Advice Goddess Columns

Destitution Wedding
Being there on even your most special friend's special day shouldn't mean you have to take the bus for a year...

Ed Driftwood
It sounds like your boyfriend is really going places. Mainly to the fridge and then back to the couch...

Carbon Dating
The youngest guy to even include 58-year-old women in his search criteria will likely want to talk about Titanic -- not the movie but the boat wreck he survived...

Hooked On A Felon
When your friend meets guys online, it shouldn't be on MegansLaw.com...

Bridle Party
Unless your girlfriend's name is Moses and she's just come back from a mountaintop chat with God, she doesn't get to hand down commandments: "You look at some other woman's woohoobies and I'll ask The Big Guy to smite you"...

June Wetting
There's her father growling, "Why not just flush my money down the toilet?" (Best that she not answer that with, "I actually had my heart set on taking it out to the ocean and drowning it.")...

All Is Not Flossed
Dating a woman who maybe looks like Xena the warrior princess but tastes like Xena's horse after it's licked the break room refrigerator...

Out Of Leftover Field
A month from now, if she's still looking at your buddy the way a dog looks at a piece of bacon teetering on a counter ledge, it's probably time to move on...

Are We Having Fund Yet?
We all dream of finding that special someone to pay the cable bill...

Jerk Stoppage
Unfortunately, "paying the piper" is just a metaphor, out of a folk tale about a town with a rat infestation and a mayor who tried to stiff the medieval cousin of the Orkin Man...

Que Syrah Syrah
If you felt a 2006 Bordeaux would have improved your look, you would have thrown a glass of it on yourself before leaving the house...

Junior High And Mighty
Being male is about being a competitor -- ultimately for women -- down to the smallest scale. As one sperm taunted the other, "You swim like you expect to end up in an old tube sock"...

The Scorn Identity
Facebook is complicated. In fact, there's only one surefire way to avoid seeing somebody in your News Feed, and that's covering your computer screen with duct tape...

May I Have This Glance?
Flirting isn't the only way to get a stranger to stop for you -- but it tends to be more socially acceptable than shooting a tranquilizer dart into their neck...

Bad Harem Day
Ideally, you could have the security of marriage while continuing to pick up sex snacks at the mall food court of bachelorhood...

Sneer Pressure
Being married does allow for some convenient social shorthand. "Meet my husband" is easier than "If I eat a bad clam and end up puking my guts out at 3 a.m., this is the man who'll be holding my hair back"...

Along Came Polygraph
Some people read poetry; your girlfriend lives it: "How do I love thee? You'll soon find out -- after I attach this car battery to your nipples and interrogate you about your lunch"...

All Doc And No Action
It's okay for your doctor to ask you, "Can I give you a breast exam?" -- but not if he adds, "...later tonight, in my Jacuzzi?"

Apartment 2B Or Not 2B
Unfortunately, dropping in on the girls down the hall isn't like visiting a frozen-yogurt shop: "I'm not crazy about the sample you offered; may I try the other flavor?"

Gone With The Windex
It's so rare to find a roommate who cleans the kitchen, I can understand why you wanted to sleep with him...

Plenty Of Fishy
A woman seeking regular commitment-free sex is a bit like a man just looking for somebody to join him for scrapbooking and a cuddle. Each might be telling the truth, but their target audience will find it hard to believe....

Watching Paint Die
There are questions you long to ask her about her work, such as, "What did you do in art school, spend four years playing Angry Birds on your phone?"

Don Emoticon
Maybe as a preliminary step, you could make plans to go to the same Starbucks but hide behind your laptops and email each other...

Six-Month Lay Away
You could tell guys you require a lot of foreplay. Like from winter to the end of spring...

Taking Her Down A JPEG
The reality is, inner beauty alone usually isn't enough, which is why Estee Lauder got rich selling face cream and not books by Gandhi.

The Fastidious And The Furious
You just have different styles of mess management. You can't sleep if there's an unwashed glass in the sink. He likes to let housecleaning wait until it's a toss-up between tidying the place and trying to get away with arson...

Better Sherlock Holmes And Gardens
Prepare to get laughed out of marriage counseling after you grumble to the therapist that what's missing from your marriage is $100 worth of junk from the garage...

Serf's Up!
The way you see it, unless a person's relative is Jimmy Carter, he shouldn't be inviting them over for an afternoon of home improvement...

Sex Degrees Of Separation
What barely happened in Vegas should also stay in Vegas...

Save The Wails
Men tend to like it when a woman screams passionately, but it's less sexy if what she's screaming is "McDonald's is murder!"...

Snot To Trot
If you're inspired to buy something for your new boyfriend to wear, it should be a sweater that shows off his broad shoulders, not a nose guard to keep his finger from scampering up to Booger Hollow...

