The last word of dating for 2010

It's not often that a year brings us so many ups, downs, twists, turns and sordid affairs as 2010 managed to do.

And what a year it was. We had the rise of recyclable men. Mistresses getting revenge on billboards. The introduction of the Waity Katy syndrome and the answer to why men cheat on hot women.
We learnt how feminism stuffed up your love life, why you should shag 12 people before you settle down and how Katy Perry finally got bad boy Russell Brand to actually settle down. Her secret? You guessed it. She refused to sleep with him.

Want hotter sex (and more attention)? Date younger men. Negotiated infidelity sometimes actually works. Stay away from stringers. Celibacy is in. Sex makes you live longer. The rise of the Omega males. The so-called "masculinity crisis" turning our men into hairless woosies. Shane Warne's sexting shenanigans ... again.

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Yep, it's been quite a year here. Discussed everything from the new female sport of "husband hunting" (which has grown astronomically thanks to the delayed marriage age for Aussie men), to men who lie about their job to get laid. Who can forget the guy who lied to my girlfriend about being a banker but really worked in sales? I certainly haven't. Then there were the sordid affairs of famous blokes like Jesse James, Eva Longoria's husband Tony Parker, David Arquette and Shane Warne ... again.

Some might ask why we do it? Why talk day in, day out about dating, sex and relationships when we end up only going around in circles - never getting anything more than a token text message if you're lucky and an STD if you're not? Why do we all complain, bitch, yearn, moan, gloat, question and obsess about our love lives, lost loves, rekindled loves, new loves, old loves and current loves? Why all the talk about love?
By my reckoning, it boils down to one simple thing: the eternal search for happiness. After all, isn't that what life (and love) is all about?

So I want to pose a question to you today: what really makes you happy? Is it being in a relationship? Being married? Your kids? Being happily single? Committing? Refusing to commit in order to have a life filled with freedom, fun and more sexual escapades than Tiger Woods?

If the Dalai Lama is to be believed, then "happiness is the goal of our lives". So we shouldn't be afraid to chase after it, hunt it down and shout about our quest from the rooftops - no matter what the cost.
According to the Centre of Health and Wellbeing at Princeton University, there actually is a cost - $75,000 to be exact. Yep, researchers have discovered that if you earn more than that amount, you will be happier than your lesser-earning counterparts. (Somehow I very much doubt this one has much merit...)

In lieu of all this talk of happiness, I've decided to showcase some of my favourite emails of the year and I invite you to share with me what makes you happy ... just please don't tell me it's a sports car.

Writes Ms. Envy:
"Just letting you know that my wedding took place on the 6 November 2010. It was located at the State Library of NSW and it was just perfect. I started reading your blog after a terrible break up in 2005 and you know what? I think all your blogs helped me in some small way to realise what love and life should be like! So Cheers to you Sam on helping me find myself and as a bonus Mr Right who I married not long ago!"

Writes another reader:
"Mine has been a happy story. Through a girl I met on this blog, I met my future husband and we are getting married in July next year! :)"
And says Julie:
"Reading your column over the years has proved to me that other people are in the same position as me, and that there are decent people out there looking for the same type of love as me. I have gained confidence and knowledge in the fact that it's really all about my attitude! Changing my attitude when I go out has meant that I'm now meeting men all over the place wherever I go ... including my current boyfriend who spotted me and asked me out while I was walking down the street! He told me he noticed my smile first... and the funny thing was I was just smiling at what a beautiful day it was."

And finally, some questions from readers that I wasn't able to get through this year. Feel free to provide your insight, and I'll see you next year for another great season!

Pat: "Is it just me, or do women seem really, really skanky these days?"
Jack: "Why is it that the moment I express some romantic interest, women take advantage of that circumstance and start to stuff around, in a vulgar, combative and detrimental manner?"
Randy: "Why do we never talk about the benefits of a long term relationship that doesn't get bogged down in selfishness, minor spats and infidelity but just gets better and better every day?  They do exist and I feel there would be much benefit to your readers to hear from people who are in those types of relationships so that they could share their wisdom as it were."
And finally these questions from Tim:

"Why do some dominant alpha males hang around weaker men and try to move in on their girlfriends? Why do some women not like pretty boys at all? Is it true that some people have met the love of their life for five minutes or an evening, yet it lasts them a lifetime? Can love really last a lifetime? All this talk that men only want sex is only partially true......  Ask any male 'if you could sleep with endless models for years but there is no connection, would you be fulfilled'? I bet they would say it would be good for a while but they would get sick of it. And is meeting 'the one' really our goal? Or is there multiple people who we would call 'the one'?

