Do straight guys who aren’t Dennis Rodman ever wear makeup in their everyday lives? Maybe go to the office with a little hider on? Or a little more? If women can wear all this stuff to improve their appearance, why can’t men?

A man improves his appearance by getting into a Jaguar, not Maybelline Dream Matte Mousse Foundation.

Consider your target audience. On one hand, women do want the “strong-but-sensitive” man, the guy tough enough to shed a couple tears when the chick-flick turns tragic. On the other hand, that’s assuming it doesn’t cause his mascara to run into his beard. Of course, women wear makeup because men are attracted to pretty women. Although some gay men and starstruck 14-year-old girls are into pretty men, most women are not. Research shows women prefer tall men, and those with that nice broad-shoulders-into-narrow-hips “vee.” But, in study after study, they rated money, status, power and potential more important than looks -- which is why you’ll see the world’s most beautiful women out with the ugliest little meatballs of men. There’s nothing that makes a stubby schlub look 6 feet tall like 10 million dollars piled on his head.

Of course, money isn’t everything. A woman has to consider how a man’ll handle any saber-toothed tigers they might encounter on their way to the coffee joint. Yeah, yeah, I know, those things died out some 10,000 years ago, but try getting the message to a girl’s genes. She might be partying like it’s 1999, but like all humans, she’s genetically hard-wired for 1.8 million years ago; which means she’s not only drawn to “providers” but protectors, too. That’s why the guy who wants the girl should look like he’ll be the one going downstairs with the baseball bat when she hears an intruder -- and without stopping in the bathroom to check for enlarged pores.

But, wait, what about “metrosexuals,” the hordes of preening, plucking, flaming heterosexuals who supposedly get the girl by becoming just like her? Metrosexuals? What metrosexuals? Sorry, but did you actually notice men across America stampeding out of sports bars to go on a gender bender, and running around like Brit soccer star David Beckham in pink nail polish and a sarong? Sure, there are guys who are femmy control freaks. There always have been, and they’ve never been attractive to women. The term “metrosexual” was coined in 1994 by Brit journo Mark Simpson, to poke fun at the commercialized man. And wouldn’t you know it, after he wrote a follow-up for Salon.com in 2002, American ad agency honcho Marian Salzman proclaimed it a trend. Yeah, it’s a trend all right -- among marketing execs who’d like to see the other half of the population lining up to swipe their Amex at the Clinique counter.

If you’re a 19-year-old skinny kid in a goth band, okay, you can borrow your girlfriend’s eyeliner. If you’re a 32-year-old, paunchy, balding insurance salesman, nuh-uh. For you, and for all men who aren’t rock stars, drag queens, or Pirates of the Caribbean, good grooming is limited grooming: clean fingernails, a shave, maybe a dab of hair gel, and “Aren’t you glad you used Dial?” If you have a zit going off like a car alarm, yes, you can take your big man paw and spackle it with a little colored Clearasil. But, remember, venturing any further into face painting gives rise to all the wrong questions, like the last thing you want some hot woman in a dimly lit bar to whisper in your ear: “Do you happen to have a spare tampon?”

I recently got in touch with my high school sweetheart (AKA the love of my life). He said I had uncanny timing since he’d just gotten divorced, and we met at a club and talked and laughed for hours. He e-mailed later saying I was really sexy, and he’d had a great time. I started e-mailing him about topics I find interesting, like overpopulation and Israeli-Palestinian conflicts. First, he was into it, but we had a heated debate about how to control overpopulation (which I feel very strongly about) and suddenly his e-mails dropped to two words at most. What happened? Did my passion for protecting the environment and humanity scare him off?

Do you want a boyfriend or a bar fight?

You’d like to believe this guy just wasn’t man enough to handle the issues: “Did my passion for protecting the environment and humanity scare him off?” Oh, please. No, probably the fact that he just got divorced, and the idea of bringing a combative woman into his life fills him with about the same joy as the prospect of adult circumcision.

If your in-person chat was anything like the e-mail exchange you forwarded me, one or both of you must take your conversational cues from humorist Fran Lebowitz (“The opposite of talking isn’t listening. The opposite of talking is waiting”). Of course, e-mail brings out the worst in those with a tendency toward monologue over dialogue. At least in instant messaging there’s an in-the-moment opportunity to correct misunderstandings. But, only face to face do you have all the information -- the ability to notice that something you’ve said has caused the other person to boil with rage, fall asleep, or go over and sit on somebody else’s lap.

What’s with all the typing, anyway? You haven’t seen the guy since high school, but instead of snuggling up to him over a bottle of wine on a red velvet banquette, you’re home alone pounding out position statements on Mahmoud Abbas. Come on, is the point getting to know each other or proving what a little miss smartypants you are? If you simply like to hear yourself talk, why not save him the aggravation, and just leave yourself long, rambling messages on your answering machine?

