Advice Goddess Columns

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...

Fuzz Kill
It's a mission of mercy, letting a fur-lipped woman know.

Curtain Maul
There are many ways to communicate, but women who wish to avoid being misunderstood will find the spoken and written word far more effective than the silent language of butt cheeks on a man's thigh...

Men Of Haircolor
Men self-dyeing their graying hair are today's version of bald men who thought they were fooling people while looking like a small animal dropped off a tree and landed on their head...

Hope Against Nope
Men don't want what comes easy to them, with the exception of "FREE BEER!"...

Boeing, Boeing, Gone
Welcome to the One-Flight Stand: Two total strangers, thrown together by airline seat assignment algorithms, sharing their deepest secrets over those little bags of pretzels and blankets that haven't been washed since the Wright brothers took off...

Moment Of "Poof!"
Here's a man you could've been with forever -- if only you'd taken the liberty of cuffing him to the chair in your front room...

Likes It Soggy-Style
"Just add jellyfish," and you've got a problem...

Over My Dead Bodypaint
If your boyfriend's ego were a pimple, it would burst and flood Vermont.

Things That Go Plump In The Night
It sounds so higher consciousness to say inner beauty is what really matters, but in the real world, you don't spot somebody at party and want to rip their clothes off because they look like the type to sweep an old lady's walk or read to the blind...

Grime And Punishment
Just because they're slobs doesn't mean they'll let the kid crawl through a field of rusty nails (on his way to lick all the outlets and get his little fist around Baby's First Oxycodone).

Thick And Tired Of It
Love might be blind, but male lust usually has a weight limit...

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Drag
People are speculating that Tiger has a "sex addiction," when all the ordinary guy can usually be accused of is a porn addiction. What separates the sex addicts from the porn addicts? Being rich enough to get the girls in 3-D.

Aisle Give It To You Two Years Later
Don't stop there, Mr. Realist. Avoid giving Christmas presents to family members in high-risk occupations: "No iPod for you, electrical line worker!" Keep tabs on friends with unhealthy habits: "Oh, wait, you're smoking again? Gimme back that sweater."

The Newborn Ultimatum
Should you bring a child into the world with a raging psycho who can occasionally be nice? Um...well...sure...assuming you've already struck out with all the crack-addicted prostitutes. ("Aww, look, little feller's got his daddy's eyes and his mommy's Hep C.")

Call Wading
You, too, need to start a conversation with "Remember when," as in, "Remember when you divorced me and married that other woman?"

Buddy Heat
Men like to chase things. They're the hunters of the species. They don't like to be gathered...

Gone With The Windy
Here you are, two lovers, torn asunder by fate -- or rather, the fact that one lover totally forget about the existence of the other until he got a little high and dry on JDate...

Girls Just Wanna Have Funbags
Got a day job traveling to convention centers and sitting on top of cars? Is your workstation a greased pole?

Easier Unsaid Than Done
Nothing takes the weird and awkward out of dating like sending a guy a typed statement about how weird and awkward you found your date.

Less Is Amour
The course of true love doesn't always run smooth, but must it really run around the house waving a frying pan and screaming obscenities?

Leave Will Keep Us Together
The point of the first date is seeing if it makes sense to go on a second date, not letting a girl know how ashamed you were when you wet the bed at sleepaway camp...

The Love Bloat
Yes, the suburbs are just teeming with wives calling to their husbands as they're going out the door for work, "Honey, want me to TiVo your dinosaurs thing in case your sex date runs long?"

Felon Like Some Company
I guess you're asking me to post a personals ad for you: "Enjoyed long walks on the beach; now enjoying short walks between electrified fences."

House Swarming
When you've just moved in with your boyfriend, you should be doing unspeakable things all over the couch, not trying to get on the waiting list for a comfortable seat for Bananagrams.

Desperately Reeking Susan
It's hard enough to apply latex before sex without breaking the mood. Try telling your girlfriend that you just have to hose her down with Febreze.

