How long does it take to fall in love and out?

The television show The Bachelor is back. And I’m excited. Well, at least I’m excited by the prospect that you can find true love in just four weeks.
It’s not only me who’s into it, but the eight million-plus Americans who tune into the show each week to bear witness to a gaggle of desperate, skinny women all battling it out to win the heart of the one eligible bachelor on show.
Why are so many so obsessed with watching such a spectacle? Because I reckon we are all romantics at heart, even if many of us don’t like to admit it.

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Of course falling in love in just one month has its drawbacks. In fact so far in the show's history, out of all 15 seasons, only one couple has survived … barely.
So why does this happen? How does a couple – who are seemingly so happy and headily over heels in love - end up broken up, alone and without a ring on their wedding finger, even after all the hoopla that went along with finding one another, wooing one another, even going so far as to meeting the other’s parents and then proposing?
I often get confused by love. Sometimes you think you know what it means; other times you realise (after you’ve supposedly fallen “out of love” when you thought you were once so "in love") that you had no idea what the heck you were doing or why you were feeling that way in the first place.
My girlfriend Donna Sozio likes to say that when you become obsessed with a man a little too quickly, it’s not you, “it’s your hormones” that does it to you. And on further inspection, I discovered that she actually might be right.
According to New York psychologist Arthur Arun, who has spent his life studying the dynamics of falling in love, there are three stages to falling in love, and most of it (aside from the third stage of attachment), are just chemical reactions in our body that makes us believe we’ve found “the one” when in actual fact we’re just running on a bunch of hormones.
So here’s how it works:
Ever feel like you meet someone for the first time, you go on a few dates and you can’t stop thinking about them? It’s like something cosmic in the universe is pulling you into this person so strongly, you suddenly can’t eat, sleep, talk or walk around without thinking about them and getting all tingly inside?
This is thanks to stage one - lust - when the sex hormones testosterone and oestrogen are injected into your body and make you feel all those strange feelings – even though you hardly know the person.
Then comes the next stage - attraction - where three neurotransmitters are released that contribute to you being able to think of little else. First there’s the rush of adrenaline, which according to Arun, is increased during the initial stages of falling in love. “This has the charming effect that when you unexpectedly bump into your new love, you start to sweat, your heart races and your mouth goes dry.”
Then there’s dopamine - the chemical that tricks us into believing that we’re “falling in love” because it’s simply a hormone that makes us addicted to whatever is in front of us. In other words, we become addicted to the new feeling that our new date provides us with, quickly becoming infatuated and obsessed with the joy and orgasmic emotions that come with dating someone new.
Serotonin also gets released, which makes us even more obsessed with our new lover, and keeps them popping up in our thoughts over and over again, making us wholly believe that we're completely and utterly in love.
But here's the catch: are you really in love, or is your body just reacting to some chemicals?
Because the fact is that nothing in here talks of long-term commitment. That’s a whole other thing. Which is probably why those poor folks vying for love on The Bachelor never quite get past the first few months together. They’re blinded by their hormones and don’t ever put in the real effort that is needed to make a long-term relationship work.
While all this is mightily confusing, it certainly answers some questions. Like the fact that my male friend recently complained that none of his relationships seem to go past the two-month mark; that women manage to become obsessed with men after a few dates (and especially after sex); that people tend to tell me they've "fallen in love" with someone after only a few weeks. Really?
If we'd all simply adhere to the mantra of my friend Donna and realise it's just our chemicals speaking to us, not our hearts, then perhaps we'd stop looking at the surface and start to scratch a bit deeper when attempting to find a potential long-term partner.
Nevertheless, I still wonder really how long it takes to fall in love. What do you think?
As an aside, I know that finding a partner isn’t the answer. In fact, for many of my single mates, getting coupled-up only brings about a whole new slew of problems, some of which make single life and dating strangers look like a walk in the park.
True, so many of us are desperately searching for that person to bring back those heady feelings of lust, attraction, feeling wanted, needed and adored, but bear in mind that those feelings don’t last. The reality of the situation soon sets in and once those hormones subside, you’d better have something other than your dopamine to fall back on ...

The better sex life diet and do we all marry the wrong

Thank goodness for Anna Sophia Berglund. She’s the new bleached-blonde, overly-tanned, bimbo-esque femme who’s stolen the heart (or at least the bed) of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner.
After being jilted by his former girlfriend Krystal Harris four days before walking down the aisle, Hefner can now breathe a sigh of relief. He no longer has to fret over whether his future wife will sign a pre-nup; doesn't have to stress about his penchant for non-monogamous relationships, and doesn't have to spend his life living in the fear he may have married the wrong person only to be stuck with her till death do them part. Oh no. He can frolic about with his new fling (or three) openly and publicly to his heart’s content.

