People are getting candid online about why their relationships are falling apart. No, the answer is not because Mercury is in retrograde, although if you haven't noticed, there have been an unusually high number of breakups and divorces this year among public figures and celebrities. If we look closer than astrology, which is not exactly my preferred method of analysis, there seems to be a disconnect among partnerships about how to even be in a partnership anymore. Part of that is because of th…

Trying to get back together after you've burned a bridge is a lost cause. It's kind of a Sisyphean task and a pointless one at that. If your relationship crashed and burned, you must be in an even worse place if you're trying to get back together. There's no way you could be well-adjusted. If you were, you would have recognized that the damage is done and that it's just better for everyone involved if you walk away and stay away. Some of us, however, are not this smart. When I was in my early t…

The only names you should ever have permanently tattooed on your body are the names of your kids, your parents, and your deity– those things are never changing. However, a boyfriend or girlfriend's name permanently etched into your shoulder can prove to be a little riskier. You may think that'll you'll be in love forever, but that tattoo is a heckuvalot more permanent than most relationships.

We all know the classic dating red flags, but everyone has their own individual pet peeves. Sure, lying about being single or being a stalker are dealbreakers, but pet peeves can have the same power to immediately disqualify someone from being in your life. Personally speaking, I have several red flags that I would always watch out for in my ‘first date’ days. Let's start with the people who say that they are ‘open books." No one who says that is an actual open book. The dates who say that are…

It is a Friday night, you have surrendered to your sofa, turned on the TV, and put on some garbage reality show, just to get bored enough to pull your phone from the wooden living room table posted in front of you. Have you gotten a text? No sirree. Just one missed phone call from your mom. You will call her back, you say to yourself. Soon, for sure, totally. Oh, an email from work. Would you look at that. Your eyes move slowly across the different icons… until they reach one specific one. You…

Everyone says it's important to be your full self on a first date, but let's be honest: some people should absolutely not follow that advice. Their full selves are far too bizarre, ridiculous, and outlandish for any stranger to encounter without a serious advanced warning. I suppose showing all those true colors is good for the other person to make an immediate judgment, and in all of these cases, that immediate judgment was a hard no. Personally, I have never had a date that went so poorly I c…

Dating is a hard game and seems to only become more so the further down the path of life you tread. And, it makes sense we, arguably, only become more complex as people, carrying the weight of more experiences, which often make us weary and hesitant to trust potential suitors. And, rightfully so, it's hard to trust someone based on the image they project of themselves during the “get to know you stage.” Several dates are a mere drop in the bucket compared to the vast ocean of lives that you bot…

Cheating on your partner is a serious offense to most, but these people took it in stride.

Now that the summer is coming to a close and now that no one had the summer flings they really wanted, it's time for our weekly roundup of the top Tinder moments, courtesy of Reddit's endlessly entertaining r/Tinder subreddit. There has to be something about the August heat that makes people become especially forward on dating apps, or perhaps people are always like that now and we're just grasping at straws for excuses. The reality is the summer drought has made us all thirsty for the change o…

The topic of “weaponized incompetence” has become a hot one in online discussions any time relationships are mentioned. With relationship "gurus" singling out the behaviors of partners who refuse to learn basic tasks or household chores—or otherwise pretend that they can't do the task so that their partner gives up on asking them to do it and goes back to doing it themself. There's a notable distinguishment in behavior between being unable to do something—or honestly failing to learn it—and pre…

It's frustrating when someone can't keep a secret, especially when you've literally just finished telling them that secret, and the words are barely out of your mouth before they're sharing it with everyone. Of course, you learn to never disclose your secrets to that person after being burned once by their blabbermouth, but it's a little more complicated when that person is your spouse. It's also never easy living with a family who disapproves of your spouse due to their own haughty bias and pr…

This parent has a question about their dating life , and they aren't going to like the responses he got. U/sasisgsbseb asked if they're wrong for the way their girlfriend has been treated by their daughter. The whole situation went down when the OP took their 12 year old daughter to lunch with the 47 year old OP's 33 year old GF. “My girlfriend does not particularly like interacting with waiters or waitresses ,” the OP admitted. While the GF's prior bad experiences with waitstaff might have mad…

Part of being a single person in the digital age requires big swings online.

It's not exactly easy to play it cool in a situation like this. Picture this: you wake up one morning and you scroll on social media for a bit. Then, you complete your lazy morning routine by checking out your dating app matches and messages. You start to message someone new, you exchange witty texts, and you agree to catch up later because you both have to get ready for work. You then check in with the person you had already been messaging for quite some time now because the two of you have a…

Don't get upset, get even!

It's remarkable how people can be demanding and desperate at the same time. One has to wonder what possesses these choosing beggars to be so audacious. Not that I am envious of this complete lack of self-awareness, but I do have to consider what life would be like if I had that level of confidence to just demand things with literally no leverage whatsoever. Perhaps there's a “nothing left to lose” mentality that comes with being a choosing beggar. Perhaps