Now, let’s say you want to save the spotted owl, and he’s sending out Evites to a spotted owl chili cookoff. And maybe he traded in his Hummer for an 18-wheeler with the bumper sticker, “Proud Supporter Of OPEC,” and spends his free time pouring used oil down the drain. The big issue in a relationship actually isn’t the issues. I just read a comprehensive study about this by University of Iowa psychologists Shanhong Luo and Eva C. Klohnen that really surprised me. They found that people tend to couple up with others who are similar in attitude, religion and values, but it’s overall personality similarity that’s the best predictor of whether they’ll be happy together. Maybe that’s how America’s strangest bedfellows, Republican apologist Mary Matalin and Democratic apologist James Carville, make it work. Or maybe they just have some really stupendous sex: “You dirty, dirty liberal!” “Say that again, and you’ll see at least one WMD!”

In other words, you don’t have to open your head, extract all political thought, and refill it with lime Jell-O. You (and whoever) do have to start with a base of good feeling to bridge disagreements -- honeymoon first, irreconcilable differences later. Luckily, it generally doesn’t take much to bond with a guy: Just undo a couple buttons on your blouse and ask him about himself; no need to get right in there and club him over the head with a baby seal.

My daughter is getting married this month, and we’re having a formal evening reception featuring champagne and dancing. On the invitation, we stated “Adult Reception.” You cannot imagine the trauma this has caused. We don’t have the budget to have lots of children at the reception, but more importantly, my daughter, her fiancé, and I feel a formal evening event is not appropriate for children. Were we out of line, and do we need to apologize?

Well, excuse you if the last two words you want to hear at your daughter’s wedding are “FOOOOD FIGHT!” And maybe, just maybe you’d like to avoid having some parent pull you aside at the reception and whisper, “You don’t think the bridesmaids’ dresses are flammable, do you? My 8-year-old’s in her arson phase again.”

Who says America isn’t a monarchy? It’s ruled by millions of tiny tyrants named Cody and Madison, presiding over adult-sized serfs called parents whose single greatest fear is not being liked by their children. Such parents have their uses. No, not setting boundaries, but filling toy orders, nodding submissively at their children’s self-revised bedtimes, and sweeping up meatloaf and peas hurled on the floor and replacing them with Cocoa Krispies with a side of Snickers in chocolate sauce.

Parents like these are convinced that the world revolves around their children, and they can’t understand why your wedding should be any different: A little cake, a little champagne, and little Amber yelling out in the middle of the father of the bride’s toast, “Mommy, Jason cut one!” “Did not!” “Did too!” The truth is, even well-behaved kids are still kids: at times, whiney, ornery, fidgety attention-piggies. The bottom line is that this event is not being catered by Ronald McDonald, and will not feature kiddie karaoke, games of Super Soak The Groom, or Pin The Tail On The Bride. Accordingly, you tactfully informed your guests that you’re having an “Adult Reception” instead of getting more to the point: “Leave your loud, underparented brats at home.”

Quite frankly, you’re doing the rest of us a favor by setting limits for the savages. Because people get tweaked about it doesn’t mean they’re right and you’re wrong. (It’s your party, you can ban crying babies if you want to -- and shy, angelic 13-year-olds, too.) Think about what these people are asking; essentially, “Hey! Where’s my kid’s free dinner and entertainment?!” It’s the height of rudeness. And now, ask yourself something: What kind of person goes through “trauma” over a subtly worded hint that an elegant champagne formal is no place for children? Who else? The parents who are last to understand that having their particular kids in attendance means you’ll not only need monogrammed napkins and place cards, but precut strips of monogrammed duct tape to bind and gag the little darlings when they act out.

As for any parents who get indignant at the need to hire a sitter, if this was going to be an issue, they should’ve used protection. That said, if some of your guests are coming from afar and bringing their children, you might want to provide a list of baby-sitters, or even set up a baby-sitting service in a hotel room or at somebody’s house. But apologize? Please. You may as well send out revised invitations that say, “Why stop at the kids? Why not bring your Saint Bernard? And, hey…while you’re at it, truck over your daughter’s life-sized robotic pony so she can gallop circles around the bride and her father while they share the first dance.”

I’m 26; my boyfriend is 32. He called me “a woman about to bloom,” and said he wants to be there to help. He started by pushing me to move out of my mother’s house after my situation there became unbearable. I dreaded leaving my comfort zone, but now I’m thrilled to have my own place. He’s also urging me to move up the ranks at work by dressing the part, being punctual, and wearing makeup. His exact words: “You will wear makeup.” No, I don’t dress as nicely as I could, and I’m really makeup-free out of laziness, but I was in jeans, an old shirt, and no makeup when we met. Lately, even if we’re going to the mall, he expects me to look nicer. Sometimes I feel like a child being told what to do. When I overslept and was late to work yesterday, he said, “This is not acceptable.” Granted, he’s successful, works hard, and is never late. Some of my friends think he’s controlling, and others think he’s pushing me to be my best. Which is it? He says he loves me for who I am, and then tells me to change.