What do you think? What are your new years resolutions? And what really makes you happy? 
Have a fabulous festive season, happy dating and see you in 2011!! Be back last week of January .xx LOVE YOU GUYS!!

Sophia Abella wishes you all a Merry Christmas and a Blessed 2011

Want to stand by your man? Quit working

“The Stepford Wife is making a comeback!” bellowed a headline in the latest issue of Madison magazine. Yep, according to the article, highly educated women should quit their jobs in order to guide and "sculpt" their husbands to professional triumphs (that he might not be able to achieve on his own), and that women should constantly “celebrate his attempts as well as his victories” as their full-time gig.

The story reminded me of the tale of my girlfriend Erika who soon after getting engaged to the man of her dreams, was told he was being posted to New York for a job opportunity that was too good for him to resist. In order to support him, (and act like the “good wife”), Erika quit her job at a top-tier law firm, left behind her friends and her life and swapped it all to support her man.
“It’s for our future,” she insisted before she left. And she’s never looked back.

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I once thought I could do the same. Give it all up to follow a man to another country and let him live out his dreams while I sat on the sidelines and supported him. Deep down, I’d probably known that ditching everything I’d worked so hard for would end up making me feel resentful, miserable and under-appreciated. I also knew that somehow, as much as I would try to make it work, I’d probably end up exiting the relationship to get back to my own passions and living a life that didn’t centre on a man. Which is exactly what ended up happening.

While for some, being the sidekick is a fantastical notion best left to the 1950s housewife, for others it makes complete sense.

Take Michelle Obama. Once the vice-president of the University of Chicago Medical Centre with a degree from Princeton, she gave it all up in 2007 to support her husband's bid for the presidency. Or women like Kate Middleton. Or my friend Erika. Has it worked for them? So far, it seems that indeed it has.

Which is exactly the theory expounded by author Megan Basham in her book Beside Every Successful Man: A Woman’s Guide to Having It All – the book which inspired the Madison mag story.
As I picked up Basham's book the other day, I couldn’t help but wonder if I had made the right move after all. Especially since Basham cites studies that conclude that relationships actually thrive when the bloke sees himself as the breadwinner, despite his university-educated wife having the ability to make more dough than him. Basham also says that if women do follow her advice to quit their careers and focus their skills solely on her man’s career ambitions, that these men will go on to earn a staggering 31 per cent more than if their wives focused on careers of their own.

But is this really what makes men happy? Having an abnegating woman by his side supporting his every move while she ditches her own career ambitions to stay at home and tend to his every whim?  Is this what contributed to the breakdown of my own relationship – the fact that I had a more flourishing career than my partner and didn't put all my energy and focus into his?

I think back to when my partner complained that I always put my work first. That he didn’t want to be second best to anything – especially not my profession. So did I make the wrong decision? I’m still not sure.
Yet as I look at my almost forty-year-old girlfriend who’s switched dating and sex for a life dedicated to her work, I wonder if there is in fact such a thing as a balance. Or if Basham is indeed correct when she tells modern women not to put their careers first. Or even have one at all. That is, if they want to have a happy marriage.

Of course men don’t seem to face these issues. In fact, even Oprah Winfrey mentioned in a break during the live taping of her show the other day at the Opera House, that her partner Stedman and her live very different lives. “He doesn’t come to my work. I don’t go to his,” she said when asked if he had accompanied her to Australia.

Of course I know plenty of men who say that having a successful wife or girlfriend is incredibly sexy, rewarding and such an agreeable quality that they would never give up for all the cookies and home-cooked meals in the world.

