White weddings, prenups and changing your last name ... is any of it necessary?

It's only been 48 hours (at the time of writing this) and already I'm a little tired of reading about Kim Kardashian's extravagant wedding: the gown (a $US25,000 creation by Vera Wang), the groom (in a white Zegna tux), the guests (including a bra-less Lindsay Lohan), the food (catered by Wolfgang Puck), the six-foot tall wedding cake (chocolate) and the 20½ carat engagement ring (worth a whopping $US2 million), which altogether were estimated to cost about the $US500,000 mark (with rumours abound that it went into the millions). Seriously.
Sure, weddings like this are the stuff dreams are made of. And yes, KK's big day would make girls the world over cringe and whinge with a major case of wedding envy. And indeed, it's supposed to be the best day of your life with photos that are meant to last a lifetime; hence some rationalise that no expense should spared. But a wedding that costs more money than most people will see in their lifetime? Now surely that's a little over the top, even for Kim Kardashian.
Many were quick to pooh-pooh the whole over-the-top princess-themed extravaganza, with bloggers, fans and wedding aficionados questioning why the heck anyone would spend such an insane amount of money on just one night.

Advertisement: Story continues below

But even in Australia, despite us being caught up in a worldwide economic crisis, the price of weddings continues to rise. The average wedding in Australia nowadays costs about $50,000, which is up 18 per cent since 2001, according to a Bride to Be magazine online poll carried out in 2009. The poll also revealed that the prices of rings, wedding gowns, food and venues have all gone up, making your wedding day one of the most expensive nights of your life, if you choose to do it that way.  
True, when it comes to weddings some couples have lost all sense of reality, and many detractors forget that it's not about the day or night, but what happens afterwards that counts. Yet, even when the focus shifts, all sorts of other issues come into play.
First up: the prenup.
Would you sign a prenup? 
Both Kardashian and her new husband Kris Humphries have substantial bank balances. Forbes magazine estimated that Kim made $US12 million last year, while Kris makes $US3.2 million a year as a New Jersey Nets forward. So it makes sense that they signed a prenup with neither batting an eyelid.
But other brides and grooms are not as relaxed about it. In the TV series Entourage, Kevin Connolly's character, Eric Murphy, dumps his hot-to-trot bride-to-be Sloan (played by Emmanuelle Chriqui) when she demands he sign a prenup. And while the series is fittingly fantastical, I'm pretty sure there are a number of grooms out there who wouldn't be too keen at the thought of being bullied into signing a prenup either.
Yet these days you can never be too careful. With more couples marrying later in life and bringing in larger assets, not to mention the high divorce rates, it only makes sense for one (or both) parties to be protected. Romantic? Hell no. Necessary? Perhaps.
'I hereby change my name'
Then there's the issue of whether the bride will take on her husband's last name. KK is said to be changing her last name from Kardashian to Humphries (although her mother has said she isn't too happy about that). And despite the feminist attitude of retaining one's identity after marriage, The Wall Street Journal blog recently revealed that a 35-year study found that fewer women today are keeping their maiden names and are instead opting to take on their beau's last name.
Modern feminists, female journalists and independent women alike would scoff at this trend, asserting, as Oprah correspondent Faith Salie, recently did: "I am freshly gobsmacked every single Sunday morning when I see that about half the women - mostly under 35, all women with careers, all women who chose to submit their announcement to the putatively liberal New York Times - are electing to give up their identity."
Sure, one's name is one's identity, but isn't marriage about becoming one anyway? A team? A unified couple under the same last name?
Either way, I'm finding it hard to dislike Kim and Kris. Sure they spent an obscene amount of money on their wedding (with most of it being paid for by endorsements and media appearances), but if you look closer, the two really do appear like two loved-up soul mates. And despite the cameras and hoopla surrounding their nuptials, they couldn't seem to take their eyes off each other.
Which would really make you wonder: is a big, over-the-top wedding really necessary? If it's just about two people declaring their love for each other, does one really need all the fanfare that surrounds it?
A quick survey of colleagues found that, generally, people are split right down the middle.
Half (including moi) would opt for a quiet exchange of vows with an idyllic backdrop at a tropical destination with a handful of people as witnesses. The other half would like nothing more than a gigantic wedding with 200 of their closest friends and family.
Some are vehemently against spending money on the wedding ("rather spend it on the honeymoon!" one bloke told me), while others assert that, since it's the most important day of one's life, the price shouldn't matter.
I think as long as the two of you have the same idea and ideals when it comes to it all, it shouldn't really matter. As long as you've got something in common after the honeymoon ...