You aren’t the only one who’s confused. Does your boyfriend often seem unsure whether to take you to dinner or to the dog park so you can scramble after an old tennis ball, and maybe sniff some Yorkshire terrier butt? Set the guy straight: You’ll take advice, upon request -- not orders. You’re his girlfriend, not his cocker spaniel.

Okay, he’s older, seems to know a few things, and hasn’t been late since he emerged from the womb. And you? In the words he must’ve borrowed from some ad exec on the pantiliner account, you’re just “a woman about to bloom.” He probably means well, but have you ever known a plant to flower because somebody’s standing over it and yelling at it?

Don’t be too quick to assume that his South American dictator approach to life-coaching comes from feeling personally together and secure. Chances are, beneath that titanium super-executive shell of his, there’s a tiny, sweaty man living in terror of spontaneity, uncertainty, and disorder. Avoiding those fears turns a guy into a control freak -- staving off his anxiety by micromanaging you from head to toenail polish, all the while insisting he loves you just the way you are.

That said, can you really argue with being on time and looking spiffy for work? Well, unlikely as it is that your boss will base her next round of promotions on which employees arrive latest and most undergroomed…maybe your boyfriend’s ambition is not your ambition. Figure out who you are and what you want, and maybe it’ll coincide with what he thinks is best for you. Or, maybe you’ll choose to take your chances that, say, avoiding what I call “The Purina Lifestyle” (cat-food casseroles in your 80s) won’t hinge on whether you have the energy to apply eyeliner on Wednesday.

As for dressing up to please your boyfriend, what does dressing up mean to you? Is it no big deal, just a little thing you do to make him happy? Or is it what camping is to me, as somebody who sees “getting close to nature” as walking down a city sidewalk where there’s grass growing up between the cracks? I can love a man to pieces, but if I’m cold, dirty, and being chased by a bear…suddenly, it will all become clear: Love is not the answer, a four-star hotel room with pulsating shower heads is the answer.

My co-worker’s not my type, but, I guess, is cute in a navy blue golf shirt kind of way. He’s nice and smart, so I often talk and joke with him. Lately, though, he seems to think I want to be more than just co-workers (eeuw). He goes out of his way to avoid me, and talks loudly about his girlfriend when I'm in earshot -- his way of rejecting my “advances” (like saying "bless you" when he sneezes). This has happened twice before at other jobs and makes me feel awkward and dumb. Why are some guys like this while others get that I’m just a very friendly person?

--Sending The Wrong Signals?

A man can get “signals” from a woman across the room with her back to him, confiding to her friend, “By age 8, I knew I was a lesbian”; which, of course, is her way of telling the man, “Just for you, big guy, I’m wearing the purple pasties with the propellers.”

Studies by psychologist Antonia Abbey, evolutionary psychologist Martie Haselton, and others, show that men actually have a tendency to perceive friendly overtures as overly-friendly overtures -- inferring sexual interest from a woman where there is none. The most likely explanation is Haselton and David Buss’ “Error Management Theory”: Humans are evolutionarily hard-wired to make errors in judgment on the side of their least “costly” option. Women, for example, are prone to underestimate men’s commitment, since, back in the Pleistocene era when human psychology was formed, being easily charmed into believing a cad would stick around to dad probably meant starving their furry little children to death. Likewise, in the great hairy singles bar that was the cave, it would have been less costly for a schlub to make a fool of himself chasing a girl who wasn’t interested than to miss an opportunity to pass on his schlub genes.

Be aware that there is a certain kind of guy who’s more likely to get freaked by friendly. He’s the guy who goes decades without a girl giving him a second look; well, save for a steel-piercing glare that says “Hello, rapist!” when he randomly pulls into the parking space next to hers, and accidentally makes eye contact. He’s the guy who always had a stuffed-up nose in junior high, who might have a girlfriend now, but only because she clubbed him over the head and dragged him on dates. Or, at his worst, he’s the guy who wrote me about the co-worker who “broke (his) little heart.” For over a year, he had it all planned: “I figured she'd marry me and have my babies.” And then, she got engaged -- for the second time since he’d known her. Oops…it seems he’d never gotten around to asking her out!

So, is your problem merely being overly sunny to the overly pathetic? If you can honestly say you’re just being friendly, not “Can you help me find the file cabinet key I lost down my cleavage?” friendly, you’ll have to decide what’s more important, being true to yourself or never being mistaken for the office nympho. If it’s the latter, wear dark glasses and a smock, keep your head down in the hall, and speak only when spoken to. The alternative? Deciding it’s their problem if they get squirmy when you wear those Ann Taylor separates that scream “Line up here for a lapdance,” and say sexually charged things like “Hey, how was your weekend?”