But when I am so often being told that I’m not getting any younger, and that I’d better start looking to settle down and get married soon (“You’re going to start sagging and then no-one is going to want you!” a man told me yesterday; while the cab driver the other day said that at my age I should already have two kids under my belt), I wonder if maybe we should be more supportive of our men … if indeed we want a happy one …

Sophia Abella in sexy nude Santabanta

Season about break-ups, feminism and myself

Break-ups
It seems to me that it's the season for break-ups. Megan and Andy. Scarlett and Ryan. Liz and Arun. My long-term boyfriend and I. Sigh. Something about the jolly season makes many stand up, take a stand and decide that they want their lives to move in different directions without having to play it nice with their partner around the Christmas table.

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I'm not the only one noticing this trend. According to a new Facebook survey (apparently the new litmus test for everything) which was carried out by David McCandless and Lee Byron who tracked the words "break up" and "broken up" across 10,000 status updates, splits spike dramatically two weeks before Christmas Day.

But what about when the new year rings in and suddenly you realise you've got no one to pash when the clock strikes midnight? Or to take to your cousin's wedding? Or to complain to when the dishes aren't done, the toilet paper runs out or your boss makes you miserable?

"You always break up for a reason so there's no point in getting back together," a pregnant, married lady said the other night as the rest of us (singles) sat sipping mojitos, talking about our failed relationships.
"You'll never get back together with your ex," she snapped at one of the girls who sat contemplating doing just that … after a two-year hiatus.

"It just doesn't work," she continued.
I wanted to argue, to tell her that I see it all the time; couples who do indeed take a break from each other and then, through some weird twist of fate (or a bout of horniness), decide to jump back into their relationships for better or for worse.

"It's so familiar. It just works!" they say.
"We needed the time to realise how much we love each other."
"You don't realise what you've got until it's gone."

While I'm under no illusions about why people break up, I still think that getting back together sometimes isn't such a bad idea. You both get a chance to grow (separately), to change the things about yourself that you got dumped for (that is if you listened to all their reasons for giving you the flick and do something to change yourself) and, all the while, you get to shag whomever you want to your heart's content while not feeling guilty.
"But the same problems will just arise again," many say, dismissing the idea that it could ever work.
"You quickly realise why you broke up and then you have to go through the pain all over again," say others who've tried the ex-rerun to a result of doom and gloom.

It's sad to think that, while you invest so much of your time, energy and physical being into another person, at the end you both tend dub the relationship a "complete waste of time" as regrets abound.
But perhaps, as He's Not That Into You author Greg Brehrendt says: "It's called a break-up because it's broken."
And it's not that bad when you start evaluating yourself either.

Talking about the glass ceiling
Another year, another analysis of where women are at when it comes to the glass ceiling. This time it's been discovered that 2010 brought about little change or advancement to a woman's status in the corporate boardroom ... in the US at any rate. A study looking at the annual filings made by Fortune 500 companies revealed that 136 of them had no female executives, with women holding just 14.4 per cent of the executive officer positions in 2010. Let's hope for an increase in this stat next year. …

Talking about Oprah
I get it now. Oprah Winfrey fever, that is. While being invited to the taping of her show on Tuesday morning didn't exactly fill me with excitement, I was nevertheless intrigued. And after a few minutes, I quickly realised what all the fuss was about.

Winfrey often deals with extremely shallow subject matter, such as celebrity issues, but how she does it is with extreme class, finesse and realness.

Her first guest, Russell Crowe, didn't just harp on about his yacht, his acting career and his celebrity status (although he did slip in that people at the Opera House wouldn't let him in as they didn't recognise him), but Winfrey encouraged him to talk about his dreams as a young boy desperate for his favourite football team - the South Sydney Rabbitohs - to be on top.

He told her how grateful he was that he could now be part of the team to try to make that happen. He also said he was so passionate about it because he believed that sporting heroes were all about inspiring children to make a difference and strive to be the best they could.

When Jay-Z - rapper, bad boy, billionaire – took to the stage, what could have been a very shallow interview actually brought me (and half the audience) to tears. Encouraged by Winfrey, Jay-Z visited Canterbury Boys High School to inspire the underprivileged kids, while Winfrey got Microsoft to donate $1 million worth of laptops and upgrades to the school. You should have heard the boys scream with delight.

I felt so proud to be an Australian when she spoke about the kindness and generosity of every person she's met so far on her whirlwind tour. Was the taxpayers' expenditure to bring the talk-show queen Down Under worth it? According to O, we'll never know how much value four hours of a "lovefest" of Australia will do for our country, our economy and our tourism industry since her show spans 150 countries on every continent on the planet. I hope that's the case ...