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life/blogs/ask-sam/white-weddings-prenups-and-changing-your-last-name--is-any-of-it-necessary-20110824-1j9pg.html#ixzz1WRW1xlr0

Is monogamy highly overrated, long-delayed or simply dead?

"What do you think of monogamy?" my colleague asked as he swung around in his chair to look me in the eye. "Do you think it's dead? I do."
"Really?" I said cautiously. "Isn't that a bit pessimistic?"
"It's reality!" he announced.

Advertisement: Story continues below

"What makes you think that?" I asked him and the others listening into the conversation. The reasons came thick and fast.
"Everyone ends up cheating," one asserted.
"Too many options," another said.
"No one bothers to ask the other if they're exclusive, so everyone is just dating around," said a third.
Kanye West would probably applaud their theories. In his latest single No Church in the Wild, West raps that "love is cursed by monogamy". Sure, West doesn't believe in monogamy. And why should he? Anyone with a never-ending supply of half-naked women cavorting and gyrating for his personal delectation would be highly against the idea of settling down with just one. (How would he even choose?) 
For the rest of us, though, it's often not the enormous choice that gets us stumped. Instead, it's the expectation we may have that someone else can fill a void in our lives, whether by sex, love or just companionship.
And if that other person is unable to satisfy us? Some of us simply go looking for it in someone else; hence monogamy goes down the gurgler and all hope of having an everlasting (albeit imperfect) relationship disappears.
Of course these days, we can't expect relationships to last forever. The sobering stats show that, in Australia, one-third of marriages end in divorce (according to mydivorce.com.au) but to me that doesn't mean monogamy is dead; it simply means that it's short-lived.

Modern dating and serial monogamy
Here's the thing about modern dating: no one wants to commit in case something better is around the corner.
Hence commitment is delayed until one has so exhausted all one's resources that one grabs the next person who comes along and doesn't let go.
Serial monogamists move from one relationship to the next. These often last more than some people's marriages, but the they are never intended to last forever.  
A case in point is Joseph, a 35-year-old real-estate agent who refused to commit to any woman for years on end. "You're incapable of love," one scorned ex-girlfriend scoffed after being dumped for a younger version.
This merry-go-round of girlfriends (or rather, his round table of bonk-buddies) went on for years on end until one day all his options seemed to dry up. At some point soon after this realisation, something inside him snapped.
"I wonder what happened to Stephanie?" he asked me, searching through his iPhone for her Facebook profile. "She was nice, wasn't she? I might give her another go."
And so he did. Suddenly the two were involved in a heady relationship of romantic dinners and planning New Year's Eve together for 2013.
"I'm definitely going to marry her," he told me over lattes one afternoon. "She's awesome. She helped me pick out the clothes I'm wearing!"
So what changed?
"His taxi light went on," said one girlfriend who witnessed his entire deluge of women. "When it's on, a man is suddenly ready to commit. Until that point, there's no way you can get a man to do anything."
The taxi light theory is one that is perpetuated by many single women (although try mentioning it to a man and watch his face gloss over in confusion). It goes something like this: a man is like a taxi driver, driving around with his taxi light off, which means he is against settling down any time soon. The minute his light goes on, he's available and the next woman who gets into his taxi (so to speak) is the one he is going to settle down with.
Seems simple enough, but the trouble is that many men who drive around with their lights off know exactly what to say to women in order to pretend that their taxi light is on when the reality is nothing of the sort. Hence it's almost impossible to tell whose light is on or off at any given moment until you're given the flick and told he never wanted a girlfriend in the first place. That's when you – dear single woman – go into your rant about how much you gave to the relationship and how you thought it was the real deal and was really going somewhere. To which he just laughs, and then tells his mates that you're the crazy one. Ouch.

