I'm dismayed that you usually tell ladies to dump men because of their shortcomings. Learning to deal with somebody's problems is how you learn to have genuine love for them. I think it was Winston Churchill who said "you're not human if you don't have problems." So, why don't you encourage an open dialogue in relationships you feel are doomed? Your advice is going to make a lot of women die lonely if they follow it.

So, when all evidence points to a relationship being doomed, the people in it should stick around and talk about it? Maybe the woman should try a little of that "active listening" -- even when the guy's coming on like Jack in "The Shining" and she's cowering behind the locked bathroom door: "Um...Jack, honey...would I be right to say you seem to be hacking through the bathroom door with a really huge, very sharp ax?" Maybe even you have to agree, there's a time for active listening and a time for active running for your life.

The truth is, except when the guy is chasing the woman with the ax, or seems about to, I rarely tell women to break up -- mainly because it's not very effective. In fact, 32.5 of a woman's friends have probably told her to get out, like, 32,000 times. If she's writing to me, it's usually because she's still there -- power-rationalizing why she should continue to stick around. Addiction treatment specialist Stanton Peele concurs that you don't get people to change by telling them what to do, and says about my approach, "Humor and good-natured irony are far more effective at motivating change than direct instructions and -- certainly -- than lecturing. The latter raise people's defenses." In the spirit of giving advice that might actually be productive, I lay out the disconnect between what people want and what they're doing and let the absurdity of it stink for itself: "Aww, how sweet, maggots in the shape of a heart!"

As for the contention "you're not human if you don't have problems," it doesn't seem to be from Winston Churchill, but I'm guessing whoever said it wasn't advising people to find the most troubled, unsuitable partner they could and get cracking. While looking for the quote, I did find this exchange Churchill had with Lady Astor. She said, "Winston, if you were my husband, I should flavor your coffee with poison." His response: "Madam, if I were your husband, I should drink it." Clearly, "shortcomings" are sometimes hugecomings. Fear of being alone or reluctance to acknowledge you've made a mistake and wasted a chunk of time with somebody won't turn irreconcilable differences into nagging idiosyncrasies. Better to admit you're coming in for a crash landing, and follow standard procedure (it says "hit the 'eject' button," not "hit the 'stay with the burning plane' button").

Living alone doesn't mean you'll die alone. I had a friend die, and if anything, she died crowded, with the nurses scolding her friends for violating fire codes. By the way, she did have a husband. They were divorced. The truth is, if you stick with the wrong person, you can die lonely with your husband of 86 years right by your side. If more women were comfortable enough with themselves to be alone, they wouldn't feel the need to grab hold of the first piece of driftwood that floats by, then spend the rest of their lives in couples counseling complaining that the guy's a little...wooden.

I'm a 30-year-old woman with a great new man in my life. I hesitate in calling him my boyfriend because I'm super-cautious about jumping the gun. I refer to him as "my guy," "my partner in crime," "my buddy," but I know he's more than just "the guy I hang out with." We've been dating for two months, and we've barely been apart for more than a day. Meanwhile, he calls me his girlfriend and hints at us moving in together and getting married. He says he's joking when I say he's got to be kidding. But, he is very dedicated to me. What's my problem? How do you know when to feel okay about commitment, the terminology, living together, and the like?

Don't be too quick to knock fear of commitment. Many people take a far-too-relaxed approach to deciding somebody's good for the long haul: "I just knew -- from the moment I closed my eyes and stuck my finger on her name in the phone book."

Random acts of commitment usually come out of persistent desperation. Two months in, this guy's already talking about moving in together and getting married. This suggests he's looking for somebody special -- with emphasis on the somebody. Of course, when you raise an eyebrow or two, he's "joking." Right. Why did the chicken cross the road? To get away from the wild-eyed man chasing it at top speed with a wedding ring.

Considering his haste, it's no surprise you're bypassing the word "boyfriend" for "buddy," which makes him sound like the successor to your last guy, Rin Tin Tin, and your dabble in college with Lassie. (She was hopeful you'd eventually introduce her as Suzanne.) Unless you've left a trail of broken men, or have a habit of dating the unavailable (married, felonious), you probably aren't hesitating out of some unhealthy fear of commitment but a healthy assessment of where you are: He's more than a guy you hang out with every day, but you're not sure how much more. Unfortunately, there's a tendency to think of a relationship as either "committed" or nothing. There's actually a stage in between -- being "involved." Tennis star Martina Navratilova explained the difference: "Think of ham and eggs. The chicken is involved. The pig is committed."

When I hear couples brag, "We just knew from the moment we saw each other!" I'm amazed that they think this is romantic, and not an announcement that they're idiots. I always want to ask, "What, exactly, did you know? That she's reasonably tall, attractive in a sort of bookish way, and you wanted to have sex with her?" What's actually romantic isn't committing to somebody because you see how lovable, sexy, and charming they can be, but because you find out how annoying, insufferable, and lacking in some basic table manner they are, and it's still not enough to chase you away. Plus, there are all those big issues: sex, money, and are you an atheist who secretly hates kids and is he hoping you two can raise your 12 children as Mormons? It takes time -- and time unglued from each other's sides -- to see who somebody is. Take both, and you'll be more likely to end up with a guy who loves you for who you truly are -- beyond the fact that you're single, female, conveniently located, and don't seem to find him sexually repellant.