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While Hefner is certainly no litmus test to the state of modern relationships, a quick poll of colleagues and friends found that the concept of marrying the wrong person scares the heck out of the modern generation.
Hence we’ve pushed back the medium marriage age, taken up casual sex buddies, are flitting from relationship to relationship without ever really committing, and are so sure things aren’t going to work out that we all make damn well sure we avoid falling in love at all costs – just in case.
Even if we do manage to fall in love, I am often confronted with the male sentiment, which goes along something the lines of this:
“Why change things when everything is going smoothly?”
“What’s a piece of paper?”
“Why marry when we’re already living together anyway?”
“Why commit to one another when someone better might be around the corner?”
(Okay, so they don’t exactly articulate the last point out loud, but you can bet your last condom that he’s sure as hell thinking it.)
Still, despite anti-marriage sentiment abounding, around 90 per cent of people get married anyway. So what are the chances of us marrying the wrong person?
If you were to open up a recent issue of Psychology Today magazine, then you’d discover that the answer is (oddly enough) extremely high. At least that's according to contributor Christine Meinecke, licensed psychologist and author of Everybody Marries the Wrong Person, who says that’s its probable most of us will indeed end up with the wrong person.
By her reckoning, the top lie about romantic relationships is that there is one right person for everyone, and that we should stop believing in this fallacy el pronto.
Yep, instead of putting all our hopes into the fact that one person might fulfill all our romantic, emotional and financial woes, she reckons there’s a new marriage paradigm we should follow: the self-responsible spouse.
“This is marriage for smart people,” Meinecke writes, advising newlyweds to commit to changing their own behaviour, rather than that of their spouse, in order to make things run more smoothly.
Not quite sure what the heck she’s talking about, (do we really all marry the wrong people?!) I canvassed some never-marrieds about their top fears when it comes to tying the knot.
I quickly discovered that it’s not actually so much the fear of marrying the wrong person that causes so many to avoid marriage for as long as possible, but rather the current state of modern women that is causing all the malice.
Independent women are to blame
My 30-something girlfriend Petra says that the reason she's delayed getting married has nothing to do with the fear of marrying the wrong person but rather the fact that modern women are so independent, wealthy, happy and fulfilled within themselves that they no longer need a man.
“Men haven’t caught up to where woman are at,” she tells me.
“I have a great career and my own money so I still want to have a boyfriend. I just don’t need one. But while I don't need to get married to have security, the men I date just don't seem to be able to grasp this concept.”
Hence the paradox. Men need to be needed. But they don’t want to be with a needy woman. Which actually causes a few problems in itself.
“My boyfriend isn’t impressed that I'm not hankering to get married," says Harriet, a 38-year-old single mother and business owner. "He thinks because I’m successful and already have a child and a thriving business, that he is not needed at all. I thought this would ultimately be a good thing. But to men these days, not so much.”
While Harriet admits she wouldn’t quite be against the idea of him proposing, it seems times have changed. Men are no longer the answer; but when we go at it alone, will they ever pop the question?
No idea. Perhaps it's as the New York Times reported a while back; men would rather marry their secretaries than their bosses. Yeouch.
So are men not wanting to get married because modern women are too independent for them? Or are they just fearful they'll marry the wrong person and want to avoid divorce at all costs?
The jury is still out on that one.
All I know is that times have changed. Men fear proposing (for whatever reason) so they delay it. Hence women have no choice other to become financially and emotionally independent. Which in turn, turns off the men who might actually want to propose. Everyone seems to be losing out ... Except maybe Mr Hefner.

Have single women gone wild?

While I often hear single women complaining to me that all the good men are either taken or gay, lately I’ve been privy to the flip side of the dating coin. Blokes who are looking to dip their loafers into the icy waters of singledom in hope of finding a long-term girlfriend (yes, not all men are commitment-phobic cads) are finding that not everything is as peachy as they might first have thought. As my favourite writer on this subject, Gareth Sibson, wrote in an article for the Daily Mail a while back, “Save me from the Bridget Jones Clones.”
Sibson, also searching for a girlfriend, describes single women as “boring”, and says that “not only are they obsessed about themselves and the way they look, [but] all they want to - or indeed can - talk about is work.”
What about this newfound sexual freedom that so many modern women seem to embrace? Apparently that's not so attractive either.

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“I also found them far too upfront about sex. What sort of man wants to be propositioned on a first date? I certainly don't. It's terribly off-putting."
So just how difficult are single women these days? “Extremely,” says my newly single 30-something mate Rob. “They all have something wrong with them.”
Rob says that women these days are so complicated, jealous, emotionally unstable and clueless, that he fears he’s never going to find a wife, let alone a sane, normal girlfriend. When I asked him to elaborate, he did. And it wasn’t pretty.
For the sake of warning all the single women out there hoping to snag a bloke, herein lies his top six reasons why he refuses to settle down ...

1. The emotionally unavailable girl due to some issue with their own worth and self esteem
“These are women who are great at first, but the minute I get a little close to them and they realise that I’m actually a nice guy, they start regaling me with all their problems. It’s one thing after another. So I try and help them out as much as I can, but the more I do, the clingier and worse they get.”

2. The insane psycho stalker girl
“This is the one where if I don't give her attention every minute of the day, she goes crazy or assumes I'm seeing someone else. She misinterprets everything I say as an attack on her. She is very insecure. I often start to question if she even likes me, or if she’s just using me as a crutch.”

3. The money grabber
“She only wants to hang out with me expecting that I will take her to a fancy restaurant or a weekend away every week. I once took a girl to Vegas for a week, I spent thousands of dollars at the Bellagio in one of the top suites. For the week after, I wanted to do something chilled. No fancy dinners, just us hanging out. Then I found out that she went and cheated on me with one of my friends and an old workmate!”

4. The flake
“I try to make plans with them all the time and they agree but then they flake. I was supposed to go to up the coast last weekend with a girl and she agreed. Then, when I tried to call her during the week to confirm everything was still going ahead, I never got a reply. I deleted my Facebook account and then I got a text from her an hour later saying, ‘I can't believe you're so annoyed at me that you deleted me from facebook’. What a self-involved bitch!”

5. The jealous control freak
“The minute we start dating, she wants to control every aspect of what I do and where I go and who I see. She immediately doesn't want me to have any female friends ... which is difficult in my case because I have so many! Although it means nothing, and no matter how much you explain it to her, she insists I get rid of my friends.”

6. She won’t change her Facebook status from “single” to “in a relationship”
“She refused to put that she was no longer single on her Facebook status. I know this is a small thing, but I know how men work. And there were tons of men asking her out and sending her lewd text messages. Instead of telling them she had a boyfriend, she refused and simply ignored it, or sometimes actually wrote back playing along.”
By Sibson's reckoning, us modern gals aren't as sexy and independent as we like to think we are. "Scratch a little deeper and they are all fanatical about finding Mr Right behind their officious career-woman facade."
So what happened? Did we panic when we realised there weren't enough single dudes to go around? Did we read too many self-help books telling us "he's not that into you!" and therefore we rationalised that we should be as clingy as possible in the hope of snagging him quickly and forcefully? Do we fear ending up like a Bridget Jones so much, that we've mistakenly become just like her? 
I'm not sure. All I know is that when generous, decent, thoughtful men are struggling to find sane, normal women to date, we can no longer blame the men for our woes.
Yep, perhaps it's time we re-thought out our dating strategies after all ...

