It’s the clothes that make the man…brave enough to talk to a woman! Spotted on the blog at Wired.com: the CyranoSuit, which, as Wired describes it, “uses a series of sensors embedded in the arms and chest to detect physical interaction with a woman and then a hacked receipt printer delivers romantic lines [such as “I love your hair”] straight to the breast pocket of the shy would-be Lothario.”

Man, you know, if a nervous nerd made this much effort just to talk to me, I’d totally give him a shot. Sure, cutie, let’s hit Staples for another roll of paper, ’cause I could read you talking about me allllll night!

Would a chick prefer a mate with a sun-kissed complexion? She would if she has wings and a penchant for tree-dwelling lovers.

According to a recent study published in the journal Current Biology, male barn swallows whose breast feathers were darkened appeared more attractive to female birds and showed higher testosterone levels than male swallows left with their natural, lighter coloring.

“It’s the ‘clothes make the man’” notion, said Rebecca Safran, a co-author of the study. “It’s like you’re walking down the street and you’re driving a Rolls Royce and people notice. And your physiology accommodates this.” (more…)

Ah, the eternal bachelor. The man who’ll never settle down, the man with many labels: “player,” “commitment-phobe,” “jerk!” — and now, according to new research, a big ole scaredy-cat. Turns out most bachelors out there aren’t necessarily afraid of marriage; they’re just afraid of a bad marriage.

Carl Weisman, a bachelor himself at 49 — and sick of being stereotyped for his status — set out to discover the reason why more and more eligible men are in their early 40s are choosing to stay single (reportedly up from 6 percent in 1980 to 17 percent today). The result: his new book, So Why Have You Never Been Married?: 10 Insights Into Why He Hasn’t Wed. “Men are 10 times more scared of marrying the wrong person than of never getting married at all,” Weisman told Reuters. “It’s so important to these men to get it right.” Yaaah, but isn’t seeking perfection — as some of the bachelors in his study claim they are — the, um, perfect way to remain a bachelor?

Though I generally loathe “Ladies! It’s still possible to get married after [X advanced age]!” stories — maybe we don’t want to get married at any age? Maybe, like George Clooney, we want to stay single for life? And that’s so sad and weird because? — I did, in fact, read this entire USA Today article and will now force it upon you, too.

What I was intrigued to find out was not that it is (“Ladies!”) still possible to get married for the first time after age 45 and that growing numbers of people are doing just that, but rather this: that the CDC tracks this information.

 As in: “A tally by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is available just for a 20-year period, 1970 to 1990, shows that in 1990, only 0.4% of women and 0.6% of men married for the first time at ages 45 to 49.” Huh. I thought the CDC tracked (not to mention controlled and prevented), you know, diseases — where one might still find the plague, for example. I’m not sure what this means for marriage. Pox, anyone?

I just got an e-mail with the subject line: “Who’s sleeping with your husband?” But before I could say, “That bee-yotch!”, or remember that I don’t have a husband, I realized it was just a press release — a really depressing press release — for a Web site called MomLogic. Witness:

The other woman wants you to know–your husband is cheating and she’s loving it. Find out why. (more…)

First we heard about ExBoyfriendJewelry.com. Now we hear, via the Boston Globe, that both online and off, sales of emotionally-tarnished gewgaws have actually created a mini “ex-boyfriend economy” unto itself. Helping fuel the reportedly “unprecedented assault on jewelry boxes and dresser drawers,” apparently, are the currently “record prices for precious metals.”

I have a box, not exactly FULLfull, but containing quite a few once-shiny little items from exes. What better way to underwrite the cost of that strappy little dress I have my eye on! (Then again, those wee baubles from “Roger” will go perfectly with it, so I’ll at least have to hang on to them…)

Phomance: the old-fashioned kind of courtship, where you talk on the phone rather than email and text? Nope: phomance, comes the word from CNET, is a type of phishing scam aimed at the online dating community. “We’ve all done foolish things for romance,” writes Ben Nahorney, about his interaction with a phlirtatious phomancer from the phormer Soviet Union, who was, as he tells it, “‘I’ll wire her money just to take care­ of her sick puppy’ gorgeous.” See where the scam might come in?

Fortunately for everyone but the scammers, Nahorney is not only a member of a dating website, but also a senior information developer at the security software company Symantec. BUSTED! In his blog, Nahorney describes the warning signs that came along with his initial feelings of hope and excitement, and which tactics he pulled from his own bag of tricks to reveal the true nature of their would-be victim/would-be scammer relationship.

But you don’t have to be, well, a senior information developer at a security software company in order to sniff out a phony. Nor should you quit online dating in phear. Just remember what BG says: “be aware, but don’t be scared.”

Once in a while, staying at the pub and chanting your football team’s name loudly with your mates actually turns out to be the better idea.

Fear not, Xbox widows (and widowers) everywhere! There is now proof that your next video game experience could not onlybe fun, but could also save your relationship. Rachel Shukert’s hilarious new article on Salon.com (it’s Premium, so you’ll need a subscription or day pass; of course, I’ll summarize here too) tells the story of a frustrated wife and her video game-addicted husband in a marriage. He spends his time shooting things in a video fantasy world; she fears the man she married has become one of the very aliens he’s always trying to blow up. (“…[N]oise-canceling headphones,” Shukert writes. “You could lock Rush Limbaugh, Phyllis Schlafly and Mullah Omar in a room together with a stack of Hustlers and 10 ounces of meth, and they couldn’t come up with anything more misogynist.”)

The solution? (more…)

Apparently it’s not just wine that gets better with age. According to a study by Yang Yang, a University of Chicago sociologist, the happiest Americans are the oldest Americans — and one thing those happy seniors are not is lonely. Yang believes that’s because older people have, in general, learned to be more content with what they have than younger folks.

As a case in point, Florida’s Highlands Today featured Lou and Dottie Mingacci, who have been married 62 years. Lou’s Wednesday morning Bingo outings represent his rare moments of separation from his beloved, the World War II vet tells the paper. When asked what keeps him happy, Mingacci quickly replies: his wife.

Isn’t it nice to have something to look forward to?