I'm a 21-year-old student who's been dating a 45-year-old man for three and a half years. He's been technically married throughout our relationship (two years ago, I discovered he lied about being divorced). I've given him an ultimatum: He has to be divorced by July, when I graduate. He agrees, but supports his 26-year-old daughter and unmarried 46-year-old sister (even paying to remodel her bathroom), and pays his wife's mortgage and bills. He manages to take me to dinner and helps with my rent, but he's pulled in so many directions. I'm told I'm very mature for my age, but I don't know how to handle this. I do love him very much, and we plan to get married and have children. Please don't focus on the age difference. A 27-year-old could have the same issues with a guy.

At 21, being "very mature" for your age makes you less likely to end up on the Internet, naked and compromised, so corporate recruiters can lean across the table on job fair day and whisper, "So, tell me...were you in business school on a gymnastics scholarship?"

A few years back, you probably just missed taking a married, middle-aged dad to prom. Even if you were "mature" for your age, at 17 your greatest accomplishment is something like getting a handle on your pimples. Ask yourself what man in his 40s finds a 17-year-old girl his peer, his partner, his equal? Probably one who knows better than to hit on all-growed-up women who'd be quick to notice he doesn't just have baggage, but a caravan of broken-down U-Hauls. Think about it: You're planning to marry and have children (plural!) with a guy who's not only still married to somebody else, but supporting three other adults. And you're seriously expecting this to change? Okay, it could -- should an asteroid flatten all of them (ideally, Wizard of Oz-style, so you can scavenge any fabulous shoes he bought them).

Here you are in your early 20s, the peak of your hotitude, the time to date around and see what's out there, and you've taken yourself off the market for this guy? You actually have no business doing anything of a permanent nature in your early 20s. These years should be renamed The Idiot Years (a follow-up to the teen years, the Wildly Moronic Years). Recent research by child and adolescent psychiatrist Jay N. Giedd suggests the prefrontal cortex, the judgement department of the brain, is still developing through the early-to-mid 20s. While individuals do vary, you most likely got together with this guy before you were fully brained, and certainly before you had the life experience to know who to let into your world and who to send back to his wife.

Be honest: You know this guy is a bad bargain -- a married liar and one-man welfare state who's bailing out everybody but General Motors. But, because you got attached (perhaps both to the guy and to the guy paying your rent) you're working very hard to tell yourself love is all you need. Be sure to tell that to your kid when he has a toothache and you can't afford the dentist, or when you're consoling him after he wets the refrigerator box (he'll have a bed to wet just as soon as Daddy finishes paying off his sister's new kitchen).

I asked a guy out and we went salsa dancing last night. Afterward, he gave me a quick kiss goodbye on the lips. Does the fact that it was on the lips mean he likes me and wants a second date? Would he have kissed me there if he didn't really like me? I'd like to see him again, but know he's dating other women. I texted him today, saying I had fun, and hoped we'd stay in touch. I haven't heard from him yet, but this is his sleep time, as he gets home from work around 8 a.m. What should I do if I don't hear from him? I'm thinking of showing up Tuesday at salsa when I know he goes.

--Antsy

"Sex and the City" by any other name is just as off-putting to men; yes, even "Sex and the Prehistoric Countryside," which pretty much describes your approach to seduction: a woman pursuing a man with all the subtlety of a hungry velociraptor after a small woodland animal.

People often write me to say things "should" be different; for example, that men should get to perch cross-legged on barstools batting their eyelashes while women buy them drinks and ask them deep questions like "Are you from Tennessee? Because you're the only 10 I see!" Well, there's what "should be" and what works. In the Stone Age, when we evolved the psychology we're still working off today (upgrading our hard-wiring can take thousands of generations), sex was a low-cost endeavor for a guy. He burned a few calories, gave up a little sperm, and was on his way. For a woman, it could mean nine months dragging herself across the savanna on swollen ankles until she ended up with a hungry, crying, wetting thing maybe a million years before disposable diapers. As a result, women became the choosier sex, and men evolved to place a higher value on choosier women. So, when you find "He's Just Not That Into You," there's a good chance it started with "you're way too into him."

That's probably what led you to dissect his goodnight kiss like a high school lab frog: "Does the fact that it was on the lips mean he likes me and wants a second date?" Maybe. Or maybe he was drunk and missed your cheek, or maybe it was a cry for help in an unusual manner. After one date, you're not only obsessing over the kiss, you've mapped out when he eats, sleeps, and checks messages. And this on top of asking him out, a risky move for a woman. Your job is to flirt and see if a guy shows interest. If he doesn't, don't be showing up at salsa night and trying to form a conga line with the other women he's dating.

There's a good chance you do this stuff because you're one of those women who takes the bus stop approach to life: standing around waiting for a man to come complete you. Eventually, you get tired of waiting all incomplete, and you start hunting 'em down. Unfortunately, you aren't likely to get a guy -- one you'd want, anyway -- until you get a life beyond guys. If you aren't motivated to become somebody for the sake of it, do the beautifully shallow thing and become somebody for the sake of becoming somebody's girlfriend. The more interesting you are, the more focused you'll be on your own life, and the more attractive you'll be to men. In time, you should find yourself seeing a man, and not just from the back, as he's running for his life.