My boyfriend, who shows signs of narcissism and misogyny, enjoys your column, and no wonder, as you often indirectly side with men by making women look like jealous shrews. Even if you are right, maybe these women who write you need somebody to be nice to them. As for my boyfriend, his mom is a lifelong nut job, which has to affect how he sees women. It probably doesn’t help that I didn’t have very positive role models growing up, either. He can be a real jerk, but he’s hot, sex can be great, and we both enjoy going to alt. rock venues. I guess I’m in a love/hate thing with this “piece of work,” as an astrologer called him. Maybe he’s my karmic payback for not wanting kids?

“Torn”? Of course you’re torn. You’re a woman dating a misogynist -- a woman-hater. This is like being a black girl dating a guy whose leisurewear is a pointy white hood, or a Jewish girl with a thing for neo-Nazis, or, better yet, Elie Wiesel on a dinner date with Eva Braun. This isn’t to say there’s no love in your relationship, as your boyfriend’s also a narcissist -- probably prone to blurting out “I love you so much, it hurts!” while you gaze deep into his eyes and he gazes over your shoulder into the mirror.

Luckily, you’ve pegged the real problem here, which is…me? And then there’s the moon in Aquarius, Mommy retrograde, and/or what looks to be a guy flipping you the bird in Saturn. Or, maybe it’s “karmic payback” -- the ridiculous notion that, behind the scenes of the universe, there’s some cross of Buddha, Santa, and a tax accountant calculating who’s been naughty and nice, and doling out jerk boyfriends to the intentionally barren. In reality, evidence points to “fate” being pretty random: 4-year-olds sometimes die horribly in car accidents -- and probably not because some balance sheet showed them sneaking cake before dinner or committing a cold-blooded triple murder.

Maybe your real-real problem is blaming everything short of acid reflux for your current situation. Come on, you aren’t with this guy because you lacked “positive role models” growing up, but because you lack a sense of personal responsibility now that you’re grown up (or, at least, taller). Lots of people have rough childhoods. At 6, I’d already killed Jesus, or so I was told -- which made me rather unpopular, and about as assertive as lettuce well into my 20s. That wasn’t working, so I went off and worked on myself -- until I could toss off the punch line, “Yeah, I whacked him, and I got away with it, too!”

The last thing anybody writing me needs is for me to be “nice” so they can feel better about draining their life into a dismal relationship. Many of the life-wasters are men. Many more are women. And, if I had to pinpoint the single biggest misery-maker in relationships, it’s women who see having a relationship as a substitute for having a self. The runner-up? People loath to admit that their relationship isn’t exactly a hailstorm of bliss, and it’s time they exercised a little control over what they let into their lives, and what they let stay. Granted, there can be extenuating circumstances, like when your partner seems unique and irreplaceable; you know, like one of those rare men who’s into sex and rock ‘n’ roll. It could be tough landing that again -- unless, of course, you’re willing to pull on a tight T-shirt and spend 10 seconds in a beer line at a Weezer show.

Your advice to the woman who slapped the man in the bar who tried to guess her age, weight, and bra size was completely disgraceful. Yes, she overreacted somewhat; however, your comment “To avoid attention from men, hold girls’ night out in a convent, not a bar” was appalling. The conversation was obnoxious no matter how drunk the guy was. I don't feel she acted like a victim, but like a woman strong enough to handle herself. For that I applaud her! Women and men alike should be able to go anywhere and be treated with respect. My guess is that you believe women should also expect to be raped if they go through the wrong part of town!

“Women and men alike should be able to go anywhere and be treated with respect.” Yes, they should! And I should be a rock star/Nobel Prize-winning physicist and live rent-free in Bel Air. And Osama bin Laden should renounce terrorism and devote the rest of his life to crocheting iPod sleeves in the form of bunnies and turtles while whistling “I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing.”

Unfortunately, I’m still waiting for MapQuest directions to Utopia. Until I get them, I’m compelled to give advice for people who live in the real world -- where Osama isn’t known for his slip stitch, the best manners aren’t found at the bottom of a beer mug, and where I’ll have a shot at the Nobel the day they start giving it away on lottery scratchers.

