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February 11

Autistic–and in love

Filed under: Psychology,Treats — posted by Breakup Girl @ 8:02 am

A seriously inspiring story for V-day: BG’s alter ego had the pleasure and privilege of getting to know Lindsey Nebeker and Dave Hamrick, who both have autism — a diagnosis that makes conventional relationship skills particularly challenging — and getting to tell their love story in Glamour Magazine. The moral of their story is not that “love conquers autism.” It’s that two deeply committed and passionate people can, with a great deal of work, have both.

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January 21

Love, Obama style

Filed under: Celebrities,Treats — posted by Breakup Girl @ 11:01 am

From this week’s New Yorker…from 1996. In the Obamas’ relationship, it seems, every day is like the first 100.

Barack on Michelle:

…And then what sustains our relationship is I’m extremely happy with her, and part of it has to do with the fact that she is at once completely familiar to me, so that I can be myself and she knows me very well and I trust her completely, but at the same time she is also a complete mystery to me in some ways. And there are times when we are lying in bed and I look over and sort of have a start. Because I realize here is this other person who is separate and different and has different memories and backgrounds and thoughts and feelings. It’s that tension between familiarity and mystery that makes for something strong, because, even as you build a life of trust and comfort and mutual support, you retain some sense of surprise or wonder about the other person.

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January 8

Women shouldn’t say “I love you” first?

Filed under: Advice,News — posted by Chris @ 8:19 am

If a gal realizes she’s in love with her man, should she keep her mouth shut? Over at Salon’s Broadsheet, Sarah Hepola chimes in on the recent CNN/The Frisky post, “Why Women Shouldn’t Say ‘I Love You’ first,” which posits, basically, that dudes can’t handle it. Sarah has a reaction many of us might:

It’s the kind of story that can’t help being irritating: First of all, because it’s a glib service piece in which advice about profound life experiences is shoehorned into a few measly grafs; second of all, because it’s dumb. It’s asinine, right?

Then she emails her guy friends who, with equal doses of articulateness and immaturity, convince her the writer may have a point. One guy friend even looks at the odds:

It’s just statistically less common to hear of girls getting weirded out and bailing on a relationship after the L word, so as a rule of thumb I think it’s fine.

Obviously there will always be special cases — and special guys — but is this basically correct?

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October 22

Heartburn

Filed under: Uncategorized — posted by Breakup Girl @ 7:10 am

Intending no insensitivity toward serious health issues and their affect on relationships: As Slate.com’s Dear Prudence notes in response to this advice-seeker (scroll down to “Pursue or Quit”): “I don’t think I’ve ever read a better description of kismet than: ‘We both suffer from the same rare intestinal disease.'”

Perhaps, though, they’re just on the “rare” end of an entire spectrum. As our tipster notes, “It’s very hard for me to distinguish between infatuation and indigestion.”

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July 20

The economics of love

Filed under: Advice,Psychology — posted by Jackie @ 2:04 pm

Love is scarce. When making romantic investments, try to remember what you learned in econ.

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July 9

He’s the strong, silent type…

Filed under: News,Treats — posted by Sadie @ 6:34 am

Pee-wee Herman always knew what to say. He never screwed up — he totally “meant to do that!” And there’s just no arguing with “I know you are but what am I!?”

Plus: if you exclaimed that you just love something, Pee-wee’d be all over it: “Well if you love it so much, why don’t you marry it?” In fact, in one episode of Pee-wee’s Playhouse, Pee-wee walked his own talk with a formal ceremony in which he wed a bowl of fruit salad. (What to give the happy couple for their fourth anniversary?)

Well, on that why-dontcha-marry-it tip, one woman may have Pee-wee beat. She became so enamored of the Berlin Wall after seeing “his” picture as a youth that she developed a childhood crush that eventually led to marriage. In her mind, at least. As the Telegraph reports, Eija-Riitta Berliner-Mauer, 54, has finally come out about her “husband” and general attraction to inanimate objects (she prefers ’em long and slim, wouldn’t you know.) Apparently she and the Wall are quite loving and happy together, and have been for the past 29 years, which, it should be noted, is longer than most human-on-human marriages these days. But we just have to ask: is making conversation like talking to a … well, you know.

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May 27

The USO show of his dreams

Filed under: Celebrities,Treats — posted by Jackie @ 7:17 am

If you were serving in Iraq, housed in a grimy outpost lacking electricity and running water, where soot, sewage, and boiling temperatures created miserable living conditions, what would you dream about? A nice long shower? Cherry Garcia? Dorothy’s ruby-red slippers? Maybe just your bed back home?