Final word for today on a few subjects I felt I needed to address ...
I love the banter, comments and immense support I get from readers of this column. I wake up each day and am excited to get an email or a text message from someone saying that they read something I wrote and it changed their perspective on their relationships. Or, if they're having a relationship conundrum, I am grateful that they ask me to put their topic to my dear readers to gain some perspective on their lives.
I've had a rough year. I try not to allude to it too often on this blog, which I want to be a collection of responses from readers to the news or their relationships, rather than a soppy story about my life.
For the record (and in response to many of the comments from a column the other day), I love men. They are my best friends, my bosses, my family and my colleagues. I listen as they tell me their real feelings, thoughts and emotional ups and downs and I am grateful they are so often willing to give me their insights.
Sure, I raise issues on this blog that may make it seem as if I feel quite the opposite, but let me assure you I do it only because I want to bring up topics of interest and let other people respond to them through the prism of their own feelings and experiences.

Often, when I write about a topic, readers tell me they've experienced something similar and that reading about it draws the sting for them so they can get on with their lives.
Sure, some people (OK, many people) think that talking about dating and relationships is a frivolous topic, but listen to any conversation anywhere in the world at any time of the day or night and you can rest assured that talk will eventually turn to partnerships, love lives, lost loves and everything in between.
My aim is never to offend, but always to entertain, enlighten and to invite discussion. So in light of all that, always feel free to email me with any queries, questions or topic suggestions … and may 2011 bring you all the love and happiness you deserve.

Sophia Abella poses in Fashion and Glamour Photoshoot Angelina Jolie Inspired

What happens on tour..

There's a mantra among sportsmen, businessmen, grooms-to-be, actors, party boys, players and womanisers alike: "What happens on tour stays on tour."

But when one's tour involves a media entourage and fan club so large it could rival that of Oprah Winfrey's, plus one of the central characters in the sordid story happens to be one of the world's most beautiful women, then someone is bound to get caught out. And the consequences are never going to be pretty.
Case in point is the release of another lascivious tale involving Shane Warne, who this time has been caught locking lips with model and actress Elizabeth Hurley … who is supposedly still married. Eek.

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Yet it seemed that instead of calling her husband, Indian businessman Arun Nayar, after the story broke, Liz got on to Twitter (as all celebrities seem to do these days) and tweeted that her relationship with Nayar had long been over and that only her "close family and friends were aware of this".

Whether or not this statement is true, the real question she should be addressing is this: why the heck would she choose to hook up with Warne as her rebound? Really? Because I can't exactly imagine Warnie being the type of emotional (or physical, or mental) rock that someone might need when they're in the throes of a marital breakdown.

In fact, I'm not exactly quite sure when Warnie became such an in-demand stud. But my gut tells me that it wasn't his good looks that got him laid.
You see, when women are experiencing a relationship break-down and feel extremely low, they become more susceptible to a Don Juan's womanising ways. After all, he knows all the right things to say, how to touch her hair ever so gently so she feels as if they're the only two people in the room, and he knows when exactly to call (and not to call) to make her desperately hanker after him. He would have acted smoothly, stealthily, strategically. And it must have worked because, if rumours have it, Warnie has just spent two days (one session lasting 11 hours) holed up with one of the world's most gorgeous actresses.

I know how these men work because I've experienced it: being on the tail-end of a break-up, you suddenly find yourself going for men who you know aren't anywhere near your standards, but you think: "What the heck?" Because, after all, you're so lonely, vulnerable and a bona fide mess that you rationalise that anyone will do, as long as he is semi-nice to you, has a job and looks nothing like your ex.

Hurley's excuse might have been that she was "on tour" when she met Warne (six months ago at the races) … that she was travelling to Australia and was extremely lonely without her husband and kids and that she was just seeking some comfort. Which Warnie himself would certainly know a thing or two about. As he told tabloids when his own marriage was breaking down (the first time): "When you're lonely and you're away for six months, things sometimes just happen and then you regret it afterwards and you think 'you idiot' … But it's very hard being on the road. It's very lonely."