If Albert Ellis, one of the fathers of cognitive behavioral therapy, heard what happened in the bar, he’d probably quote the Greek philosopher Epictetus: “What disturbs [people’s] minds is not events but their judgments on events.” A woman who’s convinced of the idea of men as oppressors -- especially one who’s been brain-snatched by the Victim-Industrial Complex feminism has become -- will see everything through victim-vision. An extreme case is “feminist vegetarian theorist” Carol J. Adams, who claims eating meat promotes the subjugation of women, and, according to “The Harvard Crimson,” “called asparagus a phallic symbol and said parsley was representative of pubic hair.” (No word on what it means if your mashed potatoes resemble Betty Friedan.)

So, some drunk asks your bra size. You can outsmart him, out-funny him, or treat him like a bar snack stuck to the bottom of your shoe. But, delivering a lecture in women’s studies at the top of your lungs, then smacking him one? You don’t do this because you feel powerful, but because you have the self-image of “Squash me, I’m a bug.” If you’re looking to effect change, consider the difference between “losing your temper” and directing your temper like a laser. Rage is toxic. Stress hormones shut off your ability to reason, and turn your body into a little shop of poisons. This is your idea of empowerment? Well, that, and the notion that men who hit women are guilty of assault, but women who hit men are worthy of…applause?

Life is a hostile workplace. Approach it accordingly. The woman in question wrote, “The last thing I wanted was attention from men,” but proceeded to run off to a pickup joint. This makes about as much sense as going to a packed stadium for a little solitude, or holding your A.A. meeting in the corner liquor store. As for whether women should expect to be raped in a dodgy part of town, well, admitting it’s a possibility seems a better defense than celebrating your freedom to jog in a short skirt through dark alleys shouting, “Take back the night!” and “No means no!”

My boyfriend of five years was a father figure to his two step-daughters from his last relationship, and gets teary-eyed when he doesn’t hear from them. The problem is, he’s sneaking calls to them -- only calling them or their mother from work. If one of the girls calls him at home, he goes into the other room and gets off the phone quickly. It’s not that I can’t trust him, but part of me feels that their mother’s still on his mind, too. Bringing this up causes a heated argument. He says I’m insecure, it’s driving him crazy, and makes him feel hesitant to visit them. Is his behavior suspicious, or am I paranoid?

Crime of the century! Right up there with genocide, roadside bombings, and slapping around old ladies. Go ahead, accuse him, based on all the damning evidence at hand: “Why, you…you…really good dad!”

You don’t mention finding lipstick on his collar, or a bill for three hours at a motel. Maybe what’s really getting to you is a crayon you pulled out of his jacket pocket, along with a charge slip from Toys “R” Us. You can get away with accusing him of having an affair with the mom, but it’s a little too Wicked Witch to scream at him for maintaining a relationship with the kids: “Admit it! Admit it! I know you bought her a Happy Meal! And her sister, too!”

Sure, he’s sneaking calls to them. Consider this: Guys sneak beers, and maybe cigarettes, but never broccoli. They don’t usually double back from work to mow the lawn, or tiptoe out in the dead of the night to return library books. But, when decency gets criminalized, the decent get sneaky. Chances are, you made it clear that you weren’t willing to share this guy’s attention, not even with a couple kids. That’s probably what made him pull back to self-preservation mode, the diplomacy of “What she doesn’t know won’t hurt me.”

Here he is, not even their official dad, and he gets weepy when he doesn’t talk to them. This is the stuff Hallmark TV specials are made of, yet you’re turning your relationship into an episode of “Prison Break.” You admit, “It’s not that I can’t trust him.” No, it’s that you’re irrational and insecure, and making his life hell is probably your way of controlling how much of it he diverts to people who aren’t you. Come on, after five years, you don’t know what he’s made of, or whether he still has the hots for the last lady in his life? If he is running away with her, he’s an awfully slow runner. Like, at this rate, he might be able to beat Stephen Hawking across my living room rug.

