You know the story: after a breakup, one of the parties involved wants to "be friends." Generally this is the lesser-wounded party speaking, and generally the budding friendship becomes one of two things: wilted or messy.
The 4-Way Panel from Divine Caroline recently tackled this issue for a woman who wrote in hoping to understand the feelings of jealousy that arise when her "ex-turned-friend" talks about her dates with other women. The panel foursome, one of each gender and sexual orientation, unsurprisingly had some varying viewpoints on the woman's dilemma.
Researchers in England have shown what generations of college students have always known: beer goggles exist. Scientists compared people who downed vodka, wine and beer to those who didn't drink any hooch, and found that the imbibers thought people were more attractive after they drank.
The Daily Mail reports that in the study, both men and women found "symmetric" bodies more attractive than "asymmetric" ones. However, scientists say we don't notice body symmetry directly; instead we look for cues of symmetry, such as height and the length of the legs.
I call bullshit on studies like this -- and Daily Mail articles like this.
We all know the old saying, "opposites attract." But can you really make a life with an omnivore who lives for bloody T-bones, when you're a vegan who knows 101 recipes for tempeh? What about someone who prefers the calm of country life, while you thrive in the chaos of the city?
"What you call love was invented by guys like me, to sell nylons,"Ad Man Don Draper says in the first season of Mad Men. But which actually came first: the slogan or the sentiment?
All bets are off when it comes to the chicken or the egg, but we do know that advertisers play a huge role in crafting and grossly inflating our romantic expectations. Tango sets the record straight on eight slogans that lie about love before ad men set us all up for disappointment.
It took a handful of Harvard alumni to create OKCupid, a site that uses math, psychology and a series of questions to derive a percent compatibility among its members. There's no fine print, no cost and no need for an Ivy-league degree to answer these brain-busters, and the more you answer, the higher your potential match percentile can be.
Bitch Ph.D. describes its content as "ranting about current events from a feminist perspective;" certainly there's plenty of food for feminist thought on the site, plus posts about being a working mom, academia, politics, the media – all great, smart stuff. But what gets our panties damp are the posts about Bitch Ph.D.'s feminist marriage.
A Current TV reporter recently hit the streets of London two days in a row in search of free goods and services: cab rides, slices of cake, drinks. The first day she dolled herself up in a form-fitting dress, makeup, blown-out hair and heels. The second day, she hit the streets in the "dowdy" version of herself: long skirt and loose-fitting blouse, no makeup, hair pulled back.
As evolved as we try to be, humans are still suckers for good-looking members of the species. This is why the line between trophy wife and gold digger is often blurred. If someone is attractive, people are willing to give that person things no digging required.
The Daily Mail interviewed Joanne, age 35, who owns some fabulous 1950s get-ups -- but she also doesn't leave the house without lipstick on and won't put gas in the car because it's "so unladylike." She's happy in her apron, stirring up homemade jam and baking cakes for her husband Kevin in their 1950s-style kitchen. Joanne attributes their uber-retro lifestyle to disgust at high-speed society:
