Except when my boyfriend and I are in each other’s company, we communicate exclusively through text message and Facebook chats. Over the past six months that we’ve been dating, I can literally count on one hand the number of times we’ve talked on the phone. Actually, I just need two fingers.
First, Sofia Vergara got engaged! Now, the set of 'Modern Family' might as well be a chapel with another couple who's ready to walk down the aisle.
Jessica Massa and Rebecca Wiegand, co-creators of the new book, 'The Gaggle,' had a very important message to convey at the party we co-hosted in their honor at Henri Bendel last night. That message? Whether or not we like it, we are living in what these two ladies call a "post-dating world."
I find chivalry to be a gorgeous thing. Most women I know are a little like that. We love our modern independence in life and in love, but deep down, we love when guys treat us like ladies. As women in their twenties will attest, it's become increasingly rare. Case in point: My friend gushingly told me the other day that a man had been ultra-polite. ("See that guy? He held the door for me ... Like, awwww!") Gentlemanly behavior sets our hearts aflutter. We want to see it, and many of us are waiting on it.
Author Kay Hymowitz has a provocative new book that asks whether the rise of powerful women have turned men into boys. In Manning Up, Hymowitz argues that men today are free from the traditional tests of manhood—marrying and providing for children, and this freedom comes at a price: an increasing number of men are stuck in a state of permanent adolescence.
New York Times writer Catherine Calbert divides all males into either men or guys. She says "guys" are more emotionally available where "men" are more closed off, yet able to handle responsibility better. Which do you prefer?
When enmeshed in the search for love, it can be difficult to determine whether it should be something we find or something that we decide to do. Many people experience the romantic love story. But a lot of couples find love to be something more learned and practiced. For people who are still hunting, it's difficult to decide whether to view it as a noun or a verb. Louise Rafkin has been interviewing couples and telling their love stories in a weekly column in the San Francisco Chronicle for the past couple years. As someone who is still searching for the one, she pondered the question of love and how to attain it in Modern Love in the New York Times.
In Bad Mother, author Ayelet Waldman encourages women to aspire to be "not bad" mothers and resist the pressure to meet the extremely high standards of success that society has for women and motherhood. Waldman wants women to stop trying so hard and just be. She argues that mothers can and should be honest, flawed, and, yes, selfish sometimes—your ability to care for your children will not suffer. Discuss: Which is harder: marriage or motherhood?
So say it loud and say it proud. "I am a modern goddess." Pronouncing this repeatedly, ideally from the top of a mountain, will point you in the direction of ultimate fulfillment.
When do you tell your date that you're in an open relationship? Before you start dating? Then you might scare people away. But if you tell them afterwards they may feel that you've mislead them. This week's New York Times Modern Love essayist wasn't too pleased when, before her second date with a man she calls The Engineer, her new date told her that he had another girlfriend.
An in-and-out of treatment center sex addict crushes any "pop-psychology" views anyone may have of a person so swimming in sex he knows nothing of "dry spells." The author has treated his sex addiction with therapy twice, and became so addicted to chat rooms and Internet porn he couldn't log off the computer. His sex addiction lost him jobs, boyfriends, and friends.
When you hear the term "breadwinner," you're likely to think "father" or "male." But the New York Times' Modern Love essay this week is penned by a former-female-breadwinner, who later scrapped breadwinning entirely for a more egalitarian - and less romantic - set-up. The author, Karen Karbo, reveled in a whirlwind romance with a Frenchman around whom she never opened her purse once. Then he showed up at her apartment, caught her 'unaware' in unattractive sweatpants, and informed her that he expected her to look pretty for him all the time. Quite rightly, she dumped Monsier Jerkface. In successive relationships, Karbo found herself in the position as breadwinner quite accidentally. The first husband chased his dreams while Karbo held a steady job; the second husband quit his job on a whim and became a househusband, but spent all day playing video games while she kept the family in milk and cookies. When she divorced him, he tried to shake her down for alimony, child support and the house. The third relationship seems to have been the charm: each half of the couple pays his or her own way.
Ah the mother-in-law. She loves her son and wants what's best for him, which may or may not include you. A study by a British psychologist found that 60% of women felt tension with their mothers-in-law, compared with 15% of men. But not all MIL relationships are strained. This week's New York Times Modern Love essayist tells of her incredible relationship with her lover's mother. Then there are the famous MIL relationships: Barack Obama's mother-in-law may be moving into the White House, and Heidi Montag's mom thinks marrying Spencer Pratt was a bad idea. Read the full article to find out how to ease conflict with a mother-in-law.