For men, there's actually a scientific explanation as to why they need play around while they're on tour. The journal Personality and Individual Differences reported that a man's sperm count doubles when he's away from his partner, going from 389 million sperm per ejaculation to 712 million. Which is a heck of a lot of extra sperm, if you ask me.

But for women? Well, it can only be emotionally fuelled, as most things are with us anyway.
But back to what happens on tour. How often it "happens" no one can be sure (though I'm sure credit card companies get a laugh out of perusing bills and fielding irate calls from concerned wives), but I can't imagine it's all that rare.

Of course this sort of rowdy behaviour on tour isn't new and it's been getting on for 40 years since an overseas rugby union team visited England and decided to create this secretive code in the hope of covering up and excusing their unruly behaviour.

The trouble these days, however, is that everyone has mobile phones with cameras and no one is afraid to use them, Facebook them, tweet them and put them on YouTube … sometimes minutes after the transgression has taken place. Which means that what happens on tour no longer stays on tour. Sorry Liz. (Although no doubt Warnie is revelling in all the attention.)

So the lesson is that with the silly season just around the corner and many of your spouses leaving the country without you, perhaps you'd better watch your behaviour (and your back) if you don't want to be dumped. Because I'm not so sure Warnie is available to be your rebound either ...

Sophia Abella apes Kim Kardashian's Playboy and Heidi Klum's GQ naked photoshoot

Baring and goes all out. I've always dug Heidi and Kim because girls not shy and its fun. Please be patient. The picture may also be scaled to fit your monitor. -Photographed by Dale Bacar

Sophia Abella caught lookin' trim and toned 'in Prada high heels

Sophia Abella holding her very amazing tits, and posing naked in bed

Sophia Abella bombshell knew how to play up her pouty lips and alluring eyes

Sophia Abella nude look in the act of sport in studio

Sophia Abella spicy topless navel show in tight blue jeans

Sophia Abella caught with her hard nipples expose

I like to tease guys, in fact I like it so much that my inappropriate behavior has turned even more devious.

Unknowingly that mess up your future relationships

The other day I met a guy who admitted that, when it comes to relationships, he's a serious commitment-phobe. Why? Because - wait for it - he'd been heartbroken by his first love (almost two years ago), and just couldn't get past the heartache and pain she'd inflicted on him. While at first I wondered what the heck his problem was (We've all been heartbroken! We've all experienced pain! Get the over it already!), I now realise that it's only normal. Because new research shows that the euphoria of your first love does indeed damage the way you enter into any future relationship … and there's nothing much you can do about it.
So then suffice it to say that most of us are going to be mightily screwed up if we aren't still with the one with whom we first fell in love all those years ago. How bloody depressing.
But, then again, the older you get, the more you realise that everyone is scarred in one way or another when it comes to romantic liaisons … and for a myriad reasons. Here are some of the ones I've recently witnessed:

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"My first love broke my heart"
It was Oscar Wilde who said: "Men always want to be a woman's first love – women like to be a man's last romance." As true as that may be, when it comes to the notion of first loves, experts are now telling us that we need to avoid them at all costs. That is if we don't think we're going to end up with them for all eternity … till death do us part.
A new book titled Changing Relationships - a collection of research papers by Britain's leading sociologists and edited by Dr Malcolm Brynin - asserts that the euphoria of first love can damage future relationships by giving you unrealistic expectations of what is to follow. Brynin's solution? Skip a first relationship altogether if you ever want to make it work for the long haul.
"In an ideal world, you would wake up already in your second relationship," says Brynin, principal research officer at the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex.
Which is easy for him to say. But when you experience that heady cocktail of intoxicating feelings that get your pheromones racing faster than Michael Schumacher's Ferrari, it's impossible to avoid it just in case it doesn't all work out.
Of course he's right when he says that, if you allow that first relationship to become "your benchmark for a relationship dynamic, then it becomes inevitable that future, more adult partnerships will seem boring and a disappointment", but really, who the heck would pass it up? Shouldn't we be living in the moment? Taking each opportunity as it comes our way? I guess not if you don't want to end up a commitment-phobe …

"My parents had a messed-up relationship"
Whether your folks are still happily together, divorced or have a tumultuous relationship, their relationship (whether you like it or not) affects everything from how you react to affection, love and sex to the way you argue with your partner and your views on commitment, fidelity and marriage. After all, research shows that your behaviour is hard-wired from the age of four, which means that anything you witness from that point on is going to have a mighty influence on the way you treat your future relationships.

