The missing piece, from January 19, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,
Here’s an easy one for you that baffles the male species: what do women want? I’m a 25-year-old white male, average height and looks, good upbringing, working on a double masters’ program, and seeking someone else … but a 2nd, 3rd, or 4th date is a major accomplishment in my life. What’s up with that? What special bit is missing?
— Smart Ash

Dear Ash,
Easy. To borrow from Regina Barreca, Ph.D. (one of Breakup Girl’s gurus): We want you to give us “emotional, physical, and financial support without making demands that will interfere with our careers/child-raising/bridge game.”
Love,
Breakup Girl

P.S. Barreca continues: “And then we wonder why men are skittish.”

Actual source: Perfect Husbands (& Other Fairy Tales): Demystifying Marriage, Men, and Romance

Everything is Terrible has been digging up some priceless videos recently. Here’s an ad for “Flirting With Magic” — a course in magic that promises to improve your pickup skills. There’s some solid advice in there somewhere — about building your confidence and easing the pressure of starting conversations with the opposite sex — but those Eighties production values undermine their attempts to look cool.

Here, your soon-to-be-weekly again installment of Ask Lynn, the advice column penned by BG’s alter ego at MSN.com (powered by Match.com). This week, we meet “Weekday Dater?”, who wonders why she seems to be everyone’s Girl Wednesday. The guys she meets — including, notably, a current fellow who’s otherwise totally coming through — never upgrade from the school-night date to the weekend rendezvous. Are these guys too busy? Or “too busy?” How can WD find someone who’ll stylus her in for Saturday? Read Lynn’s answer, and then come back here to comment!

Broadsheet’s Amy Benfer recently highlighted some antediluvian romantic advice from Countess LuAnn de Lesseps, star of “The Real Housewives of New York City.” Apparently the countess thinks she’s just dripping with gems of wisdom, which she shared with two women sitting together at a bar (one of whom happened to be surfing on her Blackberry).

Without tearing into the racist, sexist, ignorant comments that framed her words, I will attempt to deflect her message in its entirety with my Wonder Woman bracelets.  Fwing! Zing!

Sayeth the Countess, “When men see females on their BlackBerrys working hard, it really turns them off. Men like women to be females, to not be like workaholics, as that comes off as being uptight in the bedroom and control freaks.” How confused is the countess? Let me count the ways:

1. Smartphones are usually indicators of success, money, and social connection (attractive things, unless we’re in bizarro world), and in bars they are kept handy for social reasons, and also for looking up which actor from that show played the guy in the movie.
2. Dear men, have you ever been turned off by a woman who could settle your bar bet with her Bat-phone?
3. No one likes to feel neglected or ignored in the presence of a Crackberry, but she’s not saying “don’t be rude.” She’s saying, “Men won’t want to rescue you if they think you don’t need it.” The countess also doesn’t see the difference between “workaholic” and “gainfully employed.”
4. The work/life/love balance deserves thoughtful advice, preferably from those who actually walk that tightrope every day. I’m sure our readers have some valuable insight and anecotes.
5. It’s dismissive and just plain unhelpful to say that all men like a certain thing. Figure out what you like.
6. “Uptight in the bedroom” HA. HAH! HAHahahahahahahhaha! Honey, if you only knew!

I guess I shouldn’t be flabbergasted that a woman with an old-world title has a damsel-in-distress outlook on marriage, but I like to think that’s part of why people set out in pursuit of happiness to the new one.

Listen up, single New Yorkers.  Think it’s impossible to find a good worm in the biggest of apples?  Meet Sandra Schwartz-Pingrey, Founder and President of Cause & Affection Dating (formerly Cause and Effect), a matchmaking service that — like others before, but with a more individualized touch — brings together this perfect couple: dating and volunteering.

As Time Out New York reports, “a 2007 study conducted by the Corporation for National & Community Service revealed that New York’s volunteering rates ranked in the bottom three of 50 U.S. cities.”  Oof! Cause & Affection is doing its part to help improve this ranking by offering clients (screened via face-to-face interviews!  no online profiles!) a date structured around a charitable cause, such as taking shelter pooches out — together — for those proverbial “long walks.”

Soup kitchens can’t guarantee soul mates, of course, but hey: as Cause & Affection says, “Even if it goes bad…you did good.”

Except maybe not here?

Friday tries to separate the men from the boys…

(more…)

Those dirty rings! As part of their application for the Evil League of Evil, the sly devils over at Boston-based wireless communications provider Mobile Sphere have created a no-cost (if you don’t mind a few ads) service called SlyDial that allows you to call directly into someone’s voice mail — ring-free. It’s being marketed mainly as a tool to help bizzy people who have never heard of email return calls without ever interacting with other humans small-talk time-suck. But according to the “SlyDial Situations” section of the service’s website, it will also help you avoid certain uncomfy conversations in particular: calling in sick when you’re fine; explaining your credit card bill to your parents; wishing a friend a belated (like, 3 AM) birthday. Hmm. If we think really really really hard, could we also come up with some other applications in the area of love (or lack thereof)?

Oh wait! SlyDial beat us to it: “You are dating quite a few people at the same time. You don’t want to leave them all text messages because there is nothing romantic about that. But a nice voicemail to each would score you points.” Mmmm. Now that’s romantic.

Here, your weekly installment of Ask Lynn, the advice column penned by BG’s alter ego at MSN.com (powered by Match.com). This week, we meet a fellow who’s about to become a dad…and he’s already “Overwhelmed.” The problem? When he’s home from work, his pregnant girlfriend basically won’t let him out of her sight — not to get a beer with friends, see [his] mom, or buy a pair of shoes, he says. How can Overwhelmed hang on to any shred of his “me” time? (And how can his gf not realize that she’s gonna want grandma on her good side?) Find out what Lynn has to say, and then, on your you-time, come back to comment!

Bravo — speaking of staying friends — is premiering a new dating show that sounds like it could be all about the awkward. Date My Ex: Jo and Slade stars the ex-couple from Real Housewives of the Orange County. Jo De La Rosa has moved from the OC to the L-to-the-A to get busy with her music career, but Slade Smiley has come along as her friendly “business manager.” Jo’s friends will be setting her up each week with a new guy they think’ll be good for her, but here’s where Slade really gets all up her business. Not only will he be grilling and testing the guys each week, he’ll be weighing in on how pure he thinks their intentions are. Oh, and he’ll be living with them. Could Slade possibly be interested in seeing Jo independent and happy, or does the very premise of the show prove he’s not ready to move on? Check out a sneak peek — especially if you missed Monday’s premiere — to see the first of many priceless (sad, shocked, or masochistic?) looks on Slade’s face.