Also via Broadsheet:

Every so often you wonder if they come up with the title first, then the show.

The press release in question from WE tv:

“Understandably, every bride wants her wedding day to be picture perfect and that means that her gown must be stunning and fit like a glove. A new Cornell study reports that more than 70 percent of brides-to-be are on a mission to lose weight before their big day. All-new series, WE tv’s BULGING BRIDES [Yep!] premieres an all-new episode on Sunday, February 24 at 10pm / 9c. … The latest installment … follows Heidi, a constant procrastinator [and bad person], who has been putting off plans for her upcoming nuptials [because FAT people are shiftless].

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Via Broadsheet:

It sounds like the opening scene of a promising Indian indie: 40 family members gather to agree on a suitable bride for an eligible son. As it turns out, says the son, there’s no suitable bride for me; I’m not interested in women at all. (Women’s clothing, yes. But not women.)That son — who was kicked out of the house that day — has now come back to live with that family as their daughter Rose, though her mother still hides her dresses and jewelry when she gets the chance. At the end of the day, though, there’s really no hiding at all anymore: Rose (just Rose) is now India’s first transgender talk show host. Her show, “Ippadikku Rose” (“Yours, Rose”), will be broadcast to up to 64 million people in the southern state of Tamil Nadu later this month. It is, according to the New York Times, “expected to cause a sensation.”

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From American Sexuality Magazine, via Alternet: Psychologist Bella DePaulo, author of Singled Out: How Singles Are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After, takes time out from her busy, fulfilled single life to re-examine the pileup of studies informing the accepted wisdom that married people are happier than unmarrieds. Re-crunching the numbers — such as they are — she finds that while many married people are quite content, it may not be marriage that makes them that way (and vice-versa); at the end of the long, not-so-lonely day, there’s really not much difference in the happy factor between singles and marrieds at at all. To the degree that there is, DePaulo writes, “Single people are not as happy as married people in part because they are targets of stereotyping and discrimination.” Also, zombies.

For Shakespeare, music is the food of love. For me, food is the food of love. It not just about eating as sustenance, of course; I can do that over my own sink. It’s about enjoying eating as sustenance. Enjoying eating together. Here, taste this. No, this piece is yours. I toasted the pine nuts, just the way you like. (Someone once invited me out for Thai food. What would you like? he asked. “Spicy eggplant?” I suggested. “No,” he said, “I don’t like sauce.” Waiter!) It’s about appetite, in all senses. If you’re like me, you may (perhaps unfairly) border on lactose-intolerant-intolerance. If you’re like me, if you’re without someone to love food with, you get very, very peckish.

So what if you’re an omnivore dating a plainwhitepastavore? A cheesehead crushing on a vegan? Can this marriage of flavors be saved? The New York Times explores that question in today’s “Dining In” section. The answer? Sometimes.

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Soulmate, schmoulmate? FOBG Lori Gottlieb has created a bit of a stir with her piece in the current Atlantic Monthly, wherein she urges women who want to get married to consider taking their lofty lovey lerfy lurvy expectations down a notch or five. In other words, ladies, she’s saying you should settle. Yes, SETTLE.

Okay, now you settle down. The real issue with the piece is that according to Gottlieb, women who want to get married are … all women. If you say that’s not you, she says you’re in denial. “Take a good look in the mirror and try to convince yourself that you’re not worried, because you’ll see how silly your face looks when you’re being disingenuous,” she writes. (“I took Gottlieb’s advice, and my face does look silly. But that’s just because I’m making gagging faces and pantomiming a stabbing motion to my throat,” Broadsheet’s Sarah Hepola responded, adding, “Maybe I swallowed my panic and desperation. Though it tasted, for all the world, like a delicious cheese blintz.”)

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The country that brought us the Lovegety continues to be a relationship innovator:

TOKYO (Reuters) – Lovelorn staff at a Japanese marketing company can take paid time off after a bad break-up with a partner, with more “heartache leave” on offer as they get older.

Tokyo-based Hime & Company, which also gives staff paid time off to hit the shops during sales season, says heartache leave allows staff to cry themselves out and return to work refreshed. “Not everyone needs to take maternity leave but with heartbreak, everyone needs time off, just like when you get sick,” CEO Miki Hiradate, whose company of six women markets cosmetics and other goods targeted for women, told Reuters by telephone.

From yahoo news, via NowPublic