My boyfriend moved in with me after his landlord raised his rent. He announced that he'd give me $400 a month (half of what he was paying at his place), then cut that to $350. I pay $1,250 a month for my home loan and utilities, and more for groceries, lawn care, etc. Now he's decided he shouldn't have to pay anything because he never charged me when I stayed over frequently at his apartment one year. He occasionally buys groceries, takes me out to dinner monthly, and had a little remodeling done ($1,200). He also bought a freezer ($400) and a side of beef ($1,000). I love the guy. He's lots of fun, sex is great, and he only started being this way when he learned that I was helping my sons out with about $60 a month. (Both just graduated with extensive student loans.) He said he was never helped like this by his parents, and apparently money's no problem for me if I do this.

There's a time in a man's life when he shouldn't expect to contribute to keeping a roof over his head, and it's when he's waking up on sheets with little cartoon spaceships on them to go to his day job -- attending fourth grade.

What kind of disturbed cheapskate tells his girlfriend she's lucky he didn't charge her for rent, gas, and electric on all those nights she didn't drag herself out of his bed and drive home immediately after sex? But, wait -- it gets better. He's so petty that he justifies his freeloading by pointing to where some of your money's going -- to help your just-graduated kids out in a tough economy. (Some ladies have meth habits; it seems you have a nasty mothering habit.) And not that it's any of his business, but wow, $60 a month? Why, with that kind of loot, your boys'll be able to go in on a 2011 Jag -- in another 1,166 years.

Nothing says "We're in it together, babe" like a man telling a woman she'll be covering all the bills. Okay, so he was never helped out financially by his parents. We all have some point in our lives when Mommy didn't give us a cookie. If it affects us longterm, the correct thing to do is work it out at Mr. Therapist's office, not make it part of an elaborate rationale to stiff the girlfriend on living expenses. Sure, he contributes in some ways ($1,400 of frozen beef), maybe because he likes steak and maybe because he feels guilty for being a mooch, but your mortgage documents surely don't allow you to pay with cash, check, or cow.

It shouldn't be hard to get him to start contributing. Just hold him by the ankles and shake all the change out of his pockets. What you can't cure is the character flaw that leads him to show all the generosity of spirit of an angry accounts receivable clerk. Of course, it takes two to make the sponge dynamic work -- one to do the squeezing and one to ignore being squeezed. Ask yourself whether you need a relationship -- any relationship -- so badly that you'll settle for parasite/hostess. That's what you'll keep settling for as long as you stay focused on the positives here, like how two can live as cheaply as one when one's stiffing the other on the rent money, and how he's so much fun and sex is so great. (It had better be. You're paying $625 a month for it.)

I have tickets to a rock concert next week. I'm interested in a woman who works at my regular morning coffee shop. How do I ask her to dinner and the concert as a first date without it seeming like a consolation prize (like she was my last choice at this late date)?

The issue isn't the late date, but inviting a woman you barely know on a romance-soaked date-athalon, which is what it becomes when you add dinner to the equation. (Think hostage situation with linguini and roving violinists.) The concert invite alone is a bit much, with the ticket price, two or three hours at the event and a couple hours getting in and out of the parking lot, but it allows for plausible deniability on the romantic nature of your intentions. If she's not into you, she can play it like you just had an extra seat, and you can tell yourself she just wasn't into Bowels of Satan or whomever and go back to your normal coffee provider/providee relationship. Ideally, though, you'd just invite her out for a drink, which would tell her what your intentions are, but without going straight from "Double latte, no foam" to "I'd like you to be my breed sow."

Men's magazines and blogs always have some article telling guys to pick up women at grocery stores. Really? I've actually never heard of a guy successfully asking a girl out in the vegetable section. The meat counter doesn't seem all that conducive to romance, either. What's the real deal on meeting women at the supermarket?

There's all this breathless encouragement for guys to go meet women at the supermarket, as if the place is the key thing. As if a guy who always strikes out at the bar just needs to lurk in the organic lettuce section and picking up women will play out like the deer trotting up to the hunter and saying, "Hi, my name's Tiffany, and I'll be your dinner."

The guy most likely to score at the supermarket is one who has the mojo to score at a wake, while leaning over the embalmed dead body. Sure, if you spot some babe foraging in the probiotic dairy products, try your luck. But, as the author who calls himself "Mystery" points out in his book "The Pickup Artist," the supermarket is a poor place, statistically speaking, to go to meet women. You might see one hot one there some night, but, in his words, "Why run around searching for one woman at a time when you can wait in a valley where all the animals will come to drink from the water hole?"

