I've had some good experiences with online dating, but I just can't get over this feeling that it just isn't natural or sexy.

--Clicking For Love

People romanticize chance meetings over highly calculated search algorithms. They swoon telling the story, "If I hadn't filled in for the night nurse the evening he lopped off his thumb..." as opposed to "If I hadn't typed 16 very specific terms into a search engine on one of the five online dating sites I have a membership to..."

People also love the idea of "the one" -- that one special someone they're supposedly fated to be with. In online dating, you're trying to weed that special someone out of a field of thousands of other potential special someones -- making the process feel about as romantic as a livestock auction. And while the stigma formerly attached to Internet dating is largely gone, what it still lacks is any plausible deniability about one's intentions. In a bar, you could be there to grab a beer, but there's no pretending you posted your profile because you were thirsty. In fact, you might as well stand in the center of town shouting, "Hi, I'm alone! Here's how I look! Any takers? Yoohoo, anyone out there?"

In addition to the weirdness of posting your face on a big bulletin board to see if anyone might end up loving you, there's the weirdness of shopping for the love of your life in between bidding on a used tennis racket on eBay. But, with Internet dating, instead of waiting for that chance meeting, you have increase-your-chances meetings. With a few keystrokes, you can connect with countless people you probably never would've met, and select for the right religious beliefs, smoking habits, and/or weird sex habits instead of spending hours trying to tease the answers out of some guy in a bar.

Where people go wrong is in turning what should actually be called "online meeting" into online dating. The same woman who'd go home with a near stranger she met in a bar will spend weeks e-mailing a guy to assess how good his grammar is before she'll feel safe enough to meet him. She'll tell herself she's vetting the guy, but what she's probably doing is getting attached -- not to the actual guy, but her idea of the guy, and maybe how smart and funny she is when she's talking to him. Investing all this time and emotion makes it somewhat devastating when she finally meets the guy and finds that he looks wrong, talks wrong, dresses wrong, and smells like rotting liver.

So, sure, there are pitfalls in online dating, but it can be a great tool if you use it wisely. And when you say it seems unnatural, you could argue that there was no dragmeoffbythehair.com in the Stone Age, but humans have always tried to find partners using the best resources at hand. Go into that painted cave in Lascaut with the right archeologist, and see if that wall doesn't just read "Single, hairy club-dragger seeks sturdy woman for long walks on what will one day become the French Riviera..."

I'm sick of leaving a message asking a woman out and getting no response. Most recently, this happened when I left a voicemail for a woman who verbally agreed to another date. Instead of no reply, I'd even prefer a lame excuse, like "Hey, in the two days since we went out, I met the love of my life and don't want to lead you on."

It's called "the chase," not the "call once and leave a message, then give up." If you're like a lot of guys, you ask girls out by phone message as a way of avoiding rejection. Unfortunately, you won't avoid rejection this way; you'll just avoid hearing it and knowing you can move on. And while no response probably means you're being blown off, there is that slim chance that a woman accidentally deleted your message. If she's just ambivalent, and you get her on the phone, you might charm her into going out with you again. (It's a lot easier to delete a guy than say no to him.) Never ask a girl out by voicemail. If getting her on the line seems impossible, only leave a message asking her to call you, not asking her out. It's a small distinction, but no response to "Hey, call me!" allows your ego to maintain the fiction that she just didn't call you back while none to a dinner invitation pretty much spells it out: There's no amount of back hair you can shave or free filet mignon you can offer her to ever get her to go out with you again.

In your response to the woman with the publicly gropey boyfriend, you deemed French kissing at a workplace event inappropriate PDA. How about French kissing one's girlfriend during a performance of "Stomp" (musical theater)? The woman behind me that evening gave me negative feedback...which was of no interest to me. My take on people put off by PDA (isn't it really only women?) is that their disgust is based more in envy than superior decorum. Someone reacting negatively to seeing my tongue go into my girlfriend's mouth is suffering at their own doing -- because of how they process their witnessing of my actions. (I'd love to hear their reaction to my having sex in a movie theater. Come on, we were in the back row, and the seven people there would've had to turn their heads 180 degrees to see anything.) Basically, I own my actions and I'm fine with them. Others need to start owning their reactions, and you need to stop promoting arbitrary standards of behavior.

There's public display of affection and there's public display of foreplay. If you're incapable of understanding the difference, let's hope your name is Koko or Bongo, and you aren't allowed out unsupervised from your cage in the primate exhibit at the zoo.