Fool Disclosure
There's a reason they call it "sloppy drunk" and not "making wise relationship decisions" drunk...

Bambi Meets Waiterzilla
A guy on a date is in a tough position when the waiter comes over and essentially asks, "Can I offer you some sparkling water this evening, or will you be drinking out of the faucet like a dog?"

When Harry Met Hairy
It's great when your girlfriend reminds you of somebody exotic out of the movies -- when that somebody is Mila Kunis or Eva Mendes, not Chewbacca...

Dial Another Day
Giving this woman your number and expecting her to call you is like the lion saying to the gazelle, "Would you mind coming over here and killing yourself, and then I'll eat you?"

The Grating Outdoors
Don't forget my absolute favorite thing about nature -- the whoosh it makes as you're driving past it to get back to your hotel...

Friskies Sour
When you're all out to dinner, you must live for those moments when she and some other woman excuse themselves to go talk about all you guys in the litter box...

Pamper-Resistent
I get where you're coming from. When I was in my late teens, I was hot to be completely independent from my parents. Now that I'm in my late 40s, I wish my parents would get high on LSD and start paying my bills...

A Good Time Was Jihad By All
It's so sweet when you look at a couple and realize that their relationship reminds you of a classic romantic comedy -- like "Apocalypse Now"...

The Deadliest Kvetch
Apparently, the telepathic messages you've been sending her were stopped by their neighbors' chimney. (Just a guess, but do you also do poorly trying to tidy up your house by moving objects around with your mind?)

Cower Rangers
A guy doesn't have to be loud, obnoxious, and "in your face" to succeed with women, but he can't be "in a fetal position behind furniture"...

Callused In Wonderland
On the bright side, if you ever lose her in a mall, finding her should just be a matter of following the trail of black paw prints...

Dinner And A Second Mortgage?
The organ that gets used on the third date isn't supposed to be the kidney you sold on the black market to pay for dinner...

Sigh Tunes
Responding to this question on Reddit, "What is the absolute worst song to play during sex?" Redditor 5secsofpleasure posted, "Hi, I'm Sarah McLachlan, and I'm about to kill your erection"...

Weirding Bells Are Ringing
Taking a guy to a wedding on the first date is like taking a cow sightseeing at a slaughterhouse...

Pottery Will Get You Nowhere
It does seem that being a truly caring friend means putting real effort into gift giving, like by spending six months crocheting a couple an afghan out of cat hair rather than just rolling out of bed and mouse-clicking on something they've registered for at Bed Bath & Be-yawned...

Eat, Pray, Barf
No, she isn't exempt from being considered a pretentious jerk when she signs her credit card slip in Sanskrit...

A Ruse By Any Other Name
Unfortunately, men are more complicated than cats. You can't just tie a beer and a bag of Doritos to the end of a string...

Down On His Luxe
A staycation doesn't have to be a bummer -- provided you don't make it sound like it'll entail your wife's climbing a mountain of dirty laundry while you go sightseeing in the basement...

The Flirt Locker
If you go to a party with your new boyfriend and spend a half-hour mesmerized by another guy, it helps if the guy's wearing a feather boa and size 15 women's shoes...

Kin I See You Naked?
It's sometimes good to confide things of a personal nature to one's uncle -- like that your mother always loved your brother more, not that you aren't wearing any panties...

Making Stall Talk
At a certain point, a woman starts to believe the only way she'll get rice thrown at her is to start a food fight at a Chinese restaurant...

The Rat Of The Litter
Younger brothers do tend to look up to older brothers, and frankly, this is hard to avoid if one's older brother is always dangling out some married woman's second-floor window...

Ex And The City
You apparently forgot to put the word out to local birds to boycott your ex-wife's bird feeder and order squirrels in the park not to take nuts from her...

Wimp Daddy
If timidity were useful in defending people in danger, police sergeants would announce to their beat cops, "Okay, everybody, go out there and hide in the back seat of your patrol car!"...

Licking For Love
Coyotes lick their paws for good reason -- because there's no waiter to bring them a warm washcloth in a little dish...

Flesh Prince
A woman wants to believe a man when he claims he hates those nasty "gentlemen's clubs." Yeah, the last thing any man wants to see is a totally hot 21-year-old with enormous breasts doing upside-down splits on a pole...

Some Like It Hot Mess
The modern damsel doesn't have to be in distress, but it helps if she at least has a few items not yet crossed off her to-do list. Otherwise, what is there for Superman to do but smoke a bowl and make YouTube videos of the cat riding the Roomba?...

Bad Gratitude
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish for compliments and you annoy the crap out of everyone who knows or encounters him.

