My boyfriend's from a socially prominent family, complete with a long line of sycophants and hangers-on. I apparently passed the initial vetting process, but a year later, I still feel like I'm auditioning. He sometimes doesn't invite me to events where everyone brings a spouse or a date. I feel like he and others don't think I'm "fabulous" enough. He said his not including me is related to issues he has with letting go and trusting, and mentioned an ex who attended events with him, then let him know she was doing him a favor. I'm trying to be patient and gradual, stop analyzing, and just enjoy our time together. How else can I cope and make this work?

Perhaps you could do more to let these blue bloods know how much you and they have in common. Maybe mention how you learned the ABCs of diplomacy from your father's work at the Embassy (Suites Hotel, where he's the night manager). Share how you felt the day you discovered that you, too, are an heiress, as your father waved his hand over the family holdings, proclaiming, "Someday, this will all be yours." Unfortunately, he wasn't gesturing at the homes, the cars, the yachts, but at the boxes of crap piled up in the basement.

If that campaign doesn't get you in, you might take a lesson from the society stiffs -- those who made their money the old-fashioned way, by inheriting it from their robber baron ancestors -- and stop trying so hard. You've already asked, watched, waited, avoided analysis; you've pretty much done everything short of enrolling in suck-up lessons at the community college. Yet, a year later, your boyfriend's still trotting off solo to society events, leaving you to wait home on the foyer rug like the family dog. (Some girls get into the society pages, some just go on them.)

And why doesn't he invite you? Um, because the boll weevil lays its eggs in early spring? That wasn't the reason he gave, but it makes about as much sense as claiming it's because his last girlfriend failed to express the proper measure of gratitude at her opportunity to be looked down upon by his fine relations. If the guy isn't ashamed of you, he doesn't seem to care enough to keep you from thinking so, and feeling that the guy you're with isn't proud to be seen with you is really damaging. Being "patient and gradual" won't change a thing. You are who you are: a girl who winters in the exact same one-bedroom apartment where she summers, springs, and falls.

Your real problem is your failure to be difficult. I'm not suggesting you start flying around your relationship on a broom, but that you become somebody who couldn't fathom trying to "cope" with a guy who balks at presenting her to Mummy, Daddy, and the drunk trust fund uncles. Tell your boyfriend "I don't date guys who don't feel they can bring me around." And be willing to walk away. Don't just get behind the idea of that; be a girl who needs her dignity more than she needs a boyfriend. This should eliminate the need for icky conversations about how you'd like to be treated. Instead, you'll communicate it from the start, from within: Oh, what's that? They don't want my sort around? Well, who wants them? My family got an engraved invitation to be here, right on the Statue of Liberty: "Give me your tired, your poor; Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free..." Nowhere does it say "Give me your stuck-up snots, your country club masses in scary-ugly golf pants yearning to get everything for free..."

I'm 24 and my boyfriend of five months is 28. He was adamant about knowing the number of sexual partners I've had. I'm not comfortable sharing that, but he said he had to know what he was getting into to take the relationship to the next level. He's had 14; I've had four, but I told him two. It was an honest mistake -- two were hookups and I forgot them. Honesty is super important to him, but I'm stressed about coming clean. He doesn't even like that I have guy friends, so he was really upset about the two boyfriends, and wanted complete details. When I didn't want to tell all, he claimed I was hiding something. He's sometimes condescending, yet if I don't respond in a pleasant fashion when I'm upset, we'll have to have a long talk about it. Still, I'm afraid I'm misrepresenting him. He's a great man, always tells me how wonderful I am, and appreciates the little things I do like cooking dinner. I feel he deserves my honesty, but how significant is my actual number of partners?

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

And make no mistake: You should part -- pronto -- because the relationship you're in is pretty much a textbook case of abuse. Sure, the average guy gets rattled at the thought of his girlfriend naked with previous boyfriends -- or even the sight of her, fully clothed, talking to some guy friend who isn't a disfigured, 85-year-old gay troll. The appropriate response is playing it cool, not taking the girlfriend home and waterboarding her for hours.

You actually were honest with your boyfriend -- you told him you "didn't want to tell all." That should've been that. Being in a relationship doesn't mean signing away your right to privacy. Anything short of "My last three boyfriends are buried in the backyard" or "I have these weird red bumps all over my girlparts" is information you don't owe anybody. While guys will get curious, an emotionally healthy boyfriend doesn't demand to know who, how many, how often, and how well your being double-jointed worked out for you and the last dude.

As for what sheer numbers say, your sexual history could look like a line for free tickets to Coldplay; it's your ethics that predict whether you'll cheat. This is all about control and confession and forgiveness on his terms. It's classic abuser behavior: Isolate you -- first, from your guy friends; later, from anybody who might talk some sense into you. Cut you down, build you up a little ("What a lovely stew!") and cut you down some more. He's essentially smacking you around, then kissing your booboo. And no, he's not literally smacking you around now, but that's where emotional abuse often leads. What are you waiting for, a sign? Two black eyes? A couple broken bones? Or, maybe something in writing; a death certificate, perhaps?

Get out. You're acting like this guy's girlbot, doing and saying what you're told, because you're not ready to be in a relationship. Being ready takes having boundaries and enough of a self to tell a guy to accept 'em or walk. I know, this is the last thing you wanted to hear; in fact, you're probably distraught at "misrepresenting" him. Not to worry, I get that he likes your cooking. What I'm worried about is what happens the night you burn the mac 'n cheese. Lemme guess: You fell down two flights of stairs...in your ranch house.