Why women hardly ever get caught up in sex scandals

These days it appears men are behaving mightily badly. And I'm not just talking about sex with prostitutes (Eliot Spitzer), secret love children (Arnold Schwarzenegger) or abusive antics (Charlie Sheen).

Instead I'm talking about everyday blokes; the ones my girlfriends are dating, having relationships with and putting all their eggs into these blokes' untrustworthy baskets.

This cold, harsh fact was made evident to me the other night when five women got together for sushi and sake. Each woman seemed to have recently been privy to a horror story worse than the next. And it wasn't the first time they'd encountered such behaviour either.

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The first woman told us how she recently caught her boyfriend having an affair while pretending to be out on a painting job … every single night.

"He'd come home really late with paint all over his face and clothes," she told us. "But when I called the man he was supposedly painting for, the man said he didn't know what I was talking about. I found out soon after what was really going on."

But it wasn't easy. She had to follow his car, stake him out, confront him, yell, scream and force a confession out of him. And even after she'd discovered the truth, he still tried to lie about it.
The second woman told us how she'd been dating a man for the past few months, only to come home one night to find him in bed with his ex-wife.

A third actually got dumped by her boyfriend of six months while we were all sitting there at the dinner table … via email. (Seriously?!)

And a fourth – most likely the worst of all – actually discovered the man she'd been bonking for the past two years was married and kept two homes in two different parts of the city. Yeouch.
All this raises the question: what the heck is going on with men? Is it just a case of boys being boys? Or are women just as bad … but better at not getting caught?
I don't know what the stats are when it comes to the difference in the infidelity rates between men and women.

All I know is that I don't often hear of such horror stories coming from men.
I get hundreds of emails from distraught women complaining about bad male behaviour, but not so much from the men. Are women better behaved, or just smarter at hiding their wrongdoings?

Lately, there have been a spate of articles on the bad behaviour of men in powerful positions. The New York Times reports that women in politics don't get caught up in sex scandals (or at least not ones that we hear of) because there are just not that many of them in powerful positions. And, as the article states, "some might conclude that busy working women don't have time to cheat".

Yet, when I asked my co-author and dating expert Donna Sozio for the reason, she had a different view. She explained to me that, often, men don't have as much to lose as women.
"All a powerful man has to lose is the woman. Yet for the woman, if she is married to a powerful man who is her meal ticket or gives her stability and status – she's going to make damn sure she doesn't do anything wrong by him, or at least not get caught out. She has much more to lose than him."
Sozio also says that, sadly, the richer and more powerful the man is, the more sociably acceptable it is for him to have an affair.
"The French laugh at America's morality because we are always so shocked when a man has an affair. For them, it's way more acceptable."
As the BBC News reported: "It would be impossible to conceive of a French sex scandal, because no one would find it shocking if prominent people were engaged in extra-marital affairs. It would just be perfectly normal behaviour."
Then there are the shocking research that found that men are actually set to become wealthier after divorce, whereas women will usually come off poorer. Yep, according to research carried out by the Institute for Social and Economic Research titled, Marital Splits and Income Changes over the Longer Term, the long-held belief that women become richer after a divorce is a "pernicious myth".
Instead, as The Guardian newspaper recently reported, when a man leaves a childless marriage, "his income rises by 25 per cent. Women, however, suffer a sharp fall in income."
While I highly doubt this is the reason more men seem to be caught behaving badly, perhaps the fear women have of losing it all is a factor as to why we hardly ever hear in the headlines (or at the dinner table) of a woman behaving badly  …
Do women behave less badly than men? Are they just better at not getting caught? Why do we never see female sex scandals in the headlines? 

Have a fabulous weekend and happy dating. x

Married men behaving badly

Check out the video above "Why Men Cheat" ... with more men getting caught cheating than ever before... learn why the do it and how you can catch a cheating partner with Oprah Winfrey regular, private eye Tony DeLorezno ... 

It was State of Origin night when I first noticed something sinister going on. At the bar I was at, I noticed there were groups of guys buying groups of women drinks in droves. But it wasn’t the fact that free drinks were being sloshed back by eager husband-hunting women, which caught me off guard. Oh no. Instead it was the fact that when I glanced at one of the drink-purchasers’ hand as he handed me a beer, I discovered that – shock, horror – he was wearing a wedding ring.

Now I'm all for understanding that buying a woman a drink is a harmless act that has no malice attached to it and shouldn’t be taken to mean that the bloke in question is a philandering cad. And I understand that married men are allowed to head out on the town (once in a while) to have their fun while their wives are camped out at home with the baby and the washing.

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But all this begs the perpetual question: what exactly constitutes cheating?
Most women would know what I’m talking about. You’re out at a bar in your tight jeans and your best heels when a cute guy comes over to talk to you. He offers to buy you a drink and you get tingles of excitement running through your body. (Yes, sometimes it’s that easy to impress us.) And just as he’s leaning over to whisper in your ear, you look down and notice on his hand that he’s sporting a bit of bling on his wedding finger. You recoil in shock and disgust as you suddenly realise you’re being hit on by a married bloke as you start to ponder whether any man is actually trustworthy. And then you begin to think about what your own boyfriend or husband would be doing behind your back when you’re not around, surmising that perhaps you're better off being single after all.

The floodgates of what defines cheating were widely pushed open when New York congressman Anthony Weiner was caught sending lewd pictures of himself to six different women via Twitter, Facebook and email. As we’ve since discovered, he didn’t actually meet any of these women and didn’t sleep with any of them (as he claims). It was just social networking. As he stated in his teary address to the world, “I’ve never had sex outside my marriage”.

