Guys who wear shirts with BUTTONS, that is.

Gasp! Brenda Starr has been laid off furloughed!

(More here. Sorry we’re a little late. Even superheros get understaffed!)

May all karaoke bars observe a moment of silence for actor Andy Hallett, who played BG’s favorite character on Angel, which is saying a lot.

Of course, we prefer to think he’s gone back to Pylea to open a FANTASTIC club.

“They have no music there. It doesn’t exist. Do you know what that’s like? No lullabies, no love songs. All my life I thought I was crazy, that I had ghosts in my head or something… simply because I could hear music. Of course, I didn’t know it was music. All I knew was that it was something… beautiful and… and painful and right. And I was the only one who could hear it. Then I wound up here and heard Aretha for the first time.” — Lorne the Host

You know, it’s interesting how the contexts of our relationships are intimately interconnected with the relationships themselves. At the start of a relationship, objects take on talismanic powers — “She wrote me a note! On this crumpled Stickie!” –  and during a relationship they become, in many ways, the terrain of those intertwined lives (that apartment with the crazy radiator; the key on a long string; the first whatever-it-was you bought together).

Then, of course, in the end, objects become painful reminders; simple things take on whole complicated psychic dimensions — a picture frame never  filled, a gift never bestowed. In this way, the power of connection  is the central defining dimension of our lives: it writes our histories on the world around us. An old watch, an unmailed envelope, a Ford Cortina — on their own, they’re simply things. But through the lens of human love they become magical artifacts — not always good magic, but still — and as we move through life they become a jumbled, flea-markety record of who we were in those passed moments.

It’s no wonder they hold such power, that some of us accumulate them compulsively and others of us walk away. Sometimes they even take over the story — as in the one we offer you after the jump — which we recently received in response to Evany Thomas‘s classic Big To Do column on “The Cortina Principle.“  Which is to say: We’re still wondering if Fairly Honest Bill ever got married! Stay tuned. — Team BG

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Formerly arrow-straight eHarmony.com “has come out of the closet,” the L.A. Times reports. As BreakupGirl.net noted in November, the website, which has eHarmonized only male-female couples since its inception in 2000, is launching a gay matchmaking service. The catch, as the L.A. Times put it: “EHarmony’s new relationship with the gay community is more like a shotgun wedding.” How so? Because the company agreed to start the gay service only as part of a settlement with the New Jersey attorney general in the wake of a discrimination suit.

Which makes BG wonder even harder about the name of the new venture: CompatiblePartners.com. No, yeah. Really. What went on in that meeting? Did no one raise a hand and say, “But wait, aren’t the gays more … sparkly?”  Did that name edge out Meh.com?* Plus: though the L.A. Times reports the site’s up as of yesterday, well, go look. Urrr? As of this posting, anyway, it’s totally still just a placeholder.com.

I mean, does someone over there want this to fail?

* Anyone remember “Lowered Expectations“?

Forget the Al Bundy-esque battle over the remote control. According to the New York Times, the latest pop-culture conflict heating up among couples is: The Netflix Wars.

For many couples, the queue — the computer list of which films will arrive next in the mail, after those at home are returned — is as important as everything else that spouses and other varieties of significant others share, from pet names to closet space to the bathroom. For some, this is fine. For others, the queue is the new toilet seat that somebody left up.

Yikes! Looks like someone just rented “Awkward Metaphor.” Anyway: from changing the account password to sneakily bumping up one’s own selections, “policing the queue” has apparently become “a delicate matter” that can cause turmoil under a shared roof.

True? What about you? Have you ever had a Bridget Jones v. James Bond scuffle over movie choices with your partner?

Not exactly sure what I’m s’posed to do with this maple-bacon-flavored lollipop, courtesy of artisanal treats purveyor Das Foods, suggestively dubbed “Man Bait.”

Is the point that if I lick away at one, I’m giving off a seductive visual — kinda like when you’re in a cartoon and your friend is really hungry, and suddenly you look like a pork chop?

Or do the lolly’s “real smoky bacon bits” unleash an irresistible aroma which, with humanlike fingers, lures the object of my confection by the nose toward my swine-scented pucker?

Or or, is it he who is meant to ingest the pop in the first place? (And then I guess he gets the hint, so we go out for pancakes start making out?)

A final conundrum (why must I overcomplicate candy?): Just what kind of man am I baiting here? Because it seems a maple-bacon lollipop’s targeted demographic, as of late, is a manorexic hipster who somehow manages to spend an afternoon sampling bacon while still fitting into his skinny jeans.

Ask Lynn, Breakup Girl’s alter ego’s advice column at MSN.com (powered by Match.com), is now being updated monthly rather than weekly, so now you’ll get two new letters each month…

1. Warhammer Widow feels like she comes in second to her beau’s gaming — but then, so does paying his car insurance. Eeep!

2. Confused and Hurt, who is not a virgin herself, has a boyfriend who said he was. That is, until he finally admitted that she wasn’t his first. This is both confusing (why lie?) and hurtful (the lies!).

Globetrotting on January 26, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I have been with my boyfriend or more than four years. He is from Boston and I am from Malaysia. We met in Hong Kong four years ago. Four months ago, he got transferred to Singapore. Though we see each other a lot, I feel frustrated because I have to fly down three to four times a month. I am a flight attendant, so it’s pretty cheap for me to travel, and he makes the effort to see me as well. But recently we’ve fought a lot. We fight over the issue of who’s not doing their share of the relationship. Whenever a problem arises, he pushes me away. He said he cannot deal with this, especially when he’s so stressed at work. I love this guy with all my heart. Please help.

— JT

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Yeah, our site got blacklisted on January 26, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I have been dating this guy for a year and a half. The problem is that he likes porno, but does not like to view it together. He hides books and goes on the Internet to view it. I don’t think I would mind it that much … but he does not tend to my needs. I don’t think sex once a week or less is enough. I know he pleasures himself more than that with that trash. I just don’t understand. It hurts me. It makes me feel as if I am not good enough. I desperately need advice about this. Please help. Is it time to move on?

— Megan

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