you're also not her boss, she doesn't have to ask you if she's allowed to do her job: "My 2:30 appointment fooled around with me once seven years ago, but he really needs a trim."

What stinks isn't love, but being a guy who's never bothered to put his mommy issues and ex-wife trust issues on a leash and walk them to a therapist's office. Instead, you take them out on a woman you describe as "always...truthful and forthright." Nice! And easier on the ego than admitting you're insecure, seeking reassurance, and fixing what's broken. As for those dirty movies of her you've been playing in your head, all the better to feel sorry for yourself. You break a habit the way you picked it up, through repetition, so next time your mental projector starts whirring, swap in footage of Bob Vila replacing a toilet flush valve. Mmmm, sexy!

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. Unfortunately, this is not exactly a prescription for marital joy. To have a woman make you her one and only by choice, do your best to make her happy and strive to live in the moment -- instead of that moment in 1990 when she failed to pop up from her prom date's back seat and say, "I can't. Twenty years from now, I might have a really jealous husband."

There are things a man can do to make himself more articulate, and having sex isn't one of them. Chances are, the guy felt a rush of emotion, reached into the cupboard in his head, and found it bare -- save for a seriously tired line from "Jerry Maguire." Either that, or he was trying to tell you "Having sex with you reminds me of this 1996 Tom Cruise movie." As for whether it's more than just talk, time will tell. For now, perhaps you can find what he said endearing, as many women would. Personally, I find borrowed expressions of appreciation kind of a mood-killer. Then again, at least he didn't roll over and yell, "Show me the money!"

Sorry I took so long answering your question, but I got abducted by aliens and they didn't have Wi-Fi on the mothership. If you'll believe me, I'll believe you -- and forget that your question sounds like the script to a G-rated porno: You both strip down, get tied up, and then the crooks leave and your Mom comes in with a plate of cookies and a box-cutter.

It is possible that danger amped up your feelings of attraction. The intuitive explanation is that you bonded over a shared scary experience. It's hypothesized by researchers (but not yet well supported by evidence) that there's "misattribution of arousal": mistaking revved-up feelings from a scary situation for feelings of attraction. Anthropologist Helen Fisher speculates in Why We Love that "danger is novel to most of us" and "novelty elevates levels of dopamine -- the chemical associated with romantic love." (That was your brain on accounting...this is your brain on drugs.)

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.) Proclaiming your interest will not only be embarrassing for both of you, she's sure to tell you what you already know -- that she has a boyfriend -- and leave it at that. Instead, take her out for drinks and try to kiss her afterward. She can always turn you down, and you can always blame it on the alcohol and go back to being study buddies. Act like it isn't a big deal, and it shouldn't be (avoid the temptation to lean over your textbook and ask, "Get tied up here often?").

Then again, if she likes kissing you, she might end up "confused" about her relationship -- which is the gateway drug to maybe ending it and seeing if there's anything "legitimate" with you. If girlfriend-poaching is against your principles, you could say something to her -- not in some big pronouncement-type way, but with an offhand remark: "Hey, if you ever ditch that boyfriend of yours, I'd love to take you out for dinner and a mugging."

This friend of a friend of a friend "friended" me on Facebook. Okay, fine, I friended him back. A few days later, barely awake, 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.

Welcome to the Too Much Information Age. People sign up for Facebook or start blogging and tweeting without giving much thought to what their personal privacy policy will be. Because a button exists for them to give out information, they go ahead and do it. But, this isn't the doctor's office, where keeping secrets can cause death or other serious side effects. Facebook is a cesspool of ill-advised revelations, with some privacy settings, and just like in an arrest, you have the right to remain silent, and should probably use it more often than not.

You've already informed your, uh, insignificant other of your relationship status. If your feelings are unlikely to change, gently make that known so she doesn't hang around nursing false hope. While you're at it, you might change your relationship status on Facebook to the default -- not yet filled out. In the future, you can provide it on a need-to-know basis, like when the dinner party host wonders if there's a plus-one, and when you're ordering at Starbucks: "I'll have a tall Americano and my life partner here will have a grande mocha with whip."

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.

So, the guy chases you down, wins you back, and now he's not sure whether it's you or that tramp with the cable cars? That's not how love is supposed to work. According to Shakespeare, the Bronte sisters, and every romantic comedy ever made, love is throwing aside everything to crawl across broken glass on four continents, only to die in your beloved's arms. This, on the other hand, is like Romeo texting Juliet (on parchment delivered by servants), "OMG, not sure if i can give up pizza nite w family 2 b w/u."

In the real world, for people with more to them than an obsessive connection to another human being, there are often practical considerations: whether they both want kids, who's going to pay for them, whether they'll join the Hari Krishnas or keep working as tax accountants. While some people can live anywhere as long as they're with the person they love, for many, where they wake up and walk out the door every day is no small thing. It's not just the place, but the way of life in a particular place ("The city that never sleeps" versus "the suburb that never wakes up").

The guy might love you, but he's made his priority clear: He's left his heart in San Francisco, and the rest of him is staying to keep it company. Chances are, he got so focused on winning you back, he forgot to ask himself "And then what?" Now that he's won you, he's all "Actually, I'm kind of attached to fog, earthquakes, and stepping over a wino to get into my favorite patisserie." It's a lucky thing he figured that out before he gave up his apartment and moved to Collegetown. (Love in a place you hate quickly becomes seething resentment.) If you don't resent him too much, maybe you and he will try to keep it going long distance while you're in school. If so, you need to be practical, too: Ask yourself how you feel about spending the rest of your days in San Francisco, because you probably won't get the guy out of there for any length of time -- not until you can fit him into an urn.