So how then does he describe the sexting escapades? As “almost a frivolous exchange among friends”. Well, almost indeed. As New York Time's political writer Maureen Dowd countered: "Scrabble is a frivolous exchange amongst friends. Taking a picture of your deal, as David Letterman dubbed it, and blasting it into hyperspace to women you’ve never met is, you know, something more creepy and compulsive."
Indeed there’s nothing “almost frivolous” about a married man sending out pictures to single women captioned “me and my Pussys”, or of his now infamous “bulge”, bulging through boxer shorts, or engaging in over 200 sexts with a woman other than his wife.

So again, is it cheating? Half the people I polled said yes, half said no.
Which brings me back to buying drinks. What was surprising to me was that when I polled a bunch of colleagues and friends, again, thoughts were divided.

One woman (who witnessed the married man buying us drinks on the night) said it was harmless fun and that the betrothed blokes were doing nothing sinister, despite the fact they failed to mention they had a spouse waiting for them at home.
When I polled a taken man on the subject a few days later, he concurred, claiming that he buys drinks for women all the time.

He explained it to me like this: “If the girls are laughing at our jokes and making conversation, if I’m going to get up and get some drinks, of course I’m going to offer to buy them one. It doesn’t mean I’m attracted to them one bit.”

“And if your girlfriend saw the exchange, what would she think?” I asked.
“She wouldn’t have minded one bit. The girls weren’t very attractive.”
Another guy I know claimed that it’s inappropriate to be buying women drinks when you’re in a relationship.
“I just don’t see why men would do it. I definitely think it’s a form of cheating. You just don’t know where those drinks are going to lead.”

Would I prefer to date a man who doesn’t buy other women drinks when I’m around? You bet. Would I be opposed to it if I did catch my man doing it, regardless of how pretty the women he was buying the drinks for? I’m not so sure how I'd react in the situation.

But I often wonder if cheating is a case of “every man will do it given the opportunity”, or whether there are simply some men who are predisposed to getting sucked in to doing it, and others who aren’t.

The line between what constitutes cheating and what doesn’t, remains undefined. All I know is that if you do something that you wouldn’t want your partner to find out you’re doing – whether it’s Tweeting, buying drinks or stealing a sneaky sext message to someone other than your partner – perhaps it’s time to re-evaluate your relationship, your morals and your own definition of monogamy. And then - the most important part - see if your definition matches up to that of your partner's ...

Do nice girls really finish last?

Check out the video above on "Why You're Still Single" - featuring the dating guru Steve Santagati on whom the film The Ugly Truth was based.

Apparently nice girls just don't get it. That's why they're single (or in dead-end relationships), can't get the corner office, don't make enough cash and just can't quite catch a break. Or at least that's according to US-based bestselling author Lois P. Frankel whose book Nice Girls Don't Get The Corner Office, became the definitive guide for women wanting to make it in the workplace without letting their feminine personae get in the way of their success.
Now, Frankel is back with her latest book, Nice Girls Just Don't Get It, which delves into one of my favourite subject matters: relationships. Hence I jumped at the chance to interview Frankel during her recent trip Down Under.

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Frankel says that nice girls looking for love just aren't getting it right. They're not asking for what they want, don't have the strength or the balls to get out of bad relationships and will generally accept a man's BS for as long as she can take it without speaking up.
Quite sad, isn't it?
Instead of being passive and constantly trying to be the "nice girl", Frankel says we should speak up more and ask for what we want. "Not by nagging, but just by knowing what you want, and knowing how to get it."
Still a little confused about what it means to be a nice girl versus a bad girl, I caught up with Steve Santagati, author of The MANual: A True Bad Boy Explains How Men Think, Date, and Mate - and What Women Can Do to Come Out on Top, during my recent trip to Los Angeles.
He's also the guy on whom Gerard Butler's character is based in the film The Ugly Truth. And, says Steve, who sees himself as a "relationships mechanic" for women, men love bad girls …
"I teach women how to be really bad, how to be naughty, so that you're not on the waiting end for guys, but you're on the proactive end. Men respond well to naughty girls. It keeps them guessing."
The blokes over at online portal Ask Men concur with Santagati, noting that bad girls are fun, exciting, are great eye candy, can up a man's "status" and, as a bonus, crave sex almost as much as the man does.
"When you have a stunner like this on your arm, all other men are jealous and women are intrigued, and immediately your stud rating soars into the stratosphere," writes Ask Men contributor Matthew Fitzgerald. "You'll be the stuff of legends when you regale your buddies with tales from your bedroom."
So, how the heck do we become a "bad girl"?
"Women should use everything in their power – their T&A, their bodies, their feminine sensibility and their intelligence, to get what they want," says Santagati, sounding very much like Gerard Butler here. "And they should be unapologetic about it."
OK, so we show a bit of skin. But what else?
"Playfully teasing a guy with sexual flirtation is a clever way to keep him interested and test his prowess," Santagati says. "As the Aussies say, 'Treat 'em mean, keep 'em keen."
Hmph. Not quite sure that playing games actually works, I asked Santagati if he had any other tips for nice girls.
"Yes, chuck out your checklist! Don't put your agenda upfront, don't become too needy too fast, don't give up your own persona, and know who you are and have something to offer. After I've seen you naked a few times, what else you got? Are you funny? Can you cook? Do you know anything about science, about fishing, do you know anything about men? Well, learn something. And don't forget to be as naughty as you want."
But acting "naughty" doesn't always work. In fact I was rather chuffed when Frankel agreed with me as I interviewed her the other day on the subject.
She said: "I like to think relationships aren't a game. If you are not naturally naughty, but you act like that to get a guy, it's not [the] real you. Women need to be themselves, but in order to get the guy, too many women are not themselves. And then when she gets him and she's herself, the guy thinks, "What have I gotten myself into?"
Fitzgerald, author of Sex-Ploytation, agrees. "While bad girls can be exciting, they're usually only worth it in the short term. If you can find a good girl and turn her into a sexual animal, you may just have found the perfect woman. And pretty soon, your good girl may be asking, 'When?'"
And as my colleague told me after reading this story, "It just occurs to me, you're telling the women not always to be nice to stay with the man. But what sort of man doesn't like a nice girl and gets bored with her? is he worth staying with? Doesn't sound like it at all. Rather dump the man and stay as you are."
And finally, did Santagati have any advice for the blokes struggling to find a girlfriend?
"Absolutely. First thing you've got to remember is that women are like this big pink sweet cotton candy on the outside. But they have razor sharp claws. So never apologise for being a guy. Start acting like a guy and not caring what they think. They don't like it? There's another girl that will. Be a bastard, be little bit of a jerk, and that will help you get the girls every time."
But nice blokes out there, you don't have to listen to Santagati. Because nice guys - as long as you're not a pushover - will win our hearts any day ...