For military police sergeant Owen Powell, it was Natalie Portman. But not in that way. According to Powell’s haunting, piercing runner-up entry in the New York Times Modern Love college essay contest — Go read it! Run, don’t walk! — his take-me-away visions included the lovely Miss Portman glowing at him from across a romantic table, doing the lambada in his arms. Or, on a bad night, breaking up with him.

But either way, in a way, she saved him. “In the Humvee, I searched for that elusive image of Natalie from the night before; I hunted for her through the blood-warm passages of my mind, chased the feeling of her down tunnels collapsing with the weight of status reports and threat conditions. The thick brushstroke of a single arched eyebrow. A glance across that crowded dance floor, somehow simultaneously sharp and accusatory and mesmerizing. It was as if I had something secret and untouchable that was wholly mine, a delicate and perfect gift in a city that seemed to feast on hate.”

Powell is now back in New York City, both glad and sad to be home. The dreams are gone. But this is the reality: he could totally run into her on the street.

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May 20

Now on MSN.com: I’m in love with my best friend!

Filed under: Advice — posted by Breakup Girl @ 8:00 am

Here, your weekly installment of Ask Lynn, BG’s alter ego’s column at MSN.com (powered by Match.com). This week, we meet Hopelessly Heartbroken, who’s head over heels for his best friend. There’s just one thing they don’t have in common, and given his pen-name, you can guess it’s not a passion for film noir. To make matters worse, she has unceremoniously introduced HH to her swell new boyfriend. Should he stay friends with her? More to the point, can he … without, he asks, being “that jealous guy” in her life? Read Lynn’s advice to find out, and then come back here to comment!

Bonus: for more on the tricky — but often doable — friends-to-lovers upgrade, click here!

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May 6

Reading, writing, dating

Filed under: News — posted by Mary @ 12:17 pm

How many times have teachers heard their students ask, “When am I going to need to know this?” From trigonometry to the periodic table, there are many lessons we learn in school that don’t exactly pop up in real life. We spend hours, years, decades on homework for math and science class…but what about learning the simple equation of boy + girl? What about the finding the happy solution for love + family+ career?

A recent article in the New York Times revealed that Singapore — whose population is shrinking due to an alarmingly low birth rate — is now teaching just such a class. “Love Relations For Life: A Journey of Romance, Love and Sexuality” is a college course designed to teach students the art of finding and maintaining a romantic relationship. The goal is for Singapore’s “desirable” women to marry “desirable” men and populate the country with “desirable” children. It’s actually one of many programs designed by Singapore’s government to encourage educated young people to nurture relationships and have prosperous families as opposed to focusing only on career. From sponsored moonlight cruises to tea party dances, Singapore’s government has practically become a desperate mother, matching up her aging children and then constantly asking, “When will I have grandchildren?”

While the United States may not have a comparable population crisis, our high divorce rate doesn’t exactly suggest that we have it together in the relationship department. What kind of Love Ed, if any, should be offered in U.S. schools? Have you had any such class? What was it like? Did you at least do your homework?

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May 2

“I want to spend the rest of my marriage with you!”

Filed under: Treats — posted by Amanda @ 1:10 pm

The other night I swung by the legendary Algonquin Hotel for a discussion — sadly, not at the round table — on the new book Sex and Sensibility: Ten Women Examine the Lunacy of Modern Love…in 200 Cartoons. (Not to be confused with this Sex and Sensibility, which contains an essay by BG’s alter ego entitled “Someone Old, Someone Blue.”)

Anyway: gasp! A gaggle of cartoonists (including BG idol Roz Chast!) on a mission to figure out this whole love thang? Sounds like BG’s got a backup team! Much of the group’s discussion actually centered on whether or not men and women find different things funny, and why that might be. (No final conclusions were drawn, but everyone found the discussion funny, so I guess that’s saying something.)

Liza Donnelly, the book’s editor — and a staff cartoonist at the New Yorker (thus a superhero of sorts) — also mentioned to me that she is working on another book of cartoons about marriage with her fellow-cartoonist husband. Will it be full of actual solutions? Probably not. But is it fun to imagine the two of them hanging around their apartment saying things like, “You don’t have to go to this party. It’s ‘Men Optional,'” or “Now that our last is off to college, could you tell me who the hell you are?” Oh yeah.

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