Although Mystery tries to pick up women everywhere he goes, he finds there's no "water hole" that compares to clubs. (In his definition of "clubs," he includes bars, "social restaurants," and parties.) Even if you don't like venues like these, they're the best training ground for a guy who needs to get game, because there are lots of women who are single and looking, and not just for fresh cilantro.

Having lots of women to hit on is how you get practice, which is how you get good. (Essentially, you fail your way to success.) The high volume of women in a club also helps keep you in a more positive mindset. If one disses you, it's just a sign to move on to the next -- in an environment conducive to approaching them. There's sexy music and lighting, and you can ask a woman to dance, buy her a drink afterward, and talk. What do you say in the supermarket, "Lemme buy you that head of cabbage"?

Part of what you need to practice is having the right stuff going on in your head. Mystery talks about conveying personality rather than convincing a woman you're worthy of her. This takes having fun trying to meet women. You do that by making your goal going out and having a good time working on your mojo instead of being on some grim life-or-death mission to score. Once you get good at hitting on women in clubs, you increase your chances of success everywhere...increasing your chances that some woman will follow you out of the supermarket, determined to get into your pants, and not just because she saw you on the security tape sticky-fingering a box of Pop-Tarts.

Since I've been online dating, I've noticed a shocking trend: old men hitting me up for dates. I'm 24, and my profile states that I'm seeking men ages 24 through 35. Yet men my father's age and a few close to my grandfather's have "winked" at me and asked me out. Gross. Men this old never approach me in "real life." Why do they do it online?

--Icked Out

When you're 24, an "older man" is probably 36, not somebody who used to enjoy "long walks on the beach" but now enjoys long walks to the salad bar. (If you listen closely, you can hear his pacemaker.)

An old dude who hits on you may have a distorted sense of his attractiveness (charming at any age). He may think that if he can just get you out on a date, his timeless sex appeal will make you go deaf when the waitress offers him the senior citizen discount. And who knows...maybe you're looking for a sugar grandpa. Doesn't hurt to ask! Well, not nearly as much as if the old coot were doing it while looking down your cleavage at Starbucks: "Hey, baby, I could tell you stories about the days before voicemail."

Online, however, you and the other 3,126 young chickies he hits on will probably just delete him. But, there's always that chance that one will be drunk, crazy, or desperate enough (in his mind, smart, insightful, and adventurous enough) to meet him and see that he looks not a day over 40...in the right light. (Unfortunately, the right light would be near-pitch darkness 20 years ago.)

My wife is co-sleeping -- sharing our bed -- with our two children. I understand why she sleeps with our baby, who's breast-feeding, but not why my 6-year-old daughter must sleep in our bed. I've quit sharing the "family bed," as I need my rest. I fully believe that my daughter should go to her own bed now. My wife does not agree. In fact, she refuses to even discuss it. We never were a high-frequency sex couple, but we're verging on becoming a sexless one. Beyond that, I'd like to get back to sleeping in the same bed with my wife without getting a small foot planted in my face.

"Barrier methods" of birth control like condoms, a diaphragm and the cervical cap aren't 100 percent effective at blocking sperm from entering the uterus, but one barrier method is: the 6-year-old between you in bed asking, "Can I have a Popsicle?" "Do cats have bellybuttons?" "Who will take care of me if you die?"

I know, saying no to kids is so 1989, but somebody should really try to bring it back. As I wrote in my book "I See Rude People," there used to be kid places and adult places. But even the martini lounge is no longer adults-only in places like New York City, where more and more, bar fights consist of little Anson clocking little Kamil over the head with his plastic truck. Beyond how a child who rarely gets told no grows up into an adult entitled brat, what do kids have to look forward to if, at six, they're sleeping in the master bedroom after a rough night at the bar? And sure, studies suggest that co-sleeping may prevent sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS rate is lowest in cultures that co-sleep), but there's yet to be a report of a kid dying of SIDS at age 6.

It is good that your wife is sleeping with the baby. Anthropologist and infant sleep expert Dr. James J. McKenna finds that co-sleeping babies cry less and breast-feed more often and for longer durations. They tend to synchronize their breathing with the sleeping parent -- perhaps training themselves in how to breathe -- and spend less time in the deepest stages of sleep, during which quick arousals to recover from apneas (pauses in breathing) are more difficult for them. Because, like SUVs, sleeping parents are prone to rollover, and because a baby can be smothered by blankets or a soft mattress, it's safest if the mother sleeps with the baby in a sidecar or bassinet next to her.

