I don’t know how many of you know this, but I’m a freelance writer. I write for sites like Cracked.com and TopTenz.net, plus I have my own blog and write for the local newspaper. Also, I’m twenty years old, and yes, I still live with my mother, but that’s probably going to change rather directly.

I’ve had some pretty awesome success with my writing– with Cracked in particular. One of my articles there has been viewed by almost 3 million people. That’s a number that I can’t even comprehend, and it’s the one accomplishment with my writing that I’m most proud of.

When I showed it to my mother (because I was proud of it and wanted her to be too), she just totally dismissed it like it was completely worthless and a waste of my time. But it runs deeper than that. She’s never been supportive of my writing, and that hurts, because it’s like she’s saying that the one thing I want to do with my life –the one thing that beings me more joy and elation than any other– isn’t worth a single damn.

It would be one thing if I was just spinning my wheels in place, but I’m having SUCCESS with my writing. And she just refuses to acknowledge that. And if she can’t accept the fact that I want to be a writer, then she can’t accept me.

What do you guys think? is there anything I can do to get her to warm up to the idea of me being a writer?

A friend and I have had a flirty relationship for a few years now, but he moved out of state before anything ever came of it. We still keep in touch, mainly through instant messenger and texting, and the flirtiness has remained. Last weekend, we took it a step farther and started sexting back and forth one night. I’d always been wary of sexting, but it was actually fun and I enjoyed it! My problem is now I can’t seem to have any kind of conversation with him without it turning overtly sexual. I don’t mind that on occasion, but I really miss our flirty, normal, day to day conversations. I’ve been trying to gently steer things back in that direction, and not responding in kind to the sexual comments every time, but now I feel like our conversations are becoming really awkward. Have I lost my flirty friend forever by taking it to another level?

Anybody stay with somebody who was clearly insane (or perhaps stupid, or rude, etc.) mainly because they were attractive?

How I Met Your Mother illustrates this beautifully, explaining that a woman is allowed a certain amount of crazy as long as it’s less than or equal to her hotness.

This applies to men too, because I’ve seen women excuse a lot because of looks.

So have you ever been with somebody that was clearly ___ just because they were attractive?

As I found myself inadvertently sitting at the “When Harry Met Sally” table yesterday at Katz’s Deli (where the “I’ll have what she’s having” scene takes place), thinking about my own dating life, I couldn’t help but ask myself the question that serves as the whole premise of that movie: can men and women really be friends?

Only I asked it with a caveat: can men and women be friends after they’ve dated? Not seriously, but at least gone out a few times. And what if they’ve had sex? Is it possible to keep a friendship going after that?

The reason I ask: there’s a guy I was seeing, briefly, whom I had no intention of getting into a relationship with, who decided he wasn’t “ready to date”. So, I suggested we be friends (I may have added “with benefits” somewhere in my suggestion) because I genuinely think we get along and have a good time together (even without the benefits), and that’s kind of all I was interested in anyway. I’m interested to see what other people have to say about the potential for that kind of a friendship to work. (For now, ignore the “with benefits” part. That’s a whole other topic of conversation.)

Men and women can definitely be friends, in my opinion, but once dating or sex comes into the mix, I think it gets harder. It may be a little awkward at first, or it may take a little time to get used to the new confines of the relationship. In my case, it may not even be worth the effort.

Suppose you are dating someone, and after a few dates you start to feel a real love connection with them and you occasionally catch your subconscious already daydreaming of wedding bells, an exotic honeymoon, and what your kids will look like.
Then one day, you run into your love’s best friend at a coffee shop, and after a long discussion you learn that he/she is a ___________.
What would YOU put in that blank that would make you seriously reconsider your relationship. (No obvious stuff please, like “axe murderer”, but stuff that is important to YOU.) For instance, you find out they are: bi-sexual | of a very different religion or athiest | political activist with opposite view | a communist | has been in jail/prison | porn-addict | recovering alcoholic/druggie/sex offender | watches “Jersey Shore” | etc.
No wrong answers here… just trying to get a sense of which behaviours you feel would be changeable versus those that would send you running away screaming.