Techno-dating
One of my gay friends told me that, thanks to the proliferation of dating apps and websites, he can date so many people at once he and each date don't even both to ask each other whether their relationship is exclusive. They simply assume it is not.
"No one talks about it. It's as boring as bringing up an ex on a first date. We just assume everyone is dating around."
Whether one is gay or straight, marriage is now a love-based institution as opposed to the economic transaction it started out as. But when one is faced with so many other obstacles that stand in the way of love, will any of us really want to truly commit? Or is monogamy, as Kanye West might say, really dead?

Madonna is either very lucky: Are toy boys manning up more than

Madonna is either very lucky or very desperate. The 53-year-old singer recently nabbed herself yet another toy boy who is just less than half her age and looks more like her son than her boyfriend. This time it's 24-year-old French dancer Brahim Zaibat (a dancer!) who was caught patting her Pilates-taut bottom during a romantic dalliance on a secluded beach in the Hamptons.
Sure, it does look a little odd to see a slightly wrinkly Madge getting all loved up with a bloke who apparently has a mother five years younger than his new girlfriend.
And, yes, some might suggest that she should either stick to blokes her own age or quit dating altogether and reconcile herself to living a life of loneliness and low-carb meals for one. But who are we to judge?

Advertisement: Story continues below

Never one to be silent about such things, the Daily Mail's Liz Jones pooh-poohed the romance, declaring that, by dating a younger man, it only makes Madonna look even older than her years. But does it? Somehow I don't think so.
I reckon Jones is jealous. Especially considering she's the same age as Madonna, divorced, single and no longer as tight and taut as she once was when she nabbed her very own toy boy.
Sure, there are some younger dudes out there hankering after a free ride so they'll happily date a woman with a house, a car, a job and one who will change their bed sheets and pay for romantic holidays in the Hamptons (as Jones asserts).
But, after surveying five women who are dating younger blokes, I quickly discovered that not one of them seemed to be their bloke's meal ticket, babysitter or chaperone. Instead these women praised the fact that, their boyfriend made them feel safe and secure, protected and provided for. Suddenly it occurred to me that, surprisingly, women who date younger men actually pick dudes who have their lives together, are mature beyond their years and put some of the older men to shame.
Sure, when I dated a younger guy, he invited me over to play PlayStation, thought clubbing till 4am was indicative of a "romantic night out" and revelled in drinking shots of vodka at midnight … on a Tuesday. But, nevertheless, he was more together than most of the older men I've dated. He paid for everything, fixed my fire alarm, drove me around, taught me things, picked up the phone when he wanted to see me and constantly made sure he was the man in the relationship.
In fact looking back, aside from his penchant for video games (which in all honesty he only kept to a lazy Sunday afternoon), he was more of a man than many of the older gents I've recently come into contact with.
Perhaps Madonna is right in her choice of men. Perhaps younger guys these days are less jaded, kinder and more appreciative of their girlfriends than those hailing from older generations.
There is of course a flip side of this argument. Introducing the men (who range from their 20s to their 40s) who are too lazy to man up. So, instead of going for women their own age, they go for much, much younger women who demand less, expect little and are so easy to please that these men hardly have to lift a finger.
As one male reader in his 30s recently explained to me: going for a 20-year-old means no pressure, no need to commit and no need to talk about the future. "It's so easy. And I can't be bothered right now to have those added pressures in my life."
Why older women actually want those added pressures in their lives would have something to do with their biological clocks, coupled with the fact that the older they get, the less in demand they become and the more the dating pool of eligible gents begins to shrink.
The older a man gets, however, the bigger his dating pool becomes. Suddenly he can go either way: a decade younger, or a decade older, or even his own age if he so desires. Every woman is ripe for the picking and, if Madonna is anything to go by, it ain't too hard to get one with rock-hard abs either.
I often wonder whether it is beginning to work both ways: whether the older a woman gets nowadays, the bigger her dating pool gets too. Sure, the rules are changing. And, if dating a younger man really makes a woman look older, as Liz Jones so kindly puts it, then so be it.
I'm pretty sure Hugh Hefner doesn't complain that his 20-something bunnies make him look a little older than his days. Because I'm pretty sure it beats dating someone his own age any day …