Sophia Abella pushes herself against the wall for a kitty underboob

Mars vs Venus on a date and in the bedroom

How do you know if you've met the one? Are there fireworks? Do they make you laugh? Can they protect and provide? Do they know how to navigate your G-spot? Are they good in bed? Who knows.
But according to recent national survey commissioned for the home entertainment release of romantic comedy How Do You Know, women think they know he's the one when they feel secure; men know when they feel passion and there's oodles of romance in the mix (surprising, eh?).
The good news is that, despite all those career bachelors out there (see last week's column on Guyland), 82 per cent of Aussies surveyed said that they would put their relationships above their careers any day. (Good to know.)

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Eager to find out more, I contacted the original creator of the Mars/Venus debate, Dr John Gray. I got to meet  Here's what transpired:
Me: John, the theme of this chat is how do we know when they're "the one" or we're really in love. What do you think? 
John: Well, I was a celibate monk for nine years, from the age of 18. So when I came out of that time, I thought that every single woman I met was the one! But after experiencing a few relationships, I was able to define for myself the difference between love and being "in love". And the difference is that being "in love" means that you are with someone who has the potential to be someone you can share your life with.
Me: How do you know when you get to that point?
John: There are five stages to getting to this point, with the final stage being engagement. It's funny, but through my research I've found that you can wake up one morning with this person and you just know. You know that this is the person you want to spend the rest of your life with and at that point, both people will just know. After the attraction stage has worn off (stage one), it's normal for you both to have doubts (stage two), but these are important in helping you progress to the next stage which is exclusivity (stage three). After that is intimacy (stage four, which doesn't necessarily mean sex). And then finally, engagement (stage five).
Me: When does sex come into it? I know some men who will say you have to sleep with them right away in order for them to get to know you better, whereas most women will say that they want to get to know a man better before they sleep with them. What do you think?
John: Let's address this issue. A normal guy's thinking is usually this: "How can I know she is right for me if we don't have sex?" And I've even had some European women say to me, "Why waste time getting to know if they're the right person without having sex right away? If they're not good in bed, what's the point?" This is the essence of the battle of the sexes: men want sex and (most) women want intimacy.
But most women are definitely right about wanting to get to know a man before they rush in to have sex. Every man wants to have sex right away. But she is the keeper of the gate and he should not let her in the gate until he earns his way in. Women want to get to know a man before they sleep with him because that's how they bond with a man. And a man bonds with a woman when he feels he's achieved her openness and willingness to have sex with him. If you are just putting it out there, of course any guy is going to say, "Great, yes to that!" And the more insecure he is, the happier he is to be passive and to have a woman pursue him. But he doesn't bond with her. So there will be nothing glueing you together. The way to forge a bond is for a woman to see if a man will pursue and try to win her. And the way for a man to see if he's really interested in a woman is to be allowed to be the one to do the pursuing!
Me: How does a man know if he likes a woman enough to continue to pursue her?
John: Men feel they're in the right relationship when they feel successful in making you happy. If he feels he cannot do this, he will not commit to her. Case in point was a couple I was counselling who had been living together for nine years and the man wouldn't propose. When I asked him (when she wasn't there) why he wouldn't propose, he said they once were on a tour of Beverly Hills in California looking at beautiful Beverly Hills homes, and she mentioned that she'd love to live in one of those houses. He said that when he heard that, he felt inside himself that he could never provide that for her, and he wanted her to have the best so therefore he didn't want to marry her if he could not make her happy.
For me personally, it was when my girlfriend was with me in the car, and I was getting the directions all wrong and making wrong turns. I was expecting her to get mad, but instead she just looked outside the window and said, "What a beautiful sunset!" I could have knelt down then and thanked God for bringing me this woman. That was when I knew. I said to myself at that point, "This woman is the one for me."
Me: Are you suggesting then that women should pretend to be happy with a guy so he will commit?
John: No, women shouldn't play that game, because it's not authentic. And when she isn't authentically happy with him, he won't bond with her. It has to be an authentic "Yes". You can smile and laugh at everything he says, but if he doesn't earn it, and you're not genuine about it, he won't bond with you.
Me: Can a woman ever call or text a guy first, or should she let him do all the pursuing?
John: In the old days women didn't call men. There was a whole culture that was set around the guy making the phone call. So how do you pursue a guy without pursuing? I use the word "proceptive". It's not about taking action, it's about women being pro-receptive and letting him know that you are interested in him and that if he took a step forward, that he wouldn't be rejected. But don't let him think it is assured because then he will not feel like he is doing the chasing!
Me: What makes a successful relationship?
John: When a man feels like he is able to please a woman. This is a tough one though, because some women are easier to please than others. When a woman says that her husband is so generous in the bedroom, I ask her how long it takes her to come. If she says "two minutes" then I understand why she praises him – it's easy for the men to be generous when their partner comes in two minutes!
For those women who take 20-30 minutes, it's not that easy and it's harder for a man to please her. The same goes for women who have long lists of what they need for a man to please her. It's harder for those women to be in happy, successful relationships.
Me: Many career women complain they intimidate men. Why does this happen?
John: If she's smart and capable, I'll admire that. But she has to be receptive to a man's love. Many strong women are not receptive to a man's love and don't let him feel like he is needed in the relationship. Men admire results and think you are great for achieving them, but that doesn't make you attractive to a man. What does make a man attracted to a woman is if there is some place in her life where he can feel needed and have something to offer.
Me: What do men and women want?
John: Men are attracted to women who are beautiful – and not just physical beauty, but love is beautiful too. And men want that in their lives.
Women want men who are powerful, confident and capable, but they don't have to run the world, they just have to be able to take care of themselves and have something extra to give to her.
Me: Many men complain to me that women only like rich men with nice cars ...
John: That's not true. He just needs to have enough to take care of himself, and then enough to take care of her. In the movie How Do You Know, Reece Witherspoon's character is dating a man who makes $17 million a year. It appears that some women just want that – and that's fine. But what wins her heart is a guy who doesn't have all that – the guy who actually persists, who doesn't take things personally and who is a good listener. It's not that he's just a good listener, he can hear without taking things personally. Women also want a man who doesn't take himself so seriously.
Me: Do older women and younger men relationships really work?
John: For a certain period of time. But, after these guys reach 30 years old, they are no longer mouldable. They are eager when they are young, but after that, they're not so eager to please. You get these guys who are new at women and they are very happy to learn from an older woman about what to do. They are very happy to take directions and to listen to these women.
But once he gets a certain level of confidence, he thinks, "I don't want somebody telling me what to do." And those women are out the door. And also once he's in his 30s and he starts making money, he's going to want kids. And she can't provide him with that if she's too old. I'm not saying women shouldn't do it. Why not have some fun? If you're divorced and you're 40 or 50 and you don't want a family but you want companionship, you've got a good 10 years to have a great older woman/younger man relationship. And there's nothing wrong with creating a series of positive experiences so that you feel nurtured and supported. Just don't expect them to last over a certain point.
Me: The biggest mistake that single men make?
John: The biggest mistake men make is that they are scared to chase a woman and they are scared of rejection. If they are sincere and they like a woman they should be patient, and then pursue, be patient and then pursue. And to continue with this pattern until they get the girl. Don't come to a girl with any fear of rejection. It immediately puts her in a position of thinking that he is needy. Guys don't realise this, though. So one technique for guys is that I tell them for at least a year, learn to build your confidence. So every day you should give your card to at least three women. You don't have to take her number, but just give her yours. Say, "Let's get together for lunch sometime," then give her a compliment (without any sexual innuendo) and then give her your card. Simple stuff, a little compliment, a little conversation, ask her what she does and show a little interest. Say you'd love to spend more time with her, give her your card and tell her to give you a call."
Me: And what's the biggest mistake single women make?
John: The biggest mistake women make is trying too hard. Women are pursuing guys. Also in my book Mars and Venus on a Date, I say that the biggest mistake women make is being too easy to please and not being genuine. Also don't ask men so many questions because they will forget that you are even there! You need to speak up in order to allow a man to bond with you. And women need to moderate this.