"I'm divorced/have kids"
Baggage comes in all shapes and sizes and how you let it affect your future relationships is all up to you and your attitude. But still, no matter how much you own the consequences of your baggage and attempt to not let it hinder your chance at true love, the people you meet can be a tad more judgmental. I know many who refuse to date someone who is divorced, someone with kids, someone in debt … you get the picture. The good news is there's always someone compatible and understanding of your situation. Why settle for someone who is not?

"I'm not thin enough/rich enough/smart enough"
There's an old saying: You can't love another till you love yourself.
While I've long believed this is a load of bollocks (sorry, folks, but if there is someone out there who is willing to love you and overlook all your foibles, get over yourself!), many find it difficult to enter into a relationship when their self-esteem is down. (Which could damn well be because they're still hung up on their first love.)
And here's where the catch lies: we've all been heartbroken once before, we've all experienced pain and abandonment and had a blow to our egos. But if we can't move forward from the past and continue on a path of constant self-harm, how will we ever get to enjoy the future ...

How do you feel after a one-night stand?

"Do you think I could sleep with him without any feelings getting involved?"

My girlfriend Bridget whispered the question to me a few weeks ago as we sat at the single's table at the wedding of a mutual friend.

She was pointing to one of the groomsmen (clichéd, I know), and had decided that, since she was still in love with her ex-boyfriend, there was no harm in getting herself ensconced in a harmless one-night stand with a cute bloke who looked damn good in a suit.

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After all, she knew there was no way she could get emotionally involved … especially since she hardly had any emotions left to give to anyone else. Surely it could just be "just sex" .... right?
A few weeks later, Bridget received an email from the groomsman. He wasn't impressed. He asked her why she hadn't answered any of his text messages. He said he was mortified to have been relegated to one-night stand status when he thought they'd had such a great "connection" and "palpable chemistry". Really? After one measly drunken night?

 "What bollocks," she spat.
Now, here are a few facts about Bridget. She's a 32-year-old ballsy career woman who never relies on a man for anything. And while she's been whipped (translation: fallen in love) only once or twice in her life, she prefers to keep most of the male species at arm's length (emotionally speaking, that is).

"Women these days can be just as liberal as men," she told me over coffee, relaying her latest one-night stand experience, which had occurred the previous night. "I know that many women have trouble differentiating between sex and a 'connection' but there are many women today who can have sex quite comfortably and not worry about the repercussions."

I asked another girlfriend, an executive at a finance firm who works in a male-dominated environment.
She agreed with Bridget and told me this: "Women's egos are more matched to men's these days and our ambition in the boardroom carries over to the bedroom. We're no longer at home in the kitchen! We're part of the fast-paced modern world and women have to learn to be strong, strong-minded, arrogant and egotistical!"

But are their attitudes really so ground-breaking? After all, Erica Jong, in her 1973 novel Fear of Flying (said to have been instrumental in the second wave of feminism), coined the term "zipless f---". She defined this as "pure ... free of ulterior motives ... [where] no one is trying to prove anything or get anything out of anyone. Even back then this resonated with women who felt they wanted to do the dirty without the emotional ramifications.

So why, almost 40 years on, do some women (and men) still have to justify their sexual behaviour? Seriously.
According to a survey carried out by Britain's Daily Mail newspaper, almost half of British women in their 20s have had a one-night stand, and almost as many in their 30s and 40s have done the same.
Oh, and a whopping 23 per cent have admitted to having an abortion afterwards, too.
But back to Bridget. And her feelings, or rather, lack thereof.

After she told me about another one-night stand, I asked her how she felt the next day.
"I feel great," she replied. "We both got we wanted out of it. It was a fun night out and nothing more."
But it seemed that, when I carried out an unofficial survey around my office, my colleagues didn't exactly share her sentiment.

Words such as "disgusting", "low" and "used" ricocheted around the water cooler as we discussed the perils of doing it with a stranger whom you'll never see again.
So over to you, dear readers. How do you feel after a one-night stand? Empty? Elated? Guilty? Disgusted? Awesome?
It was Woody Allen who said: "Sex without love is an empty experience, but as empty experiences go, it's one of the best."