Things you only know if you're single

When my smart, sexy, successful girlfriend Rebecca arrived in Australia from Los Angeles in the hope of nabbing herself an eligible Aussie bloke, she was flabbergasted by what she discovered: a bunch of game-playing, Playboy types who come on strongly and then swiftly move on to the next without so much as a kiss in the morning or a goodbye text.
"What's going on?" she asked me, perplexed.
"They're spoilt for choice," I told her. "They don't need to pick one when there are so many beautiful girls everywhere you look."

Advertisement: Story continues below

When The New York Times recently came out declaring that relationships are more about an economic transaction than a chance romantic interlude between two unsuspecting individuals, I was intrigued. Especially when I got to the part where the writer, Robert H. Frank, an economics professor at Cornell University, likened the current state of relationships to the financial market: one that is dictated by supply and demand.
"Economics teaches us that when there is excess demand for a good, its price rises," he writes. "According to this model, excess demand for grooms should have caused the terms of courtship to shift in favour of men."
Which reminded me exactly of the dating game Down Under. It often seems that there is indeed an "excess demand for grooms", and unfortunately the blokes are having a field day sexually.
Says my banker friend Lloyd: "When supply exceeds demand, either supply will fall (there'll be fewer girls) or the price will fall, and therefore girls will have lower standards or will be willing to accept inferior substitutes."
Like anything, if there is a surplus of hot, eligible, sexy, young women for the small number of eligible blokes, then it's no wonder we're in a no-commitment, game-playing generation.
The solution?
"Do not date any guy in their 30s," two men in their 40s recently warned me. "They have so much choice available to them, there is no way in hell they're going to settle down. You need to either go for a man much older than you, or stay single. Don't even try."
"Oh, and another thing," one continued. "You should have had a child at 25. The clock is ticking. Your body at that age is made for having children. It just bounces back. Any later and it might not." Ahem.
Testament to the availability of women is the online world. One girlfriend claims that, despite recently meeting "the man of her dreams" (yes, he is a banker), she caught him still active on an online dating site.
"He told me that he likes getting 80 clicks a day. It's just a big boost to his ego and shows him he's still got it. For that reason he'll probably never settle down, even though he pretends to want to."
And why should he? Simple supply and demand.
After a few weeks in Australia, Rebecca vehemently concurred with my hypothesis. The competition is fierce. Hence the girls are becoming more desperate, will cling to anything with a stable job and a credit card, and boy, do the men know it.
When I did a quick poll of the gents for this column, I was swiftly given a startling reality check: men expect sex quickly, and the women feel that if they don't give it up just as fast, they'll lose out on nabbing the last available man in the country.
But when I interviewed one 33-year-old man we'll call Jim, I discovered that there are some men who are equally sour about their situation.
"I meet girls and they immediately want to take me home," he told me. "Suddenly, though, they don't want to do anything. And then I don't hear from them again."
The problem, he reckons, is that there are "too many assholes and not enough nice guys", and therefore these bad eggs are ruining it for the rest of the male species.
"Communication doesn't exist. Everything is done via text and everything can be misinterpreted. Girls don't text back for hours, or sometimes days. And when I text back regularly or too often, it's like I'm not playing by the rules or something. Everything is a game. How will any real relationship come out of that?"
He has a point. I often get berated by my well-meaning girlfriends for texting or calling a guy.
"What are you doing? You should never contact a man first!" they lament. "They need to be the ones chasing!"
I must be out of the loop, or loopy, or just honest and clear about my intentions. But apparently that's a no-no.
One long-time singleton Kendra told me that when she was recently in London, the men treated her entirely differently. And she liked it.
"Men actually picked up the phone. They texted to say they wanted to see me again; called to say they had fun on the date, took me for picnics and tours of the city and still didn't try to kiss me by the third date. And when I texted or called them, they actually became more keen. It was refreshing."
So does that mean there is a low supply of hot-to-trot British women?
"That's right," says my Aussie mate Hank who is living in London. "That's why I flew back to Sydney to recruit one and bring her back with me."
They're now living together in London, have been married for over a year and both of them are blissfully happy they no longer have to play texting games ...

