MSN.com, Match.com, HappenMagazine.com: they’re in a healthy and satisfying 3-way relationship. Meaning that you can find MSN/Match.com’s “Ask Lynn” columns –penned by BG’s alter ego — over at Happen now as well.

This week Lynn deals with a letter from a 51-year-old woman who feels like she’s Back in Junior High because her best friends are making her choose between her boyfriend and them. And with good reason:

He is manipulative, a “dry drunk,” selfish, immature, etc. They accuse me of staying in an “abusive” relationship because I am addicted to the drama.

Who’s side are you on? Read the full letter at Happen, then come back here to comment!

Old habits die hard on March 16, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I recently parted ways with my boyfriend of five months, over (as far as I can tell) a spaghetti dinner. In any case, shortly after splitting, we met again and promptly hopped into bed. I unwittingly believed that this encounter would mean something to both of us. Apparently I was wrong. I called him up to talk about the situation, and he was completely nonchalant, and became irritated with my repeated question of “is that all you have to talk about?” Anyway, the conversation ended with me being fairly hurt and confused, and him being generally clueless. Was it wrong for me to expect more? Please help me out.

– Tory

Dear Tory,

What you have here is Classic Relapse. See, breakups can be right up there with oysters, figs, and The Red Shoe Diaries in terms of their aphrodisiac qualities. It’s like, “Wow, you look great without … commitment.”

So, a Relapse and a Reunion are two entirely different animals. People: safeguard your feelings — and don’t toy with those of others. Either break up or don’t; act accordingly. But if you are going to break up, you might as well be eating spaghetti at the time

Love,
Breakup Girl

MSN.com, Match.com, HappenMagazine.com: they’re in a healthy and satisfying 3-way relationship. Meaning that you can find MSN/Match.com’s “Ask Lynn” columns –penned by BG’s alter ego — over at Happen now as well.

This week Lynn advises a woman who fears she may be A Victim of His Past. Everything was going fine in this new relationship, but then

About two weeks ago he started becoming distant and I asked him about it. He said he wasn’t sure what was going on, but he just woke up one morning and felt like things were moving too fast.

How does this happen? Could his recent reservations stem from a previous relationship that ended badly? Read the whole saga at Happen, then come back here to comment!

News flash: boys are icky, dateline March 16, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I have recently moved into a new apartment with a guy, we’ll call him “Brutus,” who I hardly knew. Then the first night we moved in together Brutus and I messed around. Three months have passed since then and I feel like I am pretty much “in love” with him or something quite like it. Problem is, I am quickly falling OUT of love with him due to all of the gross little bodily things that you see everyday when you live with someone. I don’t know how to cool things off with him without going through some big, torrid fiasco and someone moving out — I mean I like being his roommate…but not his girlfriend. I just want to quit messing around with him. Oh yeah, also he always tells me he loves me….uh OH!!!! How can I not hurt him??? Please Advise!!!

–Grossed Out By Bodily Function Brutus

(more…)

MSN.com, Match.com, HappenMagazine.com: they’re in a healthy and satisfying 3-way relationship. Meaning that you can find MSN/Match.com’s “Ask Lynn” columns –penned by BG’s alter ego — over at Happen now as well.

This week Lynn answers a gal who Needs a European Vacation because she’s crushing hard on a German athlete who was only in town for a few weeks.

He’s a professional European basketball star — 6’5”, 8-pack — with an MBA in business finance. I shouldn’t need to get over him, because technically, I’ve never been under him. But I still can’t seem to shake the fantasy, and it’s driving me nuts.

But is she nuts? Read the full letter at Happen, then sound off below!

Have you ever lied that you have cancer to get out of a relationship? What if the relationship is already pretty out-there, as in the case of the 19-year-old lad dating the wife of Northern Ireland’s First Minister? Young Kirk McCambley told Mrs. Robinson (yep, that’s her name!) he had testicular cancer to end the affair.

In honor of Ireland’s sex scandal, The Globe And Mail‘s Dave McGinn susses out what lies might be okay to tell when breaking up. And when Ireland calls, BG answers:

“A white lie that is okay to tell is one where what you are really doing is trying to preserve the other person’s feelings. A whopper is where you’re just trying to not even deal with this at all. You’re trying to save yourself,” says Lynn Harris, co-founder of the relationship advice website BreakupGirl.net.

Read the article here and tell us your own breakup whoppers!

A steaming cuppa joe and a little righteous indignation make for a stimulating morning, which is why I do all my blog-reading before noon. In other words, I was all prepared to be annoyed by this Lemondrop post — “Hey Ladies, Can You Stop Doing This on Dates With Me? Thanks” — but I have to say, Redacted Guy gets it mostly right. Most of his first-date tips spring from simple good etiquette — don’t be snippy with wait staff, don’t keep checking your cell phone — and some are perhaps targeted to the clueless amongst us, male and female, who can’t pick up subtle clues about when it’s time to move on.