Which is all very well and good if you do it with Bridget's no-expectations mantra in mind.
"Always let the other person know your intentions upfront. And that goes both ways," she asserts.
But perhaps the most important lesson comes from Rich Santon, a New York blogger, who told Marie Claire magazine: "Don't ever expect to find love after a one-night stand!"

He also advises you not to linger in bed hung over but instead to make a fast getaway; not to expect breakfast or a follow-up phone call, and to always attempt to use humour to make light of the situation.
Oh, and ladies ... and try not  yourself pregnant ...

Toxic Men and Toxic Relationships

Toxic men. Sigh. When you find yourself ensconced in the dating game, no matter what age or life stage you’re at, you’re bound to come across one or more of these types of men.

You know them all too well. He’s the one who takes off his wedding ring at the bar; or the one who tries to get you into bed on the first date, or the worst type of all – the one who promises you the world, makes you fall in love with him (usually thanks to his fast wit, sexy looks and irresistible charm), and then vanishes into thin air before you can say, “but I thought you loved me!”

Kanye West recently wrote an ode to these toxic blokes, crooning; “Let's have a toast for the douchebags. Let's have a toast for the a------s. Let's have a toast for the scumbags. Let's have a toast for the jerkoffs. Baby, I got a plan. Runaway fast as you can.”

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Which is all very well for West to advise. Run away. Yes, it should seem like the obvious thing to do, wouldn't it? But when you’re engrossed in the heady drama of it all with one of these types, somehow it’s not that easy. Even for the strongest of femmes.
But I thought he liked me! 
But I thought he was "the one"! 
But he was sooooo freaking perfect! What the hell happened?

Why women fall for the toxic man (despite his pitfalls and foibles) is obvious. He’s charming, sexy and knows all the right moves.

Lucia (a self-confessed toxic man expert) says: "He knows what women want to hear and feel. Of course he does, he's dated and bonked half the city."
But here’s the real question: Why the heck do these men do it? Why do they bother? What is the point in toying with a woman’s emotions, encouraging her to have feelings for you – and then ditching her by the wayside, leaving her broken, distressed and distrusting of the entire male species?
Adds Lucia: "This breed of men want to drag women down because they are not confident themselves. I should know - I got myself pregnant to one."
And according to Lillian Glass, the author of Toxic Men: Identify, Deal With, and Heal From Men Who Make Your Life Miserable, there are a whopping 11 different types of these dudes, so you'd better watch out.
Still, I don’t understand it. Do they do it just for the sex? Because more often than not, toxic men are more than just the pash and dash types. They’re more about getting the girl in their bed without her panties on (although that's a welcome side benefit I'm sure).
"They will make women feel like there's this amazing 'connection' between the two of you," says Lucia. "But a toxic man is like a seemingly good investment on the stock market. If he is too good to be true, he often is."
In an attempt to do my due diligence, I’ve been doing a little investigating. A man I met in a bar recently told me it was all about his ego. “It’s about making me feel I’ve still got it, even if I have no interest in the girl for the long haul. I can at least tell me mates that I nailed her. And then I can move on.”
Right.
Another told me that all guys do it - as a way of boosting their self-esteem and testing the waters till someone they actually want to treat right comes their way.
So where does that leave women? Because the problem, I find, is that with toxic men, you can’t pick them. I used to think that it was obvious who they were. That you should stay away from men in certain professions: the sexy model who gets hit on by a bevy of gorgeous women; the suave banker who thinks he has more money than god, or the flirtatious restaurant manager who is so sickly sweet and charming, you want to go back and sample his chicken beetle leaves over again and again. Just so you can get a smile, a wink or a suggestive look your way.
But what if there is no pattern? What if toxic men are lurking around in places you never thought they would be, waiting around to hunt their next vulnerable prey? And what if the ones who you thought might be toxic, are indeed nice guys who are family orientated and actually have some soul and backbone?
I give up. Either way, for the record, today’s column is not about male bashing. Instead, it’s about trying to work out how to spot the worst types of toxic men and to help other women not get ensconced with them before it's too late. Because trust me when I say, they're not that easy to get over ...