Knit Booty Call
One of the riskier methods of birth control: the unspoken understanding that he was up for a few hot minutes in the office supply closet, not 21 years in a suburban tract home in a pretty good school system...

The Dark Side Of The Spoon
A Florida woman sold her grilled cheese sandwich on eBay for $28,000 after spotting the Virgin Mary on it -- well, how the Virgin Mary might look as played by Charlize Theron in a trench coat and a finger wave.

Schnapps! In The Name Of Love
As looking for love in all the wrong places goes, looking till you find it passed out in the highway underbrush, drooling on a squashed Pringles can and missing a shoe, pretty much tops the list.

Boycott Meets Girl
You don't have to tolerate this, same as you don't have to tolerate paying your rent -- providing you're willing to tolerate living under a bridge.

Want Lies With That?
Paternal sacrifice is admirable, but more so when working three jobs to keep a roof over the kiddies' heads is what a father's been doing -- and not a string of bar floozies...

Making Leave Last
If, whenever you eat a peanut, you blow up so big somebody tries to stencil Goodyear across your side, then attach a passenger cabin...

Taking A Shrine To Him
For a guy, sex is like a bag of chips. If it's in arm's reach, he'll help himself to some.

The Hide Of Romance
This girl made it clear how far she was willing to go with you -- all the way, just not all the way outside.

Eat, Pry, Love
There are some good liars out there, but even the craftiest can't hide everything all the time. Something will eventually slip through the cracks. Sometimes, a femur.

Speak Now Or Forever Hold Your Piece
It is wise not to rush into asking a woman out. At least wait until she turns around so you can see that she's a woman -- one you happen to be attracted to -- and not a guy with really pretty hair...

Nice Review Of My Book By Ed Rampell
Last minute gift idea? Ed Rampell suggests buying my book...

The Mobile Savage
Suddenly, everybody's internationally famous. Not because they write like Cormac McCarthy, or they're co-starring with Robert De Niro, or they saved 30 people's lives, but because they posted a 30-second clip of their dog wearing sunglasses.

Keep Yore Big Trap Shut
Yes, nothing to make small-town life less socially awkward than standing up at some event, clinking your glass with a butter knife, and announcing, "Guess whose wife I had sex with!"

Show Me The Money Shot
What happened, was he no longer getting the same thrill out of Xeroxing his butt?

Persistent Coffin
Three's a crowd, even if one of you is dead.

Between A Rack And A Hard Place
There are two sides of you talking here: the side dying to believe he'll show you the rack at the store where he found the bra, and the side that can't help but know that the rack he got it off belongs to some skinny blonde.

Flee Infestation
Welcome to the low-impact breakup: "Nothing comes between you and me, Babe, except maybe the world's largest body of salt water."

Ducky Rubber
"Maybe we could spend a respectful, gender-neutral afternoon exploring the Tarzan archetype, then use this coupon I have for a two-for-one cucumber facial?"

Jihad To Be You
Rushdie, who still has a fatwa on him for insulting Islam with "The Satanic Verses," has now made such a public jackass of himself that he's probably sending the jihadists MapQuest directions to his apartment.

For Better Or Much, Much Better
Yoohoo, remember those vows you took? I'm guessing they weren't "Do you take this placeholder until the girl you really love Facebooks you back?"

Tying The Not
If you say to a woman, "I wonder what our kids will look like," it's kind of a bad sign if she says, "Yeah, me too, and if your kids will end up playing with my kids."

Sleeping Booty
You've inexplicably come up with a new favorite sexual position: curling up in a ball and weeping uncontrollably...

Whine Snob
Women have different motives for going to bars. Some go to drown their sorrows and some go to find a nice guy to drown in the toilet in the ladies room.

Gift Hearse
If a hunter approached eating the way you approach dating, he'd sit in his truck sipping hot chocolate, sighing, "I really wish a deer would shoot himself in the head, wrap himself in a tarp, and use his remaining energy to bind himself to my bumper."

Wanton None
Your sex drive is not only in park, it's up on blocks in the front yard...

