New York Times' recent Modern Love column—"Forget the Men, Pick a Guy"—explores a quandary many of us ladies face in the post-collegiate dating scene.

Do we date Door no. 1, the fun (if not entirely responsible) guy. Or Door no. 2, the settled, respectable (if not a bit boring) man. Dating A Rich Guy: More Important Than You Think

Exciting guy. Dull man. That is the question? Really? Is it that black and white? We don't think so, but writer Catherine Calbert certainly does and tells us within the first sentence which she Read More

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 … Read More

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?

Waldman's book is a welcome change from the usual motherhood self-help nonsense that lines the shelves at Barnes & Noble. The book … Read More

Not nearly content enough to admire them from afar, Dr. Alex Benzar aligns himself with modern women everywhere. His affinity for modern day goddesses in particular is the motivating factor behind the book The Tao of Dating: The Smart Woman's Guide to Embracing Your Inner Goddess and Finding the Fulfillment You Deserve. If you think the title takes work, just wait until you read the rest. According to his recent article for The Huffington Post, How To Be A Modern Goddess...According To A Guy, Benzar describes a modern goddess as all at once self-depreciating, self-serving and super … Read More

Deciding to talk about your romantic past is a big dating decision. Some people prefer not to talk about their former honeys. Others want to know your number and their names—so they can look up your exes on Facebook. What you share is up to you (feel free to omit the goateed Bon Jovi fan you accompanied home after last summer's concert)—except when your past lovers are also your current ones. Confused? That's how Katherine Ruppe, this week's New York Times Modern Love essayist, felt when she found out that her new date was in an open relationship.

Call … Read More

Many of us have probably had a month (or three) where our sex appeal and appetite are so voraciously on fire that we'll (half jokingly) wonder, "Am I a sex addict?"

Then the well will dry. Months will pass. And the question turns into a mocking shadow of itself. ("Am I sex-repellent?" seems more appropriate).

Such musings aren't cute little time-fillers for the writer of this week's New York Times Modern Love piece. An in-and-out of treatment center sex addict, Benoit Denizet-Lewis succinctly and swiftly crushes any romanticized "pop-psychology" views anyone may have of a person so swimming in … Read More

When you hear the term "breadwinner," you're likely to think of a dude. 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 set-up.

Karen Karbo reveled in a whirlwind romance with a Frenchman around whom she never opened her purse once. But 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. Mais non! Quite rightly, she dumped Monsier Jerkface.

In successive relationships, Karbo found herself … Read More

Ah the mother-in-law. She loves her son and wants what's best for him, which may or may not include you. The cliché, of course, is that you and your man's mother will have a rocky relationship. She'll critique your cooking, your taste in clothes, the cleanliness of your home, your child-rearing skills, your career choices. While this may not be true in all cases, a study by a British psychologist found that 60% of women felt tension with their mothers-in-law, compared with 15% of men.

Psychologist Terri Apter studied 49 couples and 156 individuals over 20 years, and … Read More