Sexual timing, to do it or not to do it? The secret of good sex

"The one and only time I slept with someone on the first date, I married him." So said Liz Jones, an eponymous columnist with the Daily Mail.
While there are indeed some first-date sexual encounters that actually work out in the end, the ultimate question remains: to do it or not to do it?
According to a bunch of New York-based women, some of my single colleagues and many of those hailing from younger generations, the answer is a resounding "no". Yep, surprisingly, sex – or at least the casual encounter - is no longer on the cards.

Advertisement: Story continues below

Famed feminist Erica Jong, the author of Fear of Flying and the woman who coined the term "zipless f---", concurs.
In her latest essay for The New York Times, she notes that, while sex can be "discombobulating and distracting", and while it can make one "immune to money, politics and family", sometimes it's all so complicated the younger generation are seemingly wanting to give it up altogether.
She writes: "Generalising about cultural trends is tricky, but everywhere there are signs that sex has lost its frisson of freedom. Is sex less piquant when it is not forbidden? Sex itself may not be dead, but it seems sexual passion is on life support."
And she's not the only one who thinks so.
Evidence of this is the fact that a bunch of once promiscuous women in New York have declared they are going on a permanent no-casual-sex diet. One of these women is Katie Jean Arnold, who told the New York Post that, after having sex with a stranger she met on the train, she woke up to find him naked and saying: "What's your name?"
Charming.
Unfortunately, there's no telling how it's going to end before the deed is done. Because, in the heat of the moment, it never, ever seems like a bad idea. Because, when the chemistry is palpable and there's more heat between the two of you than in a sauna, what's to stop you?
So to do it or not to do it? Can you predict the outcome of getting hot and sweaty and naked with someone else?
Everyone seems to have a different view of it. A married friend, Maria, says: "When I met Jacob, all my rules flew out the window. I slept with him on the first date. We've been married two years."
Newly engaged Tory says: "I made him wait six months. Best decision ever. We are so happy together. We've been engaged now for six months. Oh yeah, we haven't had sex in a while, but that's OK. I'm sure things will get better once we're married."
Henry wrote to me in an email: "The girl dictates when you're going to have sex. For sure. You know when she wants to have it. So you just wait until you get the signals." He waited four months.
Does it really matter in the scheme of things how long a woman makes a man wait?
At the dinner table the other night, I was surprised to hear a range of opinions.
"I made him wait a month," Vivian declared.
"We waited a month? No way it was that long," her boyfriend Mark retorted.
Vivian, distraught at having to hold out and then not to have it even acknowledged, was shocked.
"Yes we did! I made you wait, remember?"
Mark had no such recollection.
Dane, on the other hand, told the table his girlfriend had made him wait six weeks. "The minute we kissed, she was my girlfriend. We didn't need to sleep together to make it official."
Is that why he likes her more than Mark likes Vivian? I doubt the sexual timing has anything to do with it.
While this conversation left me more confused than ever, perhaps it's as Naomi Wolf said on the subject of having sex on the first date: "It all depends how good you think he'll be" ...

Sophia Abella never dies get Stylish and Fashion to fit

Do women really fake orgasm? Yes, yes, yes!

When it comes to the great orgasm debate, this column has generated many a heated discussion. And with new research recently declaring that science has demystified the female orgasm (finally!), She challenged psychologist John Aiken to a debate on whether or not women should fake it. This is what transpired ...
Fake it, by Samantha Brett

When it comes to communication between the sexes, she's all for honesty. But when it comes to being truthful about whether or not you've had an orgasm, suddenly things aren't so cut and dried. Because here's the thing: in case you missed the memo, according to research carried out by the Kinsey Institute, a whopping 60 per cent of women can never actually have an orgasm during sex. And 10-15 per cent have never actually had an orgasm. Ever.