Took The Wind Out Of Her Zales
"Why should a man give a woman a useless diamond engagement ring, when he could buy her a nice big potato, which she could at least eat?"

Paradise Lust
"And this is the guy who wanted nothing to do with me kissing me under a jungle waterfall..."

Moody Call
Tell her how wrong you were. (This is basically catnip for women, and whether you were actually wrong about anything is immaterial.)

The Blurt Locker
There are solutions that cause more problems than they solve, like giving your car a car bra...

Happily Ever Asshole
Divorce him? Your husband has his merits, like that both of his kidneys seem to work and he has yet to express an interest in drowning squirrels...

Mild Kingdom
Never mind that "Titanic" is a movie about 1,500 people drowning in the freezing Atlantic Ocean. For some, what matters is "Omigod, did that lady's goldfish die?"

The Butt Stops Here
When you marry a man, it isn't because you're looking to walk off into the sunset all by yourself while he's lying facedown on your living room floor staring at an ant, realizing he totally gets what the ant is thinking...

Mouse Ado About Nothing
I guess when you ask a woman whether she'd like to use the power outlet, she should just come right out and say, "I would, but I don't find you very attractive."

Wait Problems
A first date like theirs raises some questions for the second date, such as, "Who should pay the invoice for the side-by-side burial plots?"...

Golden Pond Scum
It shouldn't come as a surprise that her father still wears the pants in the family (even if he also wears the diapers)...

Soul Mite
Long-term relationships aren't for everyone. You look deep into a woman's eyes and whisper those magical words: "I want to spend the rest of my month with you."

Tease For Two
Interestingly, some who do charitable work, like Salvation Army Santas, somehow manage to accomplish it without first re-engineering their cleavage to graze their jawline...

The Blocked Stallion
A man's body language can tell a woman a lot about his intentions. A series of fist bumps, for example, suggests he wants to have a burping contest...

Social Notworking
Facebook brings a lot of people closer, like the hot women you've gone to the trouble of developing friendships with in real life and your brother, who's gone to the trouble of paying his electric bill and turning on his computer...

Battle Of The Divulge
Your boyfriend probably prefers your brother remember him for the wonderful way he helped your granny and not for how he looks in that photo his friend likes to post -- the one where he's passed out on someone's bathroom floor with a bra draped across his chest and "Princess" written across his face with a Sharpie...

Office Despot
Some people would tell you to sprint to the nearest sexual harassment lawyer's office and sue your employers until they're living out of a dumpster...

Wane Man
There are times a man can't help but disappear on a woman, like when he's kidnapped by revolutionaries who happened to stop off for Slurpees and hostages when he was at 7-Eleven.

Another Brick In The Wallow
You've heard that 80 percent of success is just showing up? Well, the other 20 percent is not acting like you got glued to the toilet seat shortly afterward...

Sum Girls
"I love you more than you love me!" is just the thing to say to a boyfriend -- if you want him to take you in his arms so he can look over your shoulder for your replacement...

Going Code Turkey
It isn't hard for a boyfriend to make a woman happy instead of pissed off for days. He just needs the right answer to "Hey, honey, guess what it means when I put my hair in a ponytail and walk out of the room!"

Taking Out The Trashing
A person should get to know you a little before she learns you're a 300-year-old incubus who poisoned our groundwater and killed your neighbors' dog and made it look like a suicide...

Till Dead End Do Us Part
The fact that a man calls for you to come running isn't necessarily reason to do it, unless you're a golden retriever and he's got a dirty tennis ball to throw you...

Everything Happens For A Raisin
Perhaps he was hoping he could get a girlfriend the way a dog gets food scraps: just wait for a woman to fall on the kitchen floor and then carry her off in his teeth...

When Hurry Met Sally
It would be clear you were in the wrong place if you'd spent the first date brimming with child-loathing: "Kids require a total commitment for 18 years -- or maybe 13, if you can get them to run away as teenagers."

Wail Watching
Tearful girlfriend: If you can't stop the rain, you might just make the best of a bad situation and position your girlfriend over your Slip'N Slide.

Barn Yesterday
How could you not see that you were just another crop to be rotated?

Worm Feelings
The ex who won't go: Nothing says "I never want to speak to you again" like picking up the phone to have yet another conversation about it...

Wuss It Good For Her?
You're the sort of boyfriend who would take her camping and, upon hearing a bear crashing through the woods, tuck a hot dog in her pocket and shove her out of the tent...

Prance Charming
Swagger? The stride itself -- that wide-legged rolling gait -- isn't hard to adopt. Just pop a sleeping gerbil in your underwear...

It's Scold In Here
This woman probably couldn't go out with you anyway, as busy as she must be getting the ignition lock replaced on her broom...