Is porn ruining real live sex?

The proliferation of broadband internet has given rise to the increased accessibility to pornography: it's everywhere. But while it might have once been considered by some to be a healthy way to blow off steam or to spice up relationships, these days it's given rise to a worrying new disorder …

A woman named Sophia comes home early to surprise her boyfriend. He is grunting and groaning from an odd room in the house. There are other voices, too. She cautiously tracks the noise up the stairs, past their bedroom, towards the study. The noise is getting louder. She is sure there is a woman in the room. Could there be two other women? Her heart is beating fast, her hands are clammy. As she opens the door, she sees her boyfriend … alone … staring at his computer with his pants down.

These days porn is everywhere. Men are watching it at work. The teenage boy looks at it in his bedroom with the door locked. Politicians' husbands are viewing it in Britain ...  at taxpayers' expenses.

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It's an evolving sexual pattern that is prickling the spines of frustrated women and getting their knickers in a knot. "Why does my boyfriend watch so much porn?" they cry. "Am I not enough for him?"
If Sophia's story sounds familiar to you, you're not alone. A survey carried out last year by Dr Gomathi Sitharthan at the University of Sydney's Graduate Program in Sexual Health found that seven out of 10 Australian men watch porn, while one in three women do the same. Sitharthan cites the increasing addiction to internet porn as a result of its easy accessibility.
What was once a practice confined to sticky theatres or kept secret from the prying eyes of family has now been thrust into the mainstream, with online porn leading the way. Websites such as YouPorn and RedTube account for 2 per cent of all internet traffic.
And when scientists at the University of Montreal looked at the difference between men who watched porn and those who didn't, they had difficulty finding any who didn't. Which led them to conclude that 100 per cent of men watch porn.
As feminist Naomi Wolf told the New York Magazine, "The whole word, post-internet, did become pornographised."
Of course there shouldn't be anything to worry about when it comes to women with vacant expressions, fake smiles and pneumatic responses, right?
Not according to author and sex therapist Ian Kerner, who says that the increase in porn consumption has given rise to a new, albeit worrying phenomenon: Sexual Attention Deficit Disorder (SADD).
Kerner says that SADD is the cause of many problems in the bedroom, such as the proliferation of men who can't keep it up, growing expectations of more sexually explicit acts from their partners (sometimes in degrading positions and outrageous outfits) and the inability to enjoy sex with "real" women any longer.
"The reason they can't get properly aroused by their partners is that these men are depleted from masturbation," Kerner says. "And because they've become accustomed to high levels of visual stimulation, the neuro-pathways in their brain have become wired to getting gratification from intense visual novelty."
This means they lose desire when they have sex with a real woman. Some men may no longer be able to be aroused by their female partners at all.
Time magazine blamed the affection of watching two strangers having sex (or feigning a bonk) in harsh lighting as "colouring relationships, both long and short term, reshaping expectations about sex and body image and, most worrisome of all, threatening to alter how young people learn about sex".
But is it really "the crack cocaine of sexual addiction" as Jennifer Schneider, co-author of Cybersex Exposed: Simple Fantasy or Obsession? asserted? Has porn really become the modern day weapon of mass relationship destruction?