Lien On Me
You fell for an "investor" with no apparent means of support -- unless you count his daddy, supposedly a doctor with piles of money who's living like he just completed his residency to be a lawn doctor...

Seconds On Carats
If you're from a country where your daddy won't get the same number of goats if you've done the impure act...

Beached Wail
If you discovered you were living over a radioactive waste dump, and Pol Pot, Adolf Hitler and a pedophile were moving in next door...

Chummy Ache
Unless your boyfriend's a German shepherd or an unruly 3-year-old, you don't get to keep him on a leash...

Milked And Honey
You lost your love, you're losing your condo, and Granny's sending over two thugs to break your legs if she doesn't get her money or a great-grandchild by the first of the month...

Legs Wide Crossed
You clearly have a sex deadline and it's somewhere around the five Jack 'n Cokes mark.

Seitan Worshipper
We all have certain things that really push our buttons. Apparently, for this woman, it's that horrible, racist, sexist, in-your-face statement, "Hi, how are you?"

Fee Love
The word "free" turns reasonably intelligent people into zonked-out morons.

Boy Meeks Girl
A girl practically has to sexually assault you to tell you she's interested -- or, as you put it, "grab" you in such a way that she "clearly" lets you know where you stand. Um...either she wants to be your girlfriend or your urologist?

Appease And Carats
Think of the ring like the toilet in your apartment -- something that's all yours, but not to take with you as a keepsake when you move on.

Getting To No Him
Some of the logic I hear from Internet daters is seriously puzzling: "I won't give you my number, but I'd be happy to meet you in a darkened canyon, late at night, next to a shallow grave."

A Wench In The Plans
Maybe you want nothing more from her than friendship (or maybe you're just too old and hairy in the wrong places to have anything more).

Dun Juan
Treating women like scam artists right off the bat -- "I'd love to take you out to buy yourself glass of wine!" -- is right up there with Kmart announcing over the loudspeaker, "Welcome, Kmart shoplifters!"

Resistance Is Feudal
Believe a girl when she tells you she wants to be friends -- if you're both 5.

Squeak Truth To Power
As for what the jihadists get when they get to heaven, it's 72...well...it turns out there's some dispute about the translation: It's either 72 virgins or 72 white raisins.

Afternoon Delete
The ability to interrogate is something so many men look for in a woman, and the sooner the better...

Gawking Tall
Sure, just like you, a woman might buy herself a lap dance, but when's the last time you got one because you were looking to make your buddies squeal with laughter?

Careful What You Witch For
If you love something...slash its tires?

Buddy Language
You seem to think it's easy for guys, that they just say to themselves, "Oh, look! It's human and wearing a bra. I think I'll ask it out!"

While You Weren't Sleeping
Some people count sheep; your boyfriend chases them around the barn trying to wrestle them to the ground...

Buy Sexual
To a guy, a hooker isn't all that different from a hookup...

Boys 'R' Us
Age difference? What age difference? Meanwhile, your girlfriend isn't sure whether to offer you a cigarette after sex or a plate of animal crackers.

Wimp My Ride
In other words, you're a male prostitute -- just without the sex...

Stare Way To Heaven
There are men who make you feel like the only woman in the world and men who make you feel like the only thing standing between them and a clear view of some other woman's jigglies...

Bed Lieutenant
The guy really knows how to romance a woman -- the kind you pull out of a bag and inflate.

Wood If He Could
There are those men who are hot for the meatier ladies. She might be in the company of one of them if she wasn't waiting around for your limp biscuit to rise.

Can't Get There From Hair
"The awkward stage" is what you enter when you ring up your ex-wife and ask why she was such a nervous, nail-gnawing hag back when you were together.

Lions And Tigers And Beers
Finally, a guy you can really count on -- to let you know he's okay when he stumbles through the front door at dawn and you hear the sound of glass breaking in your foyer.

Where The Rubber Meets The Toad
He finds you especially beautiful as you're writing the check to pay his electric bill...

Let's Meek Plans
Loitering is a misdemeanor, not a form of seduction...

