the 'personals' section in my local newspaper is a guilty indulgence of mine. i don't feel guilty because i read it mind you. i feel guilty because i laugh at it . ok, not only do i laugh at it, i often find myself gripped in uncontrollable honking spasms of mirth that threaten to result in me peeing myself. or puking. or possibly both . some months after i moved here, i chatted casually with a clever woman around my age in the grocer. she happened to mention that she was single,...

i am the first to admit it: i’m a bad, bad “girl”. by that, i mean i’m bad at being female. women confound me so much sometimes that i even feel sorry for men . *gasp* having so many "boys as girlfriends" only makes it so much harder to understand, too. as a case in point, my closest male friend was, some 2 years ago, in possession of a girlfriend who was obsessed with not only him, but also with me. i do not mean in romantic-novel type way obsessed, either. we are not...

the internet is now a major player in the romance world. in the good old days, you had to go somewhere where there were actual people in order to "fall in love". now all you have to do, apparently, is register "online" at an "agency" and wait for your dream partner to materialise from the depths of cyberspace. i have a friend that did this. i will call him clay ... 'cause that's his name. . clay is 29 yrs old, funny, clever, interesting, and cute. he is also shy. he did not ...

my ex love once told me that i was the the most perfectly beautiful woman that had ever existed. then he came . after which he remained as adoring a partner in general, but i noted he had somewhat amended his description when he sent me a postcard from the louvre in paris which stated that "no masterpiece here has the bland hope of arousing in me the passions that your perfectly-imperfect face can". it is most fortunate for me that i perceive this as the compliment that it plainly i...

it’s astounding that men and women persist in trying to “understand” each other. why do we bother ?. our incessant (and stupid) attempts to have “compatible needs” and be “in tune” with each other serve only to highlight our “differences” ... ... you know, the ones we were designed to have ? ... the ones that ensure we procreate. the ones that make sure that men will always be men and women will always be women. and hence our race will advance (sensibly heedless of the whims of...

i was a blonde from birth (1969)-2003. 34 long years of suffering stereotyping, unfunny “jokes”, career discrimination based on an assumed hair colour/lack of intelligence association, and the nickname “blondie”. i recently dyed my hair dark reddish-purple. and it changed my life ... ... (yes, of course i find that hard to believe, too). as a blonde facing the bog-standard male expectation of ditzy slash bubbly but brainless “barbie”, my tendency to speak my (quite scary) little ...