Here’s an awkward situation:

A friend of mine told me that she had broken up with her boyfriend and started dating a new guy. Cut to 3 months later when the ex boyfriend calls me to express his concern about his girlfriend- at which point I drop the bomb that she’s been dating someone else. Not a pleasant situation.

Now, I didn’t have time to decide if I wanted to tell the boyfriend about his girlfriend cheating on him- I let the information slip before I realized that the ex boyfriend didn’t know that he was an ex.

What would you have done? Told or kept your mouth shut? I am just wondering what the general consensus on this issue is.

…yesterday and he was way shorter than I was. I feel kind of meh about it and it makes me feel like a really shallow person! He seemed like a nice and funny guy. I’m trying to determine whether it was really his height or I’m just not feeling it in general, but I’m feeling like an absolute fake to accept more dates. Thoughts?

ETA: More info: He seemed like a nice enough guy. I guess I feel just lukewarm enough about it, and the height might just be a tipping point. I admit it’s somewhat shallow, but I’m pretty short to begin with (5’4″). He was funny, a little loud, nice to the servers. He seemed to talk a lot about himself but that could just be first date jitters and not knowing what to say. I don’t know. I feel like a lot of my friends feel similarly (this isn’t influencing my decision, though, I’ve always been inclined towards taller) but I also feel kind of bad about having that preference. I also weigh a fair amount more than he does ( he’s a bit on the thin side).

I have a friend that is twenty years old, but he has never had a girlfriend. It’s not from a lack of trying on his part, mid you, but he’s a little eccentric, and girls have never really paid that much attention to him.

He’s a really nice guy, and been a great friend to me for a long time, so it’s painful on my end to see him try so hard to get a girlfriend and get rejected again and again. It’s gotten to the point where he’s starting to think there’s something wrong with him, but I don’t think that’s the case.

When I said “eccentric” earlier, I just meant that he’s a little socially awkward. He’s got very poor social skills around new people and isn’t very athletic. All of his skills are intellectual ones rather than physical ones: writing, reading, making jokes, etc. From my end of things, I can see why a girl might be put off at first, but after getting to know him, it’s very easy to see that he’s a great guy.

Is there anything that I can do to help him? It just frustrates me so much to see him keep getting hurt like this.

I’m a guy, and I have a female friend that I’m somewhat close friends with. Years ago, we hooked up a few times, but neither of us was particularly interested in the other, so we somehow ended up becoming friends. For a while, it was cool to have someone of the opposite sex to go to if we needed an opposite sex perspective. But lately, it’s becoming more and more one-sided, and it’s getting to the point that I really don’t want to deal with her crap anymore.

The problem is that she keeps doing the same stupid things over and over again. She admits that she likes bad boys. So she hooks up with guys that end up playing her. And when they break her heart, she comes crying to me.

At first, I didn’t mind being a sympathetic shoulder for her, but then, over the past year now, she’s been having issues with the SAME guy that she keeps going back to. And there comes a time when I have to draw the line. She knows that he’s bad news. She knows that when he calls, she should ignore him. She admits all this. But then she adds, “But when he calls, I just can’t help myself. So I pick up….”

And a week later, she’s heartbroken again.

Is there anything I can do about this? I mean, I’m still trying to be a good friend to her, but it really is getting to the point where I just don’t want to hear her complaining anymore. I mean, it’s ALWAYS about the same guy. Where do I draw the line between being a friend and telling her she needs to start making some new mistakes?

I used to have a friend that turned into a friend with benefits and we would hang out/hook up a couple of times a month. We’d sometimes see each other at group events also, and had a bunch of mutual friends. I valued him as a friend above anything we did physically. We eventually stopped hooking up and I started dating someone. I haven’t seen him in a year and a half, but every couple of months we’ve texted each other, and once or twice emailed each other. I’d really like to see him and catch up with how things are with him, but I have a boyfriend and I’m not interested in anything romantic or physical with him.

So my question is: How should I go about asking if he wants to meet up? For a drink or something. Will he think it’s weird that I want to hang out if I have a boyfriend? I really just miss him as a friend. Should I not even bother? It just seems a bit crazy that two people who used to be good friends can’t catch up, just because there used to be something physical between them.