I'm a guy in my mid-20s, and I'm feeling socially penalized for only having dated (or even been with) a few women. I find it odd that there's this pejorative word "slut" for women who sleep around but no similar strong pejorative for men who do. Of course, there is a pejorative for men who don't: loser. People value a woman who's choosy or chaste, but if a man doesn't date much or have much experience, women will often reject his sexuality completely (seeing him only as a friend). Men and other boys will make fun of him for not being able to live up to the playboy/stud lifestyle. What gives?

So few sex partners, so many questions: What would Foucault say? What would Wittgenstein do? Socially penalized! Sexually rejected! Pejorative this, pejorative that!

Excuse me, but are you a man or a gender studies paper? Here, lemme take that one. What you are is a guy who ducks into a forest of polysyllabic sociology mumbo jumbo to escape the simple truth: You're too big a wussy to ask women out, and too big a wussy to admit it.

That said, you've got a point: If a guy and girl who've just met at the bar go on their first date five minutes later in a stall in the men's room, the word on the street'll probably be "That slut!" and "Whatta man!" The double standard has been the standard since before there were bathrooms or bars to build them in. These days, we can put a bathroom stall on the moon, complete with the message "Earth girls are easy!" but psychologically, we're still hunter-gatherers on the savanna, chasing dinner with a sharpened bone.

Back then, an alpha-male could sleep around and walk away afterward, and still maybe pass on his genes. For a Stone Age girl, going out in the bushes with just any old loincloth-chaser came with a high price -- getting knocked up and saddled with a bunch of mouths to feed eons before the invention of the grocery store. Her kids still might survive to pass on her genes, but her best bet was holding out for a guy who'd stick around -- the savanna version of the nice suburban dad. Meanwhile, that guy could easily be chumped into bringing home the buffalo for a kid with some other guy's genes. His only way out of getting evolutionarily screwed was finding a woman in the habit of keeping her hairy legs crossed. While in the last 50 years we've come up with paternity testing and reliable birth control, human hard-wiring takes hundreds or thousands of generations to upgrade, so it's still slut, bad; stud, not so bad.

What does all of this mean for you? Not a whole hell of a lot. If women "reject" your sexuality, maybe it's because they've seen neither hide nor hair of it. Maybe you're one of those guys who thinks he'll duck rejection by becoming a woman's therapist/best eunuch, and listening to her problems with the guy she is sleeping with. The answer, again, is really simple: Ask women out on dates, and make moves on them afterward. If a bunch of women say no, ask a bunch more women, until some woman finally says yes. As for the notion that anyone knows or cares about your sexual stats, either you've got way too much information on your business card, or you'd better call the fire department to come over there and break you out of junior high school.

I've been with my boyfriend for two and a half years. I'm 24, he's 29, and he has this plan for making his first million by 37. I respect his ambition, but wonder how much I have to sacrifice for this plan to succeed. It's not even my plan! Not only is all the romance gone, he works nights and I work days, and we barely see each other. Plus, his 9-year-old son lives with us, so we're never alone. We try to stay awake to spend time together, but it's exhausting. We're constantly arguing, and sometimes downright mean. I don't mind cooking, cleaning, and raising his son, or giving up "us time" so we can have a comfortable retirement, but all this overdrive is wearing on me. Still, when I contemplate leaving, I remember we love each other. I can't give up at the first sign of hardship, plus he'd be so screwed if I did leave.

Somebody's got the order all wrong. First you're supposed to live, and then you're supposed to retire. What are you two going to do, sit in your rocking chairs reminiscing about the life you were too tired and angry to have? Maybe while thumbing through cute couple shots? "Oh, look! There we are on our second anniversary, passing each other in the hallway as you were going to bed and I was going to work!"

You two might love each other, but you have a major scheduling conflict: happily ever after versus happily ever now. If you ever talk to somebody who's had a near-death experience, they'll probably go on about living in the now, not how they finally learned to live in the later. You can scrimp, save, and plan all you want, but there's really no guarantee you'll get to the later. (He could make his first million at 37 and trade you in for his second 24-year-old.) In other words, "Are we having fun yet?" is actually a very valid question. Sure, it's important to save for the future, but it's also important to realize that life isn't supposed to be the thing that passes you by while you're on the way to work.

What did he say to charm you into being with him, "Misery loves company"? Maybe he's not miserable. Maybe he's excited to be socking away all this cash, and feels he's accomplishing something; probably on behalf of both of you. You can't expect things to be any different if you don't assert yourself: Tell him that, for you, a relationship is not a 401k, where you say, "Hang in there...in 20 years, we'll be having a ball! Meanwhile, there's the mop."

Be clear about what you need: sex, romance, time together when you both aren't snoring; you know, the stuff the man of the house isn't supposed to do with the cook, the nanny, and the maid. If he can't make you more than a slave to his dream, you should leave -- and without lugging some anvil of guilt around for giving up "at the first sign of hardship." (The guy has a financial goal; he doesn't have cancer and need somebody to drive him to chemo.) As for how screwed he'd be if you did leave; if nothing changes, think about how screwed you'll be if you stay: 24 and taking early retirement from fun. Sure, relationships take work, but when your thoughts turn to the bedroom, your first impulse shouldn't be knocking on the door and calling, "Housekeeping!"