BREAKING: Our friends over at the esteemed Guttmacher Institute report news that’s sadly about as unsurprising as the lamented John Edwards being Quinn’s dad. That is: “For the first time in more than a decade, the nation’s teen pregnancy rate rose 3% in 2006 [the most recent source of data], reflecting increases in teen birth and abortion rates of 4% and 1%, respectively.”

2006: Let’s plot that on a timeline of SURELY UNRELATED events in U.S. history. Aha: Turns out a long-term decline in teen pregnancy — due in part to increased contraceptive use among teens — flattened out and then reversed…what’s this? The decline reversed at the same time that the Bush administration and Congress ramped up funding for rigid abstinence-only-until-marriage programs that are prohibited from discussing the benefits of contraception. Coincidence, or…? Yeah, gotta be coincidence.

“After more than a decade of progress, this reversal is deeply troubling,” says Heather Boonstra, Guttmacher Institute senior public policy associate. “It coincides with an increase in rigid abstinence-only-until-marriage programs, which received major funding boosts under the Bush administration. A strong body of research shows that these programs do not work. Fortunately, the heyday of this failed experiment has come to an end with the enactment of a new teen pregnancy prevention initiative that ensures that programs will be age-appropriate, medically accurate and, most importantly, based on research demonstrating their effectiveness.”

And: “It is clearly time to redouble our efforts to make sure our young people have the information, interpersonal skills and health services they need to prevent unwanted pregnancies and to become sexually healthy adults,” said Lawrence Finer, Guttmacher’s director of domestic research.

For starters, we’ll need to let them read the dictionary.

(Click here (PDF) for the full report, “U.S. Teenage Pregnancies, Births and Abortions: National and State Trends and Trends by Race and Ethnicity,” and click here for Guttmacher’s Facts on American Teens’ Sexual and Reproductive Health. Also, find Guttmacher on Facebook and Twitter to learn more.)

Long before Jeff and Erin (below) — like, even before YouTube –  there were (FOBGs) Peggy and Steve!

Must. Watch. Now.

MSN.com, Match.com, HappenMagazine.com: they’re in a healthy and satisfying 3-way relationship. Meaning that you can find MSN/Match.com’s “Ask Lynn” columns –penned by BG’s alter ego — over at Happen now as well.

This week Lynn advises a woman who fears she may be A Victim of His Past. Everything was going fine in this new relationship, but then

About two weeks ago he started becoming distant and I asked him about it. He said he wasn’t sure what was going on, but he just woke up one morning and felt like things were moving too fast.

How does this happen? Could his recent reservations stem from a previous relationship that ended badly? Read the whole saga at Happen, then come back here to comment!

News flash: boys are icky, dateline March 16, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I have recently moved into a new apartment with a guy, we’ll call him “Brutus,” who I hardly knew. Then the first night we moved in together Brutus and I messed around. Three months have passed since then and I feel like I am pretty much “in love” with him or something quite like it. Problem is, I am quickly falling OUT of love with him due to all of the gross little bodily things that you see everyday when you live with someone. I don’t know how to cool things off with him without going through some big, torrid fiasco and someone moving out — I mean I like being his roommate…but not his girlfriend. I just want to quit messing around with him. Oh yeah, also he always tells me he loves me….uh OH!!!! How can I not hurt him??? Please Advise!!!

–Grossed Out By Bodily Function Brutus

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Loads of props to Psychology Today’s Living Single blog, an excellent source of pro-single advocacy courtesy of perennial BG fave Bella DePaulo, Ph.D. One of their trusty commenters picked up on the singles-bashing embedded in this recent New York Times article about research out of Australia suggesting that  married women may gain more weight than single women. The study in question, conducted over a ten-year period, found that whether or not they bear children, married women tend to pack on more pounds than their never-married counterparts.

It’s not the findings themselves that slant anti-single; it’s the totally facile, clueless quote that another (female) egghead, asked to comment on the study, got away with. I’ll let DePaulo sum up what sucks about it:

“Before I tell you her answer — which was just a guess — imagine what answer would have been proffered if it were the single women who got fatter. Probably that they are home alone sitting on their couches eating ice cream, in a desperate attempt to sugar-coat that bitter man-less taste in their mouths.”

Buh-zing, DePaulo. Here’s the real quote:

“‘It’s interesting and brings out some important points,’ said Maureen A. Murtaugh, an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Utah, who has published widely on weight gain in women. Perhaps, she suggested, a more active social life may help explain why women with partners gain more weight.”

