I’m a 29-year-old woman who approaches relationships like a guy; meaning, not with the mentality that a relationship is the be-all and end-all. What about being fine with yourself WITHOUT a man? (Oh, what a crazy thought!) For five months, I’ve been seeing a guy who’s loyal, funny, kind, and in love with me -- basically, everything a woman would want. I care for him, but something’s missing -- that really great connection part. If the relationship ended tomorrow, I’d probably miss him, but I wouldn't really care. That sounds awful, I know. Maybe I’m being unrealistic (people tell me that), but I don’t want to settle. I know all relationships are work, and perhaps I’m not working at mine as I should. Still, there ARE couples who seem so effortlessly in love and happy together. Am I just not long-term relationship material? Do I have some deep-seated fear of commitment? Or, could it be I’m just too picky?

Like many people, you apply the Puritan work ethic to relationships: “All relationships are work.” Maybe so, but some relationships are McJobs. Imagine putting an ad in the paper for your current low-benefit, no-advancement situation: “More fun than snuggling up with ‘Accounting Made Simple.’” Or, maybe “Going nowhere with him beats going to the hospital with E. coli.” (Oh, to be young and in apathy!)

Unbridled passion does have its downsides; for example, couples consumed by it are always so busy ripping their clothes off and shoving china from the dining room table that they never get to count the number of little white bumps on the bedroom ceiling. Also, if you do have a spark, there’s a good chance you’ll eventually be sitting around with your girlfriends complaining you’ve lost it, and that Nirvana is starting to look a lot like a run-down section of Bakersfield.

Even so, you’d walk away from everything you have for a chance at a spark. Who do you think you are, missy, that “good on paper” isn’t good enough for you? Well, for starters, you’re a girl whose sense of self isn’t modeled after a sinkhole. Oddly, you’re still influenced by the relationship version of the “starving children in India” argument. In reality, you can hoover up every green bean in the Western Hemisphere, and it will not cause Happy Meals to rain down on Calcutta. Likewise, while there are legions of love-starved women across North America, your being grateful for what you have -- zero connection, but with the perfect man -- won’t lead these women to unlist their numbers so as not to be annoyed at all hours by random marriage proposals.

I once got “fired” by a shrink after one session for an attitude like yours. I was in my early 30s, and having a hard time finding a boyfriend. The shrink listened, then made her pronouncement: “You have high standards, you accept the consequences, that’s very healthy, I really have nothing else to say to you, don’t come back.” Okay, maybe you do fear commitment, maybe you’re too picky -- or maybe you shouldn’t expect to find a guy who’s right for you while you’re tied up with a guy who’s wrong. If you aren’t unhappy holding out for more, why worry that you aren’t unhappy? Just go back to being without a man and being fine with it, but keep looking. While you’re at it, keep in mind that the couples who seem so effortlessly in love are those who held out for chemistry -- having the physical, mental, and emotional hots for each other -- as opposed to what you’ve had for the past five months: indifference with aspirations. (But, hey, whatever sinks your boat!)

My boyfriend and I evacuated New Orleans right before Katrina. We spent the last year in limbo, with our fundamental personality differences thrown into sharp relief. He is a failed professor with no ambition and holds me responsible for his entire self-worth and well-being. He makes a quarter of my salary, yet insists on living a lifestyle that my money affords. He works for evangelical Christians under a ruse that he is Catholic and engaged to me, but he is an atheist and we are hardly engaged. I do love him, but perhaps the only reason we’re together is that we’re in a very different part of the country with only each other to rely on. I've tried ending it three times, but he always insists, “We must agree to break up.” He has a Ph.D. in philosophy with a specialty in logic, and with my M.F.A. in poetry, I cannot win an argument against him. He wants us to see this shrink next week to work out our differences. Would it be callous of me to break it off for good and return to New Orleans?

You should feel worse about abandoning Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Remember her famous poem, “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways”? I don’t think one of the ways was “Like a homeless junkie hustling you for cash in your own living room.”

Okay, so last year, when Katrina hit, it was just the two of you against the elements. Understandable. A year later, it’s still just the two of you against the elements. Not so understandable. What, you’re forced to huddle together in case they crank the air conditioning at the wine bar? You do say you’re braving a very different part of the country with only each other to rely on. Yes, life can be a constant battle on the brutal suburban tundra. Apparently, teamwork is the secret to your survival: You get the check. You also get the tip. And he gets to remind you of his vast intellectual superiority.