Granted, he could leave you for the mother -- or for some chick he bumps into at the mailbox when he’s sneaking a call to the kids, but keeping him on a choke chain won’t prevent it. Try a different strategy for a month, and see where it gets you: Admit to him that you’re insecure, and that his sense of duty isn’t cause for concern but cause to be with him in the first place. Encourage his relationship with the kids, and give him the leeway to conduct phone conversations in private, without the Soviet State of Girlfriend listening in. You might just come to see him for what he appears to be: a guy on the phone because he cares about his kid’s math grade, not because he’s recruiting housewives to remake your relationship into the suburban version of Hef and the triplets.

Are all guys who aren’t gay gross slobs? So often, when a guy’s invited me over after the second or third date, I’ve discovered such a disgusting disaster area that I wish I’d worn hip-high wading boots. The specifics: dirty, wadded-up towels on the floor, a week’s worth of dirty dishes in the sink, decades of crud on the fixtures, and a bathroom so vile that I put off using it until my bladder’s ready to burst. Do guys simply not see this stuff? Do they see it and just not care? And does it not occur to them that a woman might be turned off by such slovenliness and filth?

It isn’t that guys don’t notice the filth, it just takes them a little longer -- like until the crud impedes access to the bathroom or the fuzz on the dishes evolves to the point where it hisses at the dog.

Now, not every straight guy is a slob, and not every gay guy is fastidious, but there’s a reason the TV hit was “Queer Eye For The Straight Guy” and not “Straight Eye For The Queer Guy” -- the home makeover show to help all the gay men whose living spaces have been featured in “Architectural Digest.” And, sure, there are squalor-dwelling chicks out there, but when a woman apologizes for her “disaster area” it’s likely she’s telling you she’s run out of color-coordinated Kleenex and forgotten to pick up fresh flowers.

Because many women can’t imagine that a man would think differently than they do (thanks, in part, to the toxic mold that is radical feminism) they often take it personally when a man invites them into what looks to be a one-bedroom/one-bath Petri dish decorated in a landfill motif. The perceived insult may be magnified if he’s a guy who typically looks shaved and bathed, and like he picked his clothes out at a department store, not out of a dumpster. I mean, jeez, in honor of your presence, couldn’t he have at least hosed the place down?

The truth is, as you suspected, straight guys just don’t have the filth and disarray vision that women and gay men do. Studies show gay men’s attention to environmental detail is similar to that of straight women, but in general, “the female brain takes in more sensory data than does the male,” writes brain researcher Michael Gurian in “What Could He Be Thinking?” How much more visual detail does the female brain take in? Well, in an object recall test by York University psychologists Irwin Silverman and Marion Eals, women remembered the name and placement of 70 percent more items than the men did. At that rate, it shouldn’t come as a surprise if a guy doesn’t notice the dog hair, beer cans, and Taco Bell wrappers -- at least, not until they start blocking his view of the game.

Men can be obsessive about detail, explains Gurian, but their mental and visual attention is usually single-minded and achievement-oriented. Gurian gives the example of a man’s meticulousness in building a model ship in a tiny glass bottle. “He is focused on doing whatever it takes to succeed in reaching his goal,” but in his day-to-day life, “he doesn’t experience the mess in the house as a challenge over which to triumph.” (There’s still hope somebody will come up with a Pro-Am tournament of housekeeping.)

According to Silverman, Eals, and other researchers, a guy’s tendency to let his home become a pizza crust wilderness refuge probably traces back to our hunter-gatherer past. Men’s current visual and attentional strengths correspond to what would’ve made them successful hunters: the distance vision and mental focus needed to track and bring home dinner -- instead of being eaten by what was supposed to be dinner. Women’s superior peripheral vision and ability to process detail would’ve helped them spot the family’s favorite edible plants in a big tangle of vegetation -- while making sure the children weren’t playing in wildebeest traffic.

Culture or training may mitigate the modern man’s natural crud-blindness. My German friend Thomas, for example, can be awakened from a deep sleep by a lone crumb in the middle of the counter. If you’re a clean freak, find a guy like him. Otherwise, if a guy’s a slob, but a quality slob, maybe resign yourself to living alone and having him come over to your place. If you must live with him, keep in mind that he probably isn’t leaving a trail of trash because he’s a bad guy, but simply because he’s a guy. To keep the peace, hire a good cleaning person -- hard to find but nowhere near as scarce as really great men you click with. When you find one, why let a little thick, green bacteria keep you apart?