Marrieds have more active social lives? Don’t people usually assume the other way around? Oh wait, I get it… because singles, mortified of revealing their grotesque, table-for-one faces in public, eat tear-soggy dinners under the covers of their twin-sized Murphy beds.

“‘Think of going to a restaurant,’ Dr. Murtaugh said. ‘They serve a 6-foot man the same amount as they serve me, even though I’m 5 feet 5 inches and 60 pounds lighter.’”

Okay, I’m thinking of that… that has nothing to do with being married. And btw, way to sneak in an elbow jab toward us glamazonly-tall girls. And also btw, I’m married, not incapable of asking for a doggie bag when I judge that titanic slab of man-meat I’ve just been served too much for my delicate belly.

As the blog entry notes about studies of marriage in general: “Even when marrying has a bad* effect, it will be attributed to something good.” Lots more juicy stuff here.

*Ever non-fat-phobic, we’d stop short of saying that gaining weight always = “bad.” But point still taken.

How soon can we get the world into the hands of this generation?

“It doesn’t bother me to tell kids my parents are gay. It does bother me to say they aren’t married. It makes me feel that our family is less than their family.” — Kasey Nicholson-McFadden, 10

Question #2: Why was this article in the Styles section?

Final Season Of ‘Lost’ Promises To Make Fans More Annoying Than Ever

Used to be that when the issue of “green” came up in a relationship, someone had a jealousy problem. But now the New York Times reports that therapists are seeing a growing number of couples with serious disagreements about how far they should go to save the environment. What’s a couple to do when one wants to consume, consume, consume and the other wants to reduce, reuse and recycle?

In my own life, I’ve found myself too environmentally conscious for some and not enough for others. What it really comes down to is clear communication and the ability to gauge whether or not different values equal dealbreakers. Since I am not married, the extent to which I choose to be environmentally conscious is already a part of the whole package; slight variations in the size of our collective footprint are negotiable. Basically, I choose my battles if I really like someone.

As family and marriage therapist Linda Buzzell tells the Times, “The danger arises when one partner undergoes an environmental ‘waking up’ process way before the other, leaving a new values gap between them.” The article makes it sound as if for those already married, this is akin to someone suddenly finding God (and being married to a heathen). While it can be that dramatic in terms of thought process and lifestyle, it can also be explained as just an aspect of personal growth — which is natural over time and especially over the course of a marriage. My question is whether the problems couples are experiencing stem more from an inability to stay connected and cope with personal growth on any level (whether that takes the form of a new environmental consciousness or an interest in hot rods) or if we are looking to scapegoat Mother Nature?

Robert Brulle, a professor of environment and sociology at Drexel University in Philadelphia, said that he himself has seen this issue break up a marriage. Typically, “One still wants to live the American dream with all that means, and the other wants to give up on big materialistic consumption, “ he says. “Those may not be compatible.” Maybe it’s time to find a new American Dream and give healthy marriages and a healthy environment a place to grow within it.

Coda: Have you ever grappled over greenness? Share or opine in the comments!

Dating expert Rachel Greenwald made a splash with her 2003 self-help book Find a Husband After 35: (Using What I Learned at Harvard Business School)and spent years researching her 2009 follow-up, Why He Didn’t Call You Back: 1,000 Guys Reveal What They Really Thought About You After Your Date(re-christened for its March 2010 paperback release as the more empowering and less finger-waggy Have Him at Hello: Confessions from 1,000 Guys About What Makes Them Fall in Love . . . Or Never Call Back) by interviewing 1,000 men about their honest reactions to real dates.

Through the insights gleaned from these candid chats, Greenwald, a professional yenta and dating coach, became a staunch advocate of third-party “exit interviews” for both men and women who have been blown off after one or two dates and desire some useful info about what might have gone wrong. She likens these post-mortems to performance reviews at work, and thinks they are the key to discovering potentially stymieng blind spots about one’s own dating behavior. Recently Greenwald has begun training others to become professional “exit interviewers.” Here’s what she had to say in an INTERVIEWinterview with BreakupGirl.net:

Why do you think it’s helpful to know why someone didn’t call you back, as opposed to just letting go and moving on?

Rachel Greenwald: Well, it’s like anything in life. Feedback improves your performance going forward. It’s a tool. You could be doing something like sending the wrong signal, or giving the wrong impression, and…not getting the results that you want. If only someone could coach you about how you were perceived and what went wrong, you could use that information to change things and get better results next time.

Do you think most people being “exit interviewed” are going to be honest?

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Let’s hope, just to mess with Dad, their next boyfriends are Democrats. Or women!