I appreciate that the palpable exasperation behind this list of “don’ts” doesn’t translate, as it so often does elsewhere, to gender-flaming and meanness.

So! In that spirit of learning and not just griping…what are your top out-on-a-date “don’ts”?

MSN.com, Match.com, HappenMagazine.com: they’re in a healthy and satisfying 3-way relationship. Meaning that you can find MSN/Match.com’s “Ask Lynn” columns –penned by BG’s alter ego — over at Happen now as well.

This week Lynn advises Felix Fairytale, who’s trying to reconcile the storybook ending he imagined for himself with the reality that his princess and he fight. They’ve broken up and gotten back together three times.

I bought into the “fairy-tale hype,” I guess you could say — that if you’re meant to be, there won’t be any friction between the two of you. I didn’t realize that just because we fight, it doesn’t mean the relationship has to end.

Read the letter and Lynn’s advice over at Happen, then come back here to comment on Felix’s fear of conflict and how you deal with disagreements in your own relationships.

Can men and women be friends? Ah, a question for the ages: one that men and women have wrestled with and debated until TOTALLY JUMPING EACH OTHER’S BONES.  I kid.  In fact, I have always been a firm believer that those of opposing genders should have no issue getting beyond those barriers — people are people, after all. Why should gender have such a big impact on who we hold near and dear?

Well, yeah, OK, I guess isn’t always that simple. Erin Scottberg at Lemondrop doesn’t think so either. Yes, she says, it is perfectly normal and possible for men and women to  maintain friendships. But as we orbit around the sun, each year adds an extra challenge to bringing new opposite-sex friends into the mix.

According to Erin, there are two basic guy-friend categories. The seriously dear pal who you’re Just Not Into (otherwise known as Boy BFF, or BBFF), and the seriously dear pal whom you’ve hooked up with but it’s so not a thing. (No, really.) But!

“Now that I’m older,” she writes, “it seems that — unless the men in your life have been grandfathered into your post-college world — these two categories no longer exist. From a guy’s point of view, every stranger is either a potential screw … or nothing. But the thing is, as a single lady, when I meet a guy who I think is cool, but I’m not physically attracted to, I want to be his Just Friend.

I’ve discussed this with friends and think maybe my recent platonic dry spell comes down to geography. People who live their adult lives near where they grew up or attended college have plenty of friends, male and female, and are set with their circle. They don’t need anyone new. As one friend said, “When a guy tells me he wants to be just friends, I think ‘You’re in your late 20s. Don’t you already have enough?'” But when you’re new to a city, the answer to that question is usually, “No.”

Or maybe it’s just that as we get older, relationships get more serious, and, sadly, a good friend of the opposite sex is almost always a threat — while your high school BBFF’s girlfriend may realize you’ve “been around forever,” the girlfriends of newer BBFFs might not be so understanding.

I have been in both situations. I have two very close male companions (we eloquently describe ourselves as “The Holy Trinity”). I’ve known them since the ripe old age of eleven and have been close as could be with them ever since. One I  dated briefly in my youth in that “aw it’s so cute they just kissed” sort of way, but we always fell into that category of being ‘Just Friends’. The other has since gotten married and as a side note, his wife and I get along swimmingly. Gender has never been a barrier here.

In fact, I’d have to say that a vast majority of my friends are men. Some I have know for what seems like forever and some I met just a short while ago. Sometimes it doesn’t work, but sometimes it REALLY works. Ya see, the boy who I was “best friends” with turned out to be the love of my life. Does it prove the “When Harry Met Sally” theory? Not really. If that were the case I’d probably be a bigamist.

As a woman working in the video game industry about 95% of my coworkers are men. I’m sure one or two may have had more than friendly feelings for me, she says modestly, but for the most part gender has never had a role in how we communicate. I think most friendships are rooted in common ground, and if you can relate to this person (male or female), everything else becomes less of an issue. Does it become more challenging? Yeah. But then again, everything gets harder as we get older  standing up, seeing small print, etc.). I think making new friends as we get older is complicated enough on its own without throwing male and female parts into the mix.

Can we be friends? Well, I hope so. It’s lovely to meet you.

MSN.com, Match.com, HappenMagazine.com: they’re in a healthy and satisfying 3-way relationship. Meaning that you can find MSN/Match.com’s “Ask Lynn” columns –penned by BG’s alter ego — over at Happen now as well.

This week Lynn answers a letter from Stumped in St. Louis, who feels his long distance relationship is in jeopardy because of his job loss.

I’m feelling very stressed and scared about telling her what happened because it is going to significantly impact our ability to see each other. … Do I put our relationship on hold and focus totally on finding a new job? Or should I suggest that we make that move we’ve been talking about so we can pool our resources and see what it’s like to finally be together?

Read the full letter at Happen, then come back to pitch in your two cents.