It's bad enough that marriage means committing to have sex with only one person until you die. It's not supposed to be one...or fewer. ("Do you take this woman to stiff you on sex till death do you part?") Marriage is also a partnership, not a dictatorship, meaning one spouse doesn't get to set policy by shutting down all discussion. That said, the spouse getting the refusals to talk has to refuse to accept that. Your wife isn't playing fair in lavishing all her attention on the kids. You're still there, and not just to bring home the bacon and then repair quietly to your new sleeping quarters -- the pink bedroom with the princess duvet. You need to talk about how much sex you'd like, and how much she's willing to provide, and work out a compromise. If your marriage is going to last, acrobatics in the marital bedroom had better not amount to your 6-year-old practicing her cartwheels on what used to be Mommy and Daddy's bed.

My boyfriend thrashes in his sleep, keeping me awake. We have a spare bedroom, so I suggested we do our sleeping separately. He worries that friends will see our separate beds and think we have sexual problems. I'm tired of going to work exhausted -- and not for a good reason.

What kind of friends do you have that they'd come over for parties and inspect your home for signs of sexual activity? And how would they know you're sleeping in separate rooms? Would your door have a Barbie and a feather boa nailed to it, and would his have a sign that says "Girls Have Cooties" with a Post-it from you: "Actually, I got those taken care of at the clinic last year"?

The truth is, per news reports, more and more couples are doing their sleeping separately -- for reasons like yours. It is common to arrange your life around impressing your friends...when you're in seventh grade. But, if your adult boyfriend cares this much about what people think, why leave anything to chance? Send out Evites: "Dear Friends, We're taking a break from having nonstop stupendous sex to throw a party. Please join us for dinner. Watch where you sit."

My boyfriend of two years isn't overtly weird; he's actually a really nice, normal guy, but he has this "hobby" of going for walks totally naked. We live in Vermont, where this is actually legal. I tell him that women find this upsetting, but he is really turned on by being seen naked by them and has no intention of stopping. Also, he can't get aroused with me unless he's been on one of his walks. He says that when he doesn't have a girlfriend, he masturbates while walking, but because he has me, he doesn't. Should his nudism bother me? It really doesn't, but I wonder if it should.

I'm always kind of amazed when people write me about how their partner's "really great" -- except for this one little thing. Your boyfriend, for instance, is "a really nice, normal guy" except for how he's a sex offender. "Dinner's almost ready, hon," you call to him. "I won't be long," he calls back. "Just taking a quick walk around the block to go scare a few little girls with my wang."

Sure, people should do what pleases them sexually -- if they're doing it with other consenting adults. Leaving the house without a blindfold shouldn't be considered a form of consent. Most of Vermont is clothing-optional. (One town passed a law against it, and I'm guessing there are signs reading "no pants, no shoes, no service.") But because it's legal to take your meat out for a bobble in front of the ice cream store doesn't mean it's right to force other people to look at it. On a lesser note, the same goes for nosepicking, which is legal in Canada, the 50 states, Puerto Rico, and Guam. Also, what's legal in Vermont is nudism (going naked), not lewdism (going naked with a sexual intent), which is why the latter comes with a maximum of five fully clothed years in a Vermont prison.

A sexual oddity becomes a psychiatric disorder called paraphilia when somebody can't get off without it and is intensely compelled to engage in it...say, to the point where he's risking jail time. Sex researchers Masters, Johnson, and Kolodny write in "Heterosexuality" that though paraphilias play out sexually, the preoccupation isn't the pursuit of pleasure but fleeing from psychic pain, as with "compulsive handwashing or the person who must constantly line up all the jars and boxes in the pantry into neat, perfect rows." Unfortunately, though there's been some success in treatment with therapy and antidepressants, they find that getting somebody to give up "what he or she deems to be a source of his or her most intense pleasure is likely to be fraught with problems."

The question isn't should you be bothered, but why aren't you? Your boyfriend isn't playing nude volleyball on weekends. He's playing stroke the salami while strolling the neighborhood. Oh, right, he doesn't do that while in a relationship -- because his compulsion is fitted with a handy on-off switch? Ask yourself what compels you to stay with a guy who commits sex crimes every time he takes a walk. How much of your life is twisted around enabling him and convincing yourself you have a great boyfriend -- even as you hear the faint screams of the little old lady down the street? Every relationship has its issues, and many women complain that their man isn't that present during sex. Then again, that's usually because they suspect he's fantasizing about his hot co-worker, not because they're waiting for him to come back from traumatizing the coffee klatsch.