Advertisement: Story continues below

Add to these sobering facts is the stat that up to 50 per cent of women have trouble getting aroused (according to the Orgasmic Dysfunction, Medline Plus Medical Encyclopedia, September 2002) and you've got yourself one mightily big dilemma: to fake it, or not to fake it? Because here's the other universal truth: men have mightily big egos. Make them feel like they're unable to please you in the bedroom, and you can be pretty darn sure that their sexual self esteem will go down the gurgler.
In fact, one man went so far as to tell me that if he couldn't get his girlfriend to have an orgasm after three months of trying, he would consider dumping her. Enough said.
Hence, sometimes, a little oohing and aahing in the right places at the right time might not be such a bad idea after all. Because, when there's sleep to be had and he's wanting to go all night like a runaway train, faking it is the next best solution. It's like getting a present you don't really like and still saying thank you. And no one's ever complained about that …

Do not fake it, by John Aiken, psychologist and author of Suddenly Single
Girls, a word of advice. Before channelling Meg Ryan in the film When Harry Met Sally and immersing yourself in a mind-blowing fake orgasm, perhaps there are some things you should consider.
Having great sex is all about getting your needs across to each other in a clear way so that the other person can hit all your sexual buttons.
Everyone's body is different, and guys can be guilty of fumbling around and getting it wrong at the best of times. We need a blueprint, and when you decide to fake things you confuse us and encourage us to keep doing things that simply don't get you off.
Then there's the fact that you're setting yourself up to have years of bad sex with someone who thinks they're pleasing you, but actually is giving you nothing but immense sexual frustration and awkward moments. You deserve better than that!
I know you don't want to crush our male egos. But if you don't teach us then we don't get better over time and we just keep getting it wrong! Be honest, open up and get clear on what you want and how you need to have it! If you think we might be a bit fragile, build us up with some compliments first and make us feel desired before giving us a much needed lesson in female orgasm 101! Let me tell you. When we do get it right, you'll be glad you spoke up rather than faked another big O!

Is online dating eroding humanity? Online dating, offline orgy..

Online dating is eroding our humanity. Or at least that's according to The Guardian newspaper which did an expose on how this behind-the-screen dating and mating ritual (which comes sans beer, a bar or a face-to-face conversation) is managing single-handedly to "turn love into a consumer product".
True, you can whip out your credit card, pay a fee and sit back in your trakkie daks while perusing the supermarket of eligible bachelors to find your one true love. And, yes, it's not at all that romantic, spontaneous or conducive to enhancing one's outdoor social life.
But the real problem with online dating isn't the fact that love is being whipped into something to be bought and traded like stocks on the sharemarket (when one potential suitor loses value, ditch him for another!), but rather what it's doing to our psyches. Especially the men.

Advertisement: Story continues below

"Sex is on tap"
Brad tells me this: "I know which internet dating websites will get me laid the fastest, which ones will give me an interesting dinner table conversation and on which ones I might actually get to meet someone cool. It's pretty easy. I just pick one based on whichever mood I'm in that evening – mostly its just for the sex."
Women, on the other hand, see online dating as their last resort – the final (albeit embarrassing) solution to solving all their singledom woes. When they feel their biological clock is starting to tick faster than Cadel Evans can cycle, they tell themselves (and anyone who will listen) that it's a great decision to hurry things up by logging on and wading through the thousands of potentials. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
The men are becoming pickier
While some blokes - like dear Brad - might have one thing on their minds, there are others who take this whole "blind date" thing a little more seriously.
Take one lone blind dating aficionado we'll call Mick, who tells me that blind dating for him is an exact science.
"When I meet a girl, I ask myself in the first five seconds: Is she pretty? Would I like to kiss her, have sex with her, marry her...? If the answer is no, then the rest of the night is a waste of time. So I try not to do it too often, and always have a drink and/or dinner option ready."
Offline dating is hopeless