Social standards for behavior aren't arbitrary. There are minor variations across cultures, but do you think there's a person in Japan, Belgium, or Saudi Arabia who thinks it's okay to take off their shoe and bite their toenails at dinner? There's private behavior and public behavior, and we're all pretty clear on which is which. If ever you're unsure about the polite thing to do, there's a pretty simple guideline to go by. As I write in my book I See Rude People, at the root of manners is empathy (might your makeout session or your loud discussion of your loose stool make people around you seriously uncomfortable?). You have a very different standard: total disregard for anyone's feelings but your feeling that you'd like to get your rocks off ASAP. And sure, maybe your cinema sex escaped notice by your fellow moviegoers, but if there's a wet spot for the next audience to avoid, they'd like it to be a puddle of Pepsi One.

Outrageous behavior is sometimes an exercise of free speech, like when a bunch of women go topless (typically, those most desperately in need of bras) to protest how women get arrested for toplessness when men don't. But, let's get real here. In nixing the public sexcapades, you won't be setting back the course of democracy, just keeping from grossing a lot of people out.

By the way, I'm not exactly the park ranger for prudishness. I love seeing couples being affectionate in public -- in a way that says "I've got a thing for you," not "I've got a thing for you in my pants." People do need to take into consideration what they're doing where and whether they have a captive audience. Nobody wants to see you sucking your girlfriend's ear in the pharmacy line or hear you making sex noises at the coffee bar. If you're making out in a corner at a nightclub, you still might yuck somebody out, but, well, it's dark, people are drunk, and they also probably aren't Grandma or age 4.

You tell yourself that only women are bothered by PDA, and only out of envy. Right. If a woman does feel envy, it's typically at the sight of a guy acting loving to his girlfriend, not feeling her up at the mall. The lady at "Stomp" got steamed because she paid roughly 80 bucks to see some pretty unique theater -- not a close-up of some guy jamming his tongue in his girlfriend's mouth. Had seeing a live sex show been her goal, she could've saved $79 by going to one of those places you put a dollar bill in a slot, the window opens, and for the next three minutes, you get to watch the triplets with the chicken.

Your final justification is the best: "I own my actions and I'm fine with them." Oh, yay. Nothing like murky new-age language used to take responsibility for taking no responsibility at all. (Follow that mantra far enough, and you can "own" a machine gun, and "own" using it to take out 14 people.) In privatizing public space as your own, what you're actually "owning" is acting in a way that's only appropriate if your zip code traces to a neighborhood on the moon (population: one narcissistic jerkwad). You are right about one thing: that those forced to watch you getting your freak on should "start owning their reactions" -- especially those who grew up on farms and who react to two animals humping each other by running to get the hose.

I'm a 26-year-old guy who's been on 30 dates this year in hopes of finding a woman to build a long, healthy relationship with, but I only ended up with a few notches in my belt. Last night, I went out with a girl who shook my world. I've never fallen for somebody so quickly, and the thought of her not liking me tore me apart inside. We met on a dating website when she wrote to say my profile was "cute" and so was I. On our date, however, I got the impression she wasn't too interested because she rarely made eye contact and didn't smile much. I couldn't sleep last night, as I was so depressed at the thought of her not liking me or being in my life. So, how should I healthily pursue her? She said she wanted to go out again, but many girls say that and don't mean it. I'm waiting 48 hours to call so I don't seem desperate. I'm an emotional guy, and the thought of her not liking me is SO hurtful that this will take a while to get over -- if I ever do.

It can be devastating, the prospect of losing a woman after building a life with her and weathering tough times together. As for this woman, what have you weathered together, whether to take a table or sit at the bar?

Yet, after a single date, you whimper, "The thought of this girl not liking me is SO hurtful that this will take a while to get over -- if I ever do." What are you, 12? Okay, it's frustrating and even depressing to keep looking for "the one" and only come up with the one-night stands, but get a grip. You're coming to the conclusion that you might have to date more, not that you'll die trapped under a rock unless you hack off your right arm with the business end of a drinking straw.

While you can feel instantly blown away by somebody, an immediate obsession with a woman you've known for maybe three hours stems more from where you are in your life than anything real and substantial about her. But, say you knew her better. Pursuing her in a healthy way would involve merely preferring that she want you back. Demanding it (or your life will be ruined, just ruined!) is irrational, misery-producing baby behavior -- the equivalent of stamping your feet and huffing, "The universe should be nice to me! In fact, the universe should give me a cookie!"

Waiting 48 hours before calling might make you seem less desperate -- assuming you don't pass the time by hyperventilating that you can't possibly live without her. (Sure you can. You've done it for 26 years.) There's a good chance you've already leaked enough desperation to set off her creep-dar. Short of finding yourself a doctor who can induce a coma with telephone privileges, you'll have your best shot if you can calm yourself enough to come off like you're just hoping to spend Friday night with her, not the rest of your life. In the future, if you can't be more realistic, at least be more practical. It can be reasonable to decide that some woman absolutely must be yours -- if she's the sort of woman you pick up in an adult bookstore, then take home and blow up with your bike pump.

