love advice...don't do what i've done!

Rules for dating and love, I've made all the mistakes so you don't have too!

1. Listen to your family and friends if they give you the veto. Some people are better at telling you how they feel about your partner but if they are asking you if you are happy with concern or indicate they don't want to be around your partner, probably not the best mate for you. They may not know your partner but they know you, they know when you are at your best and when you are not and they can read your happiness. Ahhh if only I'd listened sooner!

2. Sex does not equal love! I know it's the old joke about lesbians moving in on the second date but I can't tell you how often this really happens. Sex is fake intimacy, so it feels like you know someone well or that you are close when you haven't spent the time to really bring about the kind of closeness it takes to make a relationship last.

3. You will remember the beginning forever. For the next 20 years or 20 months you'll be hearing "How did you meet?" make it memorable and drag it out.

4. Your new love's families or attitude towards family matters. My parents used to ask us when we were teenagers about our friends parents. We'd say "why does that matter?" Ah I get it now. In general people generally get more like their parents as they get older (as they do things their parents did like get married and have kids they replicate their parents attitudes in those areas). Now there are examples where someone so hated their childhood they do the exact opposite. So meeting their family or discovering how they feel about their family shows you what they will be like or the opposite of how they will be.

5. Is this somoene you should commit to forever? Ask yourself these questions:

• Imagine you are old and sitting in a rocking chair on a front porch, your new love is next to you, how do you feel?
• Imagine your mother or father, or their mother or father needs to come and live with you for 3 years, how do you both deal with this?
• Imagine you have a child with your partner and the child grow up to be exactly like your partner, are you happy about this?

Now I must admit I got this little test from some women's magazine, but i've read thousands of magazine articles and this is the only test that ever stuck with me, I actually think it's quit good. Negative answers you may want to rethink whether this is a valid long term relationship.

6. Work vs Easy. Recently a love curious teenager recently asked me how hard are relationships? What percentage is hard and what is good. I thought about it and said your relationship is less than 70% good 30% work its not worth it. Reallly it should be closer to 80-90% good and 10% work.

Lastly never say never. Love and lust makes us stupid and break all our rules all the time.

flowers that look like cupcakes, fruit that looks like flowers....

I don't get this trend give flowers that look like a cupcake

or fruit that looks like flowers. If I got flowers that looked like a cupcake I'd just want a real cupcake and I don't like the idea of fruit that someone has touched to make look like a flower. Seems like flowers, fruit and cupcakes are already the good stuff just the way they are. Why don't they make the bad stuff look like flowers and cakes...like parking meters, credit card bills, strip malls. I'll take my cupakes with buttercream frosting and sprinkles!

men behaving stupidly

Recent history has shown you time and time again that you will get caught.
If you are a person that is in the media they will find out. DOH!

Not even the possible loss of career, money and reputation keeps these men in-line.
Jon Gosselin of Jon and Kate plus Eight is one of the most famous dad's in America!
His wealth and fame are dependant on his being the best dad in america. But no, he finds time (shockingly) to have an affair with a 26yr old. There are videos of him leaving her house, if you are famous people will tape what you are doing!

Jon getting caught gives me some happiness because they are SUPER religious and belong to the Assemly of God evangelical church. They gave their kids bible action figures http://tiny.cc/JogQy for Christmas. It was so funny and kinda cute to see these little 3 year olds, I'm Moses watch out…


Of course I was sad to watch this happen to John Edwards and really not smart on his part. It's obvious after hearing from about his mistress she was a loose cannon, and when you are running for office they will find your mistress who is living with your ex
staff member. It wasn't too hard to connect those dots. DOH!

New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer paid for sex so there was a money trail, Ted Haggard of church who preached monogamy and gays are sinners, slept with escort Mike Jones who eventually did right by his community beause of the negative preaching by Ted Haggard.
Where are they now? Eliot Spitzer says his days are joyless. http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2008/09/so_what_does_eliot_spitzer_rea.html John Edwards career is over and his reputation ruined. Ted Haggard reputedly broke but somewhat "cured" by the therapy his fellow evangalists gave him to knock the sinful gay from him.

I will say this is rare for women to lose their jobs, reputation from sexual activities. Recently country sweetheart LeAnn Rimes was unfaithful but it didn't hurt her, the general attitude is "she married young, and he's HOT!" But entertainment industry careers survive cheating all the time. Jude Law, Robin Williams, Hugh Grant, Woody Allen have all admitted affairs without any career repercussions. Hollywood is not using their morality as a badge so when we discover indiscretions it doesn't surprise. Mel Gibson will be interesting as he's been "mr catholic" and I'm pretty sure adultry and divorce aren't part of a good catholic regimen.

Maybe we just don't have enough women in politics and positions of moral authority to make the same mistakes. Although I somehow think women would use more brain, commen sense, restraint when their career and livelihood were on the line.