Don't Just Mall A Woman
Too bad the two of you aren't cats, or you could just come by with a dead cricket between your teeth...

Too Mush Too Soon
Gestures of love: When that emperor wanted to memorialize his beloved wife, he built the Taj Mahal, not the Taj Ma lean-to...

Hell No, Kitty
Clothes say a lot about a person, but there are times your shirt or skirt or whatever really needs to shut the hell up...

Mystery Meet
People try to put their best foot forward on dating sites, and rather often, it turns out it's not actually their foot...

A Mitey Love
The short caveman would have been less able to reach the lion with his spear: "Take that, you big meanie!"

The Jaws Of Ex-Wife
Flirting actually allows a woman to to make the first move -- but far more alluringly than by yelling "Can't you see I want you, you moron?!" while clubbing a man over the head with the poolside clue phone.

Zero Thumb Game
There are times when a guy knows better than to ask a woman for a second date, like when she ended the first one by throwing herself out of his car while it was still moving...

Cleanup In Aisle Home
It's no small thing, having to wake up every day in some other woman's two-bedroom junk drawer...

Not A Mourning Person
Grieving "wrong": Those who care about you are worried that you aren't wallowing in pain and despair, and they're maybe even a little suspicious: "Come on, man, who's keeping you company if not Misery?"

When Bald Things Happen To Good People
Going bald isn't all bad. If you're like a lot of men, every time you lose a hair off your head, you're a hair closer to growing a ponytail out your nose...

The Upgradest Love Of All
It seems she's got a new take on a classic soulmate anthem: "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, except, hey, check out that old rich guy over there!"

Coitus Frustratus
You aren't a bad girlfriend if you need your boyfriend to be something of an animal in bed, and not the kind found fossilized in rock...

Whistle While You Weep!
It's hard to maintain a veneer of professionalism when the plant's loudspeaker pages you, "Employee #442, Employee #440 is drunk-dialing you on extension 2."

Beating Them About The Head With A Shtick
Self-deprecating humor works best when a man seems to be kidding, not confessing: "Hey, ladies! Look who's barely holding it together over here!"...

The Carpal Tunnel Of Love
Writing and solitude tend to go together. Just think about it: Where was Thoreau's girlfriend? Bottom of the pond?

Ennui Go!
The pressure to be original in love can be pretty trying. Imagine Shakespeare tentatively mumbling to a woman "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" and hearing back, "Ugh, Will...for the third time this week?"

Getting Over The Frump
A woman can go a little too far in trying to avoid crossing the border from sexy to slutty -- all the way over to "sturdy Amish woman about to churn butter."

Time Is On Her Slide
It's hard for the punctual to understand how anyone can treat time like it's stretchy.

Malcolm In The Mid-Life
Confess Viagra use? Just be silently thankful that Mr. Happy stands up instead of fainting when the pressure's on.

The Audacity Of Grope
Going out with your friends shouldn't remind you of the last time you were body-searched at the airport, save for how the airport groperlady probably looked like she wanted to get it over with fast, not like she wanted to lick your tattoo...

Is There An Eco In Here?
If your immediate world will be a dark and horrible place if the man in your life refuses to rinse and reuse his aluminum foil, you may be with the wrong man.

Tail From The Crypt
It can be unsettling when your man comes home with tear stains on his collar, smelling like a trip to the cemetery...

I Sing The Buddy Electric
It isn't like you've stopped sharing your life with her -- not if you count all those times your butt dialed her number and left a muffled five-minute message on her voicemail...

Smells Like Libertine Spirit
Some people in open relationships can come off a little smug about how cool, modern, and progressive they are -- that is, until they write that first check to the private detective to make sure you and their girlfriend are only getting your freak on, not holding hands...

Random Acts Of Silence
"If a woman's into you at all, you don't need to perform like there's a two-drink minimum next to the kale..."

In Sickness And In Stealth
It's so annoying when a woman lets a little thing like a lifelong commitment get in the way of providing you with an hour and a half of better-quality sex.

Belittle Miss Sunshine
Sometimes the technology at hand demands that a person send an abbreviated message -- like when their chisel breaks just as they're etching the last letter of "cancel" into the stone tablet...

Fry, Fry Again
You, like a lot of women, probably love surprises -- just not the sort that leave you kneeling over your boyfriend's lifeless body, wondering whether to call EMS or the coroner. (What, was there no Saran wrap he could put across the toilet bowl?)

To Halve And Halve Not
When they say that to find a prince you have to kiss a lot of toads, this isn't supposed to mean kissing the same two toads a lot -- week after week, for 10 years...

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.

Columns

Amy Alkon

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