I'm the classic hourglass-figured woman, with very large breasts. I recently discovered that my boyfriend is into women with boyish bodies and flat chests. In fact, he finds big breasts "vulgar." (I saw a YouTube video he made with his friends this summer, and he was very vocal about his preferences.) This confirms my suspicions that he isn't physically into me. I'm ending it, but wondering why we're even together.

You've got what so many guys want -- that classic movie star body. Unfortunately, the movie star body your boyfriend goes for is that of the guy who plays Harry Potter. He's probably bought into the idea that it's shallow to dismiss a girl just because she's got cantaloupes in her bra instead of raisins. Maybe he thinks he can work up an attraction if he just makes enough of an effort. Unfortunately, that's not how attraction works. And, good intentions aside, it's cruel to be with somebody one secretly finds "vulgar" from the neck down. Luckily for you, the problem of having an hourglass figure and "very large breasts" is right up there with the problem of owning way too much beachfront property. The sooner you end it, the sooner you'll be reminded of that, and the sooner your boyfriend can get with a woman he's really into -- one who's less classic hourglass than classic Heineken bottle.

Guys pay a lot of attention to my drop-dead gorgeous friend when we go out. So, what can you do if you're her not-as-pretty sidekick? I can honestly say I'm cute, especially when I'm all dressed up. I'm told I have a great personality, but I know I lack a certain confidence many women have, and maybe that's making things harder when we're in bars and clubs.

In a 37-country study on mate preferences by evolutionary psychologist David Buss, kindness was the most desired trait in a partner for both women and men, but no man runs his car off the road turning to look at a woman because she volunteers at a children's hospital.

Likewise, a bar or nightclub is no place to be trying to win an inner beauty contest. "Beautiful on the inside" isn't what gets guys sending free drinks across the room. Even if a guy comes over, that great personality of yours probably can't help but crawl under a barstool when the guy's talking to you but his eyeballs are on a walking tour of your modelicious friend. If a guy does pay attention to you -- a bright spot! -- there's a good chance he'll eventually mention his wife and kids. That's when you realize he's yet another married wingman, which makes you, yet again, the girl the guy has to get out of the way to get to the girl.

Your friend is probably one of those women for whom being beautiful involves rolling out of bed and existing. For the rest of us, being a thing of beauty isn't so much a joy forever as a job forever. We can either accept the effort involved to look our best or accept the opportunity costs of going ungroomed. We could also take a lesson from French women, who don't let not being classically pretty get in the way of feeling beautiful. The French have this concept, "jolie laide," which roughly translates to "ugly-pretty." It describes women who aren't conventionally beautiful but manage to be alluring nonetheless; for example, a woman with a big hook nose who, instead of trying to draw attention away from it, wears bright lipstick, pulls her hair back, and walks proud. Big honking beak and all, somehow, the sum total of her look is beauty, and a good bit of it comes from within.

Unfortunately, embracing ugly-pretty will take you only so far. The truth is, beauty is often relative. Take America Ferrera, who plays Ugly Betty on TV. She's actually only Hollywood-ugly, which means she looks, well, mortal when standing next to Angelina Jolie. In Greeley, Colorado, she's stunningly beautiful. Accordingly, you're a cute girl when you go out boyhunting with other merely cute girls. Sure, you "should" be able to go out with any friend you have, but in the cold light of how things work in the real world, if you're a 6, you'll probably do much better if you're flanked by a couple of 4s. This doesn't mean that you dump your friend because she's too pretty. Work on boosting your confidence, and until you do, try to do things together that won't have you competing with her for male attention -- say, dinner and movie...at your place...after you tent it for termites, board up the windows, and pull down all the blinds.

My boyfriend of three months is independent and capable in his career, but is becoming increasingly clingy. He says he loves me at least once every 20 minutes and wants to snuggle constantly and have these endless phone conversations. Some things we can talk out. I explained that I'm not a big phone person, and he was fine with it, but the general clinginess remains. Will he get better as he feels more secure in our relationship?

Love is a beautiful thing -- when expressed sparingly. In your case, well, you'll always remember that time he turned to you and said those rare and magical words, "You know, I think your left front tire needs more air." Somebody who chirps "I love you" every 20 minutes most likely isn't expressing love but something emotionally lacking within them. ("I love you! I love you!" is a better sales tool than "Don't leave me! Don't leave me!") Chances are, it isn't the relationship the guy needs to get more comfortable in, but his own skin. If so, no amount of reassurance from you is going to cure him, although you might get him to loosen his grip by warning him that he's about to "love" you right out of his life. (Ideally, if two people are inseparable, it isn't because the firemen had a burning house to tend to before they could get over to pry them apart with the Jaws of Life.)