When Hairy Palms Met Sally
Wouldn't you know it, he got "bored and curious," as in, "Yawn...I wonder what really enormous fake breasts look like."

Ink Bots
There you are, trying to appreciate the nude female form, when you discover Winnie the Pooh beat you to her cleavage, and there's Tigger, too, climbing out of her underpants.

Breaking The Nice
Sure, all you need to change everybody's opinion of you is a smoking habit and big scary tattoo -- and since you're always mopping up after people, perhaps a skull crossed with a couple of Swiffers?

Cloud Swine
Perhaps insurance companies are finally recognizing being a complete jerk as a legitimate medical condition -- or did he just sprain an ankle walking all over you?

Type Dirty To Me
Just 20 years ago, if you wanted to dash off a suggestive thought or two, you would've had to buy a card, stamp it, mail it, and wait a week. The heat kind of goes out of "What are you wearing?" if your recipient's first thought is "Today...or when this was postmarked?

Bad News Bares
Kids may say "the darndest things," but if there's one thing your kid should never be in a position to say to you, it's "So, Mommy, did you get your freak on last night?"

A Medium-Rare And Wonderful Thing
You and she have at least one big thing in common: the idea that ignoring reality will make it go away, not just curl up behind you and use the extra time to sharpen its teeth...

Harried, With Children
Mommy somehow avoids throwing herself on the floor and screaming, "The cow says, 'I went to Yale for this?! I went to Yale for this?!'"

Hot Serial
There comes a time in a girl's life when she's looking for that special dozen.

Boeing Nowhere Fast
Does this all sound totally lame? Well, yes, but not as lame as it would if you "understood" his telling you he had to reschedule because a giant lizard picked up his apartment building and ate it...

Pane And Suffering
Two people, torn apart by fate, or whatever you call it when you rip a perfectly good pair of panties sneaking through your boyfriend's best friend's window...

Wedding Bells Are Vibrating
There are days when a guy needs to text a girl 15 or 20 times an hour -- typically because he's her gay best friend and it would mean so much to him to have her there the first time he gets his eyebrows string-plucked...

Beating A Dad Horse
Sorry, but who "rebels" by becoming a suburban housewife? What are you, from a long line of pimps, prostitutes, and smack-addicted death metal artists?

A Breath Of Fresh Affair
Home might be where the heart is, but other parts of the guy seem more than willing to make do with by-the-hour motel rooms and other women's apartments.

Donut Seem Unfair?
In worst cases, a woman will eat herself so big that Greenpeace tries to save her -- until they realize that's a scrunchie on her head, not a decorative blowhole.

Match Dot Con
On the bright side, you don't mention discovering that 125 really is her weight -- from the knees down...

Great Walls Of China
It must be tempting to give her an ultimatum: "Bring one more teacup into this house, and I'm renting a bull."

Martyr, She Wrote
Sorry, but "Woman survives on barely any dignity for five straight years" isn't quite on par with "Woman trapped in car for five days stays alive by drinking her own urine and eating the headrest"...

Here Comes The Gloom
"True love" is Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny for grownups...

Stopped In The Name Of Love
Of course, your "soul mate" will speak your language and maybe even attend your high school; it's never somebody thousands of miles away who's running around spearing wildebeests while wearing underwear made out of a gourd...

Gramping Her Style
If you want a fair shake from a jury, rob a liquor store. You'll have your day in court instead of your day in the food court -- being judged by your girlfriend's clique of seventh-grader girlfriends from their jury box at Cinnabon...

Depth And The Maiden
Complaining that men want beautiful women is like complaining that you have to tuck cheese into your mousetrap and not a copy of the Financial Times of London...

Bunny Can't Buy You Love
Of all the ridiculous reasons to stay in a bad relationship, at least you picked a cute one. You're actually going to stick around for increasingly occasional bad sex and near smotherings by a boyfriend who refuses to kiss you or pay attention to you...because Flopsy and Mopsy can't suffer the effects of a broken home?