So what the heck is he looking for, then?
"I don't even know any more," Mick says.
Everyone is searching for someone who is compatible, who has similar interests, hobbies and values. Which means they're looking for someone with identical weekend plans, views of the world and political agendas. Does she like sport, music, art, film? Check. Or does he like travelling, the beach and watching horror films? Check. Presto! A match.
Well, not quite.
As Mick says: "With my previous girlfriend, we were perfect for each other on a piece of paper. We had everything in common but, a couple of months on, I found that I never wanted to kiss her. The next girlfriend was someone I had amazing chemistry with. But we had nothing in common. So, in the end, it fizzled."
According to Italian philosopher Francesco Alberoni, author of the book Falling in Love, the saying "you know when you know" rings true.
He writes: "At a certain point in their lives, two people begin to undergo a change; they are suddenly willing to detach themselves from their previous love objects and relationships in order to create their own private community of two. This entails their entering into the fluid and highly creative ignition phase (or nascent state) of love, wherein they identify totally with each other and tend to fuse together. In such a way, they start to constitute an 'us' - a tiny collectivity highly charged with solidarity and eroticism."
For all those dudes and gals who are petrified of commitment, take a look at what Alberoni says about it all: "The newly created couple is animated with inexhaustible energy and overflowing enthusiasm. The world seems marvellous to the two of them, and the possible range of action utterly limitless.
"They hammer out a new conception of daily life and revamp all their insider and outsider relationships to fit it; in the end they create what might be termed an environmental niche for themselves."
So the question remains: do you really need to know what you're looking for when you go out looking?
Does an online computer programmer really know who will be compatible and who won't be, based on a set of questions? Or is it more like buying a pair of shoes online: if you can't touch, try on and walk around in the new pair before you buy them you'll never know how comfortable they are in the long run?
I have no bloody idea ...

Things you only know if you are single

Love. Sex. Flings. Romance. Casual encounters. Blind dates. Random hook-ups. Bad dates. Worse dates. Old flings re-emerging. Sexting etiquette. Dumping etiquette.
It's universally acknowledged that there are some things you only know if you are single, many things you'd rather not have found out, and a few things you never thought you'd have to know about but nevertheless are now forced to Google and then go to therapy for.
Well-meaning coupled-up friends will dish out as much (hopeless, contradicting, strange?) advice as they can muster, breezily singing their own praises and their ability to "snag" the person of their dreams and "get them to commit" due to their brilliant tactical manoeuvres and due diligence which you, dear singleton, are clearly missing.

Advertisement: Story continues below

Others (mostly the newly engaged) will come to you when things are less peaches and cream and will swear to you that single life is something to be revered, not pitied.
"No one ever tells you the truth about what it's really like to plan a wedding, smile at the in-laws or stick to a budget," said one such type. "One is better off eloping. Or just staying single. Can I sleep on your couch tonight?"
Things a singleton is supposed to "learn" from well-meaning twosomes are usually about as helpful as throwing a drowning man both ends of a rope. Nevertheless one has to listen to their droning and tactical advice, nod politely and admit (begrudgingly) that, yes, they know more than you because they're hitched and you're not.
From some of the most recent nuggets of information I've heard, here are the top things you would only be told if you're single ...

How to get a guy to propose
There are some women out there who have made it their mission in life to get engaged. After much pain, yearning, suffering and pleading, they're planning their wedding with glee. And now they're telling everyone who will listen: "If you don't lay out your I-want-to-be-engaged cards upfront, how will a man ever know what to do? You must make it known right away what your intentions are. If he doesn't share them, he has the chance to walk away."
Then there are some women who royally messed up any chance at waltzing down the aisle by acting like a Ring-Crazed Husband-Hunter. Like one such RCHH, who begged her boyfriend of two years (whom she lived with) to propose. When he bought her a handbag for her birthday and not a diamond ring, she cried, cracked his laptop screen with her high heel and promptly moved out. The second time around she made sure there was no mention of weddings, white dresses or kids' names … up until the moment when he figured it all out on his own. She's just celebrated her first wedding anniversary.
"Keep any plans to yourself," she tells any single woman who will