On the bright side, when the final bill came, he didn't get up and make tracks for the ladies' room. Things are really confusing now about who pays. By the end of the date, he knew it was okay to pick up the tab. But, 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? Before he could work all that out, you'd handed over your Visa and ordered your appletini.

Ask yourself if you're quick to prosecute for something so minor because you go in expecting the worst. If so, you might change that, or instead of a boyfriend, you can have a grudge. And yes, the person who does the inviting should pay -- to a point. On the second date, it's nice to avoid being one of those women who, when the check comes, goes rooting around in her purse -- and pulls out a mint.

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.

Other women betray their partners by having illicit sex. You only have to have illicit lunch (eat a burger with somebody who isn't him). Grab a little alone time, and it's like you're slutting around on him -- with yourself. For him and his unresolved issues, every day is the first day of nursery school: "Mommeeee, don't leave meee!" On the plus side, he's probably potty-trained to the point where he wears boxers instead of Huggies Pull-Ups.

You might end up giving birth to a clingy child, but you sure shouldn't marry one. In a healthy relationship, two fully functioning adults come together; they aren't bolted together. They stay together because they love each other -- meaning they respect and admire each other, have more fun together, and are better together than alone. What you have isn't love, but a guy dressing up pathological need in a love suit and manipulating you with cuddly-wuddly coerciveness: "Just stay and snuggle -- or I'll pout till the end of time." You've got a choice: live with constant conflict or avoid seeing your family and friends -- or doing anything that'll trigger his abandonment issues, like going to the mailbox or the ladies' room.

Hang with crazy long enough, and it can start to seem normal -- to the point where you're only thinking of postponing your wedding instead of mapping out routes to flee. Even if your fiance wanted to change (and it seems he hasn't yet been motivated), he isn't going to become a full, independent person in six months or a year. It's probably tempting to try to make it work and make allowances for his past, but just picture yourself once his neediness has not only the force of habit from your putting up with it, but a state license behind it. Sure, you can always get divorced -- that is, if you can figure out the combination to get out the front door.

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. Of course you want to believe your girlfriend's "One day the world will be ours!" but she has yet to show herself to be ethical, and it's wildly unlikely she'll become ethical now. What alternatives do you have besides ending it? Well, you could stick around and be lied to, cheated on, and placated with aphorisms: "Our love is here to stay!" (As long as you don't call or come by after 10.) "Our love is like a rose!" Well, okay, we'll give her that one -- in that it has something in common with getting stuck with a thorn, coming down with necrotizing fasciitis, and losing an arm.

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. If it could be the secretary of state or the babysitter about his kids setting the house on fire with My Little Meth Lab, he should apologize in advance that he might have to take a call. Otherwise, answering is the digital version of leaving your date alone at the table and bopping over to join friends across the restaurant. Texting? You might as well whip out a pen and legal pad: "You busy yourself with that pork chop, Sweetcheeks. Got a couple letters I gotta mail out first thing."

Many people think the fact that their pants are vibrating gives them a pass to put the person they're with on face-to-face "ignore." People with manners consider how their companion might feel sitting before a full restaurant audience pretending to examine a napkin for hidden messages. Cool as it is that you can message somebody in Moscow right from the table, groovy new technology needs to be paired with groovy old-fashioned social graces. If you're going to invite somebody to dinner and ignore them, at least have the decency to get married first and build up years of bitterness and resentment.

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. Group dating is a much better idea. There's a site called Ignighter.com where you and some friends post a group profile and go out with other groups of friends. Or, you can arrange this sort of thing yourself. With your friends there, you won't be so nervous, you won't have to hold up half the conversation, and you'll get a clearer picture of a guy by seeing him with his friends. Should a group date be a bust, it's like you and your friends all went to some lame party, not like you alone once again failed to find everlasting love. If you must go on a first date solo, meet for drinks -- for an hour and a half, tops. Basically, keep it cheap, short, and local -- which'll ease the pain should it take a Hobbesian turn toward "nasty, brutish, and short." (Do your best to laugh if that also describes your date.)

Yippee, you can now be tried as an adult, but don't be on your high horse about how all growed-up you are. At 21, everyone thinks they're "mature." By 23, some catch a whiff of what blithering idiots they've been. At 30, many have nine years of proof. Making matters worse, you're from one of the most overmommied generations ever. While the original umbilical cord is still cut at birth, there are now aftermarket versions from Sprint, AT&T, and Verizon. One 20-something girl complained on a blog that her mother calls her every 30 minutes when she's out. Once, when she didn't reply right away, she logged 96 missed calls from Psychomommy.

Even if your parents aren't all helicoptery, the last thing you need now is a guy you'll look up to as some elder statesman with all the answers, eliminating the need for you to flail around and find them for yourself. In fact, there's never been a better time for you to miss out on the guy of your dreams. Your dreams are likely to be rather different at 25, let alone 30, making your 20s, especially your early 20s, the ideal time to date all the wrong guys. Avoid locking onto Mr. Dreamy today and you might avoid waking up at 30 with the urge to date a garage band drummer with a part-time job shoplifting.