Braking Wind
There's a reason they don't put women in your position on interrogation duty at Guantanamo: "Why won't you tell me your feelings? Where do you see us next year at this time? Don't you love me? I'm 38, and I want a baby!" Sure, this is torture to a guy, but not the kind that's gonna make him talk.

Turd Wheel
The guy is genteel enough to refer to the girl as his sister, but she's basically a big tumor with driving privileges...

"I Pink, Therefore I Am"
I'm not saying women shouldn't follow their dreams, but if your dream involves roping off air in art galleries, you'd better have a backup plan, and not one you met at a bar.

Skanks For The Memories
A caring, emotionally together woman would make you feel like the only guy in the world, not the only guy who has to take an international flight to get in line to sleep-grope her...

A Slap In The Facebook
The leopard showed you his spots. In fact, he repeatedly rubbed your nose in his spots, then texted you at 2 a.m. to see if he could pop by for an hour or two to do it again.

Loot Conquers All
Corporations spend billions instructing people in how to show they care; for example, advising everybody to "Say it with flowers" -- which does much more for the floral industry than "Say it by getting down on your hands and knees and scrubbing around the toilet."

You Had Me At Hell
I had a friend die, and if anything, she died crowded, with the nurses scolding her friends for violating fire codes...

Can't Take A Choke
When I hear couples brag, "We just knew from the moment we saw each other!" I'm amazed that they think this is romantic, and not an announcement that they're idiots. I always want to ask, "What, exactly, did you know? That she's reasonably tall, attractive in a sort of bookish way, and you wanted to have sex with her?"

The Beginning Of The Endless
You probably just missed taking a married, middle-aged dad to prom...

Stalking On Air
"Sex and the City" by any other name is just as off-putting to men; yes, even "Sex and the Prehistoric Countryside," which pretty much describes your approach to seduction: a woman pursuing a man with all the subtlety of a hungry velociraptor after a small woodland animal...

Serf And Turf
You are who you are: a girl who winters in the exact same one-bedroom apartment where she summers, springs, and falls...

It's The Belittle Things...
For Rick and Ilsa, it was "We'll always have Paris." What will your parting words be, "We'll always have Guantanamo"?

Adam's Ribbing
Excuse me, but are you a man or a gender studies paper?

My Fair Cleaning Lady
First you're supposed to live, and then you're supposed to retire. What are you two going to do, sit in your rocking chairs reminiscing about the life you were too tired and angry to have?

Better Loving Through Chemistry
Okay, he's 40-something, but he can still lead a girl to bed and show her around the circus...

Sex And The Biddy
Some guys go for older women, often because they're drawn to their self-assurance and sexual confidence. After all, they can get insecure and self-defeating from a hot 20-year-old with breasts that haven't lost all their elastic...

Sublets Get It On
Just get in bed with the guy and see if he complains. Say something only vaguely explanatory. Like "I saw a bug." Or "I had a bad dream." Or "Whoops! There was a lot of fog in the hallway, and I guess I got lost on the way back from the bathroom."

From Beer To Eternity
At baseball games, a lot of people cut out early to beat the rush. Maybe this guy drank so much that he did that -- and then, at the bar, remembered, "Oh, crap, I was on a date!"

You Kant Get It All In One Place
As a woman who uses five-dollar words, can you be satisfied with a man who only has $2.75 or so to play around with?

Cache Him If You Can
If your boyfriend's next girlfriend thinks he's being kind of forward on the first date, chances are it isn't because he's trying to find the clasp on her bra; he's just looking for the transmitter...

Dusting After Him
Little girls play house. Little boys play war. War is messy, okay? Like, when you're in the foxhole, nobody's complaining, "You left shells everywhere again, and you never pick up the fresh flowers when it's your turn!"

Second To Nun
Your problem isn't that you don't have the perfect boyfriend right here, right now, but that you're in a panic about it, probably making you about as seductive as a mountain lion that hasn't eaten for weeks: "Shall I pounce on you from above, claw your heart out and eat it raw, or do you feel you need a glass of wine first?"

Advice Goddess Columns

Amy Alkon

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