How long should a guy wait to call a girl after the first date? One friend waits a week. A female friend said this annoys girls and a guy should call the next day. This contradicts the old "three-day rule." What is the right timing?

I like the 30-year rule: "Hello, Tammy, you might not remember me, but I took you out for drinks in 1981." Nothing tells a woman you aren't desperate for her company like taking three decades to call her. That's the point of all of these rules -- for a guy to not seem desperate. A guy who isn't probably doesn't call at 9:01 the next morning, but he doesn't sit on his phone for three days like he's waiting for it to hatch. He might text the woman the next afternoon, saying he had a great time and he'll call soon. Curb your desperation by asking lots of women out (so you won't fixate on one) and just hope some stick. Convey confidence by letting your interest guide when you call. Develop confidence and you could charm a woman by breaking the three-second rule -- calling her before she's even had a chance to get into her car.

I've been married for over 20 years, and though my wife and I have a very good relationship, she has a low sex drive and never initiates sex. She used to make snide remarks about my sex drive, but I pointed out my options (no sex, self-service, her or someone else). She knew I wouldn't cheat, so rather than let this cause a rift, she said she wanted me to come to her for my sexual needs. We now average two to three times a week. A couple times a month, we have mutually mind-blowing sex, but other times, she does it just for me. I never get the feeling she really wants me, and it's deflating when I sense she'd rather do laundry, watch TV, or water the plants. I've tried holding back and waiting for her to make the first move, but that seems like a head game to her and makes her feel something's wrong. Is there a way to get her more interested?

You poor darling. After 20-plus years of marriage, you only have sex three times a week. And only a couple times a month is it "mind-blowing." What's next on your list of complaints, "There's a cracked tile in my Aspen ski house"? Or maybe "My Ferrari has a small scratch under the bottom left side of the bumper. If you crawl under the car, it's very apparent."

Every month, I get a slew of letters from married people -- mostly men -- whose spouses haven't had sex with them in this century. Of course, it's got to sting a little to feel you're competing with houseplants for your wife's attention ("Not tonight, honey, I have a ficus tree"), but if you look at this another way, you're writing to complain about how good and healthy your marriage is. There was no dragging your wife off to years of marriage counseling or therapy weekends. You simply explained your needs, and she set about meeting them. Sure, sometimes you get the sense that she's jumping your bones when she'd rather be getting a jump on the week's laundry, but if she might not always be in the mood for sex, it seems she's often in the mood to make you happy.

Both men and women are prone to what evolutionary psychologist Donald Symons calls the human tendency "to imagine that other minds are much like our own." This causes us to project our sexual psychology onto the opposite sex and expect them to think and act as we would. So, your wife thinks you're oversexed because you want it more than she does, and you've diagnosed her with a "low sex drive." (Basically, you're expecting her to make love to you like a wife named Bob.)

I suspect that many marriages and relationships that have tanked have done so because of the assumption that male sexual desire and female sexual desire play out the same way. They actually don't. Sexual medicine specialist Dr. Rosemary Basson discovered this after she wondered about data suggesting that a third of women were pretty uninterested in sex. She began to suspect that the problem wasn't in the women themselves but in how male sexual response, with its spontaneously occurring lust, was held up as the female sexual norm. This led to couples sitting around waiting for desire to strike the woman like they were waiting for aliens to beam down into their front room.

Basson discovered that in the early stages of a relationship, or if a woman is away from her partner for days or weeks, she's more likely to experience the "spontaneous sexual desire" and "conscious sexual hunger" that men typically do. But, once a woman's in a relationship, the desire for sex may be there, but it often needs to be physically activated. Basson calls it "triggerable," meaning that the couple start fooling around, kissing, whatever, and the woman gets aroused, which makes her want to get it on.

Basson's findings suggest that for many women, initiating sex doesn't come naturally. So, your "holding back and waiting for her to make the first move" and then getting pouty that she isn't reading your mind is a particularly bad strategy. Seeing as she made an effort the last time you told her what you needed, there's a pretty good chance she'd do it again. Just tell her you think it'd be really hot if she'd initiate sometimes. You might also try to appreciate what you have. You two are probably somebody's parents and you're still doing it -- regularly and even "mind-blowingly" -- 20 years in. You've got a lot to be happy about -- even if when the wife's looking for "The Big O," she's probably wondering where she left that magazine that always has that really famous black woman on the cover.