Sorry, but Aristotle mudwrestling Emily Dickinson this isn’t. The guy’s an ambitionless, ethically vacant mooch. Sure, he’s got a degree in philosophy, and a specialty in cheap manipulation (basically, he’s a tapeworm with a Ph.D.). You do have to hand it to the guy, who’s at his most industrious when he’s desperate to stay lazy. To that end, he’s now proposing a shrink to help you work out your differences; namely, your inability to find being used anywhere near as sexy as he finds using you. Lemme guess, couples counseling, single payer? Thanks, but you already have a fantastic shrink, one who’s cheap, brief, and dead. Yes, Gertrude Stein told you everything you need to know about your future with this guy: “A sponge is a sponge is a sponge.”

After all you’ve been through with him, you do owe him one thing: Not being in such a hurry to get out of there that you back over him with the U-Haul. You owe yourself more -- answers to a few questions: Did you fall in love or did you just step in it? If you’re responsible for his well-being, who’s watching out for yours? And finally, don’t you deserve more than a mind-gaming user? Even if he does have you confused about the difference between “fiance” and “financing” and the significance of “self” in “self-worth,” there actually is no argument to be won or lost here, there’s only you’re unhappy, and you’re leaving. Or, in poetic terms, “Roses are dead, violets are caving, if I wanted to adopt, I’d pick a child who isn’t shaving.”

You’ll think I'm making this up, but I haven't been kissed in four months -- my boyfriend goes right to the act. He claims my breath is bad, which apparently prevents him from doing anything resembling foreplay, like fondling and caressing. Most humiliatingly, he “forced” himself to kiss me one night by squirting cinnamon spray in his mouth before each kiss. In case he was right, I visited the dentist and told my doctor I had a problem and got a prescription acid blocker. Still nothing. I asked old boyfriends their honest opinion, and they all cheerfully volunteered to kiss me if he won't. Yes, I know sex can be sooo much better, but I’m tired of dating, and he does sweet things no other man has, like washing, waxing and gassing up my car, and taking amazing care of me when I’m sick. Still, I don’t want to go the rest of my life without being kissed.

Some women do take payoffs -- free rent, free breasts, Sub-Zero refrigerators -- to stay in a less-than-ideal relationship. But, a wash, a wax, and a fill-up? Then again, gas prices being what they are, maybe you’re onto something. Let’s just hope you don’t drive a Honda Civic, or even an SUV pulling a houseboat, but something more along the lines of a logging truck towing the USS Nimitz.

Yes, sex can be “sooo much better” -- with a boyfriend whose idea of foreplay isn’t watching you gargle Lysol Basin Tub & Tile Cleaner. Okay, so you’re only trying to make things work with this guy because you’re tired of dating. Tired of dating but bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for constant romantic humiliation? Wow, that’s tired, as in who was your first boyfriend, Ptolemy?

A guy who cares about you makes you feel wanted, not wanted for a tongue swab by the CDC. Not only did that realization escape you, you were too busy getting makeout references from old boyfriends to ask how, exactly, your alleged trench mouth connects to the fact that the only headlights he’ll polish are on your car. Now, I get a lot of advice requests from people who love people who happen to smell. Most would rather fake their own kidnapping than risk destroying the person they love with the truth. This guy, on the other hand, doesn’t have a qualm in the world about whipping out the extra-extra-strength Binaca (now in new cinnamon napalm!)

Sure, maybe you’ve had more than your share of dating horror stories (Ted Bundy showing up for drinks with a tarp and a shovel?), but you’re settling for a guy who’d rather degrade you into snorting acid blockers than admit to intimacy issues, weird sexual aversion(s), possible closethood, and/or fear of saliva. Perhaps what really stinks here is not your piehole but your judgment.

It sounds like you’re committing what evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins (with T.R. Carlisle) dubbed “The Concorde Fallacy,” after the supersonic airliner the Brits and French continued building even when it became clear it would never earn back its costs. Apparently, humans have a tendency to stick with a bad investment based on how much they’ve already put in instead of assessing the likelihood of future returns. In other words, maybe you have better things to do than hang around in hopes Hazmat Boy will someday get into the kinky stuff; say, air kisses and the occasional shoulder squeeze? And no, I’m not talking about you lashing yourself to your car hood and seeing if you can sneak a rubdown.