Now coming to a close is Psychology Today’s three-part Q&A between author/interviewer Bella DePaulo and author/interviewee Jaclyn Geller about the singles stigma. And here’s our final rundown of this quite illuminating discussion.

— I swear I did not know that DePaulo was gonna name-check that same baby-shower “SATC” ep as I linked to in my most recent post. All the same, I will take this opportunity to remind you what great minds do.

— In other tried-but-true cliches (including the use of “tried and true,” shame on me), Geller eloquently discusses how those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. (Translation: She recommends all those entering marriage to read up on its history.)

— If a Mormon can decide to take the Sarandon-Robbins alternate route to happiness, then change is inevitable.

Sticky notes: they’re not just a really bad way to break up with someone.

Check this out.

Brought to you by these guys. (Geek crush!)

Have a great weekend!

Advertising Age reports that The Parents’ Television Council (PTC) is wagging quite the stern finger at broadcast networks for undermining marriage, they say, by making affairs look much more interesting. Networks show sex between married couples as “boring, burdensome or nonexistent, while depicting extramarital sex as positive,” according to the PTC. “[Prime-time] verbal references to nonmarital sex outnumber references to sex in marriage nearly 3 to 1, and scenes implying sex between unmarried partners outnumbered similar scenes between married couples 4 to 1.”

Sure: Shows such as Desperate Housewives, Lipstick Jungle, and Sex and the City certainly have their philandering plot lines, even if they end up with Carrie ending up with Mr. Big. Sunday’s episode of Mad Men showed Don Draper having ho-hum coitus with his wife, while sultry, unmarried Joan Holloway had anything but. And let’s not even get into the implications of Swingtown. Of course, in fairness to writers — TV and otherwise — a happy marriage makes a happy couple … but maybe not so great a story. (At least once the reality-wedding show ends.) But still: have we come so far that it is no longer risqué enough to merely say “Sex Sells,” but that “Forbidden Sex Sells”? And does it not just sell, but also, you know, drive us to seduce the pool boy?

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You may have seen the much buzzed-about New York Times article in which Maureen Dowd, in consultation with 79-year-old Catholic priest Fr. Pat Connor, laid out 10 requirements for the “ideal husband.” Though I’m pretty sure BG hates MoDo with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns, I’ve got to say I think her checklist makes perfect sense. Having witnessed my parents experience the ups and downs of marriage, I’ve come to understand that love is just the beginning of a successful lifetime partnership. So here, in case you missed it, is what MoDo and Fr. Pat urge you to consider. (I’ll use male pronouns as the article implies that only girls are on the big hunt — lies!):

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Okay, so I have watched maybe 0.75 episodes, ever, of Sex and the City. Yes, I have been living somewhere down near the earth’s core since 1998. What can I say? It just never wound up on my super-radar.

But this did!

Or at least an exterior of the Studio Apartment of Justice?