For the record, I am no prude. I'm all for adding a healthy amount of porn watching into a long-term relationship to help spice things up. But I'm no porn aficionado either. As they say, too much of a good thing isn't always good.
Ask around and you'll see it's affecting couples far and wide. I did, and discovered the following:
Sandman said his marriage ended directly as a result of his daily porn use. His daily consumption caused him to lose respect for his partner and says his head was elsewhere sexually, causing the relationship's downfall. "I was a different person, sexually. And my wife couldn't take it any more. It cost me a valuable lesson and a hell of a lot of money."
When Mon Dieu discovered her ex-partner watched porn on a daily basis, she suddenly realised the reason that he couldn't keep it up very long and was always "premature".
"I tried to put an end to his porn watching. But when my ultimatum didn't work, I had no choice but to leave," she says.
While arguments for and against porn abound, if we look at the effect it has on the male brain, you might be surprised. The book The Brain That Changes Itself shows that, after watching three hours of porn (straight), the male brain "lights up" and starts to view the females acting out the oohing and aahing as sex objects, rather than real people. Hence when it comes to getting jiggy with his real-life partner, he sees her not as the love of his life, but as an object. Doesn't sound too pleasant to me.
Eden can attest to that. "I can tell immediately if my boyfriend has been watching too much of it," she tells me. "He starts judging me, being critical, and sex stinks. He is preoccupied with his fantasies, and zones me out. 
I hate the stuff. Period."
And what about the women? Do they also watch porn? Not according to feminist Erica Jong, who seems to share my sentiment on the subject:
"My reaction to porn films is as follows: After the first 10 minutes, I want to go home and screw. After the first 20 minutes I never want to screw again as long as I live."

Sophia Abella shows off cleavage and legs

What men wish women knew about men

"Why are so many women struggling when it comes to men?" That was the question I posed to relationship expert and author Steve Santagati in Los Angeles a couple of weeks ago, while trying to ascertain why all the single-girl malice has been thrown at the fairer sex.
"I mean, surely it's not that hard to keep a man interested?" I continued.
"Well, women don't put in the right effort," he told me. "The place where so women go wrong is that they have no idea about things men actually like."

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Like what? Sex? Light banter? Humour? Fast cars? Well, here's the caveat, or so says Santagati.
"After you sleep with us, we want to know: 'What else have you got to offer?' Do you know anything sports, about fishing, about the books we read, about finance, about anything? Do you know how to cook?"
I guess he had a point.
Women became enraged too, especially the ones who actually do. But for the sake of generalising I've decided to provide the top complaints men have about women who know nothing about their worlds …

"She hates watching sport"
Some guys love it, some say it relaxes them and many are keen to watch it all the time, every single weekend. I once dated a guy whose idea of a perfect date was to come over and watch the footy, then the soccer, then the cricket … all while eating ribs on my couch. Not that there's anything wrong with that … occasionally. I like sport just as much as the next girl, but all the freaking time? When romance is traded in for dudes in short shorts rolling around in the mud on a television screen, it might be fun at first, but we get tired of it pretty quickly. That being said, we don't complain about the fact that a man doesn't want to watch Sex and the City re-runs or go to a sass and bide sample sale with us every single weekend. We just know that it's a girl thing and we don't expect anything more. (That being said, find me a dude who likes to do these things and I'll happily change my tune!)  

"She has little emotional intelligence"
While researchers reckon that there is no conclusive evidence to say women have a lower EQ than men (http://www.lucidpages.com/intel.html), the blokes complain that way too many women aren't emotionally intelligent enough for them. What does this mean? That chicks by and large, don't know how to deal with the negative stuff appropriately. Don't beat yourself up about it either – apparently 90 per cent of the world's population are lacking EQ. However, I get where the dudes are coming from. Women act, think and speak with our emotions. Therefore, we're often not going to give the most rational response to a tough situation. But if the consequences of women having low EQ means that they are unable to act unemotionally to a problem at hand, well that's pretty much most of us…

"They don't know how to drive"
Really? What a cliché. Sure, there are loads of women who drive around too slowly, with too many yippy dogs on the front seat, with Mariah Carey blaring a little too loudly, all the while trying to put on their mascara while texting their girlfriends and applying their lippy. But that's not all of us. I know how to drive … and I can do it in high heels, in the rain and in Los Angeles on the wrong side of the road, on a highway, at 100km/h. Sure, there are some women who are more fearful on the road than their male counterparts, and yes, you might want a girlfriend who can drive well so that you aren't fearing for her safety every time she hops behind the wheel. But if you're so unhappy with the way your girlfriend reverse parks her car, why not drive her around? I'm sure she wouldn't be opposed to that …

"We love BBQs"
"Men love meat," says Santagati. And according to a New York Times article, if a woman orders the steak on a first date, she instantly gets an invitation for a second. "It's a turn-on because it shows us that a woman understands something about our world," says Santagati. "We're meat eaters and, if she eats meat too, it shows us that she's not completely [detached from] what's going on."

"They don't like no-strings attached sex"
Yes, we all know by now that women aren't exactly as comfortable with this notion as blokes are. Or, even if they purport to be, somehow, every time, feelings get in the way. Therefore, once a woman has been burnt by her no-strings-attached booty buddy, when it comes to doing it again she makes a conscious decision not to get heartbroken all over again. Sure, the blokes dig it, and, sure, some women aren't opposed to it when the moment, the guy and the setting are right. But, quite simply, we're genetically, biologically and emotionally hardwired for relationships, with strings, and a follow-up phone call the next day. Sorry blokes, not this time.

"We need quiet time … often"
True, men need their space. They're not like us; they don't want to talk about things for hours on end, going in circles and not ever coming up with a solution. Instead when things go wrong, many blokes want to hole up in their man cave and take a hiatus … from us. Let him stay in his cave as long as you can without bothering him. He'll come up for air eventually.

"We love food"
While most women might be happy with a salad as a meal, for the blokes - not so much. The famous saying goes that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, and this mantra might just be right. Through my interviews with men, it seems if you're a good cook, you've captured him for life.
Lana Vidler, the author of Meals Men Love How To Catch a Man in 3 Courses, says a well-fed man is a happy man. And as long as it has red meat in it, you're halfway there.
She told me via email: "From my research the average Australian male likes his Red Meat (e.g. 'I'm a Hot Piece of Steak') & Potatoes ('Cheese + Potatoes = A Happy Man') with Chocolate Mousse ('Chocolate Mousse - to the Max') for dessert. Chicken Schnitzel ('First Dinner Chicken Schnitzel') and Lemon Tart ('First Dinner Lemon Tart') a very close second."
Oh, and ladies, it's not that hard either. The good news is that Meals Men Love was actually written with the career woman in mind ... so now you've got no excuse to get back into the kitchen ...

Why relationships fail

It's pretty obvious why some relationships fail - lies about illegitimate love children, dalliances with strippers, a dwindling sex life - but what about some of the less obvious reasons? What about those couples who simply say that they've "fallen out of love" with their other half? Or that they have no idea why they broke up, but they just knew it somehow wasn't right?
Celebs like to call it "irreconcilable differences"; I like to call it "the grass is greener syndrome", and my mate Kent likes to call it "the loss of pride factor". By his reckoning, there is only one reason that all relationships fail: you are no longer proud of your partner.
"Once you lose pride for the other person, the relationship is broken," he tells me. And somehow I think he's right. But that's not the only problem.

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Sure, we'd all like the honeymoon period and the rampant sex and excitement to last forever. But, says psychologist Dr Victoria Zdrok Wilson, author of the 30-Day Sex Solution, this lustful stage of a relationship only lasts about 18 to 36 months. After that, it takes "mental and emotional connection" to keep the relationship alive, otherwise resentment and estrangement will grow, and that's when trouble starts to occur.
I've spent almost seven years and thousands of hours dissecting relationships, working out why things don't work out, and then doing it all over again the next day. I've seen my own relationships work, fail and work again. I've seen my friends go through break-ups, make-ups, broken engagements, marriages, divorces and second marriages. And what I've discovered is that most couples themselves don't even know why the relationship fails – all they know is that they no longer want to be in it. Hence I've cobbled together a list of reasons as to why I believe  relationships fail … but I want to know from YOU … why did yours?

He's a womaniser; she's a flirt
When you're in a relationship with someone who continues to chase skirts, even after you've decided the two of you are exclusive, it's mightily hard to feel good about yourself ... and the relationship. Your partner is constantly talking about how much attention he gets from the opposite sex; he meets up for innocent "coffees" with everyone from his hot co-worker to her even hotter ex-girlfriend, and all the while you're left wondering what he's really doing behind your back. Of course it's all just an ego boost for him, but unfortunately sometimes his ego gets in the way and he can't help but act on his impulses. Relationships with these sorts might survive … but only for a little while. Because it gets mightily tiresome always having to compete.

You move in together
One minute you're cherishing all the time you get to spend together, and the next you can't wait to get out for some beer and poker, sans your roomie. While research says that not all couples who live together before marriage don't survive, the truth is that living under one roof is the fastest and most efficient way to see whether or not you're compatible before you make that lifetime commitment. Which isn't such a bad thing, as long as you don't want to kill each other at the end of it.  

You're at different life stages
She wants to get married; he wants to just have fun. He puts hit career first; she wants to be his priority. She's still at university; he's taking life seriously. While age is just a number, life stages are a little more serious when it comes to compatibility. When all you want to do is hit the bars and travel the world, and your partner is trying to work out how to pay the mortgage and when she's ovulating in order to start a family as soon as possible, things can get mighty sticky. Timing is everything …

Boredom
They say only boring people get bored, but this seems to be a serious problem in a heck of a lot of relationships: one of you becomes mightily bored with the other. Of course the task of keeping your partner on his or her toes or constantly having to entertain your other half is rather taxing too. But if the spark has dwindled and one of you is looking to get your rocks off elsewhere, don't be surprised when the relationship takes a turn for the worse.

Jealousy 
If there's no reason to be jealous of your partner's opposite sex friendships, zip it. Being jealous is the fastest way to kill chemistry, lust, love and any sort of trust between the two of you. Of course if you reckon you have a reason to be jealous, you've got other problems on your hands ...
Nagging
When one partner (most of the time it's the woman), tries to manipulate the other into doing what she wants him to do through nagging, you can bet your wedding ring that your bloke isn't going to be too happy about it. Overtime, the more she nags, the less the guy wants to pick up his socks and the more he's likely to pack up his bags and exit for good. "Nagging makes a man feel like he can never win and never please a woman, or be successful in her eyes," says Donna Sozio, co-author of The Man Whisperer. "It creates short-term gain and long-term resentment."

Picking faults, looking for flaws
At first, if you have the perception that your partner is "perfect", things can slide downhill faster than Charlie Sheen's reputation. When you spend copious amounts of time with someone, their imperfections are magnified, and if you can't accept the fact that you're actually with a real person with real foibles and faults, you're in big, big trouble.

When you hail from different cultures
He's from Paris, she's from Sydney. He wants to move back to Europe to raise the kids; she doesn't. So what's a couple to do? Get married and hope for the best? Compromise and live their lives half in one country and half in another? Or should they go their separate ways before things get too complicated? They say love triumphs over all, but the experts reckon that couples hailing from different cultural backgrounds are bound to get messy. Yep, sometimes things are just too hard ...

"I've seen so many people go through one failed relationship after another, always blaming the other person, never accepting any responsibility themselves. They choose to overlook the good personality traits of their partner, and magnify (sometimes vastly) minor irritations and peccadilloes, then use these magnified flaws as exhibit A for why 'there are no good men/women around'. Doesn't take a genius to predict the results of this kind of behaviour, yet many people continue to repeat this behaviour from one relationship to another."
Or perhaps, as John Gray, author of Mars and Venus on a Date, writes "Never in history has lasting romance been associated with marriage" ...

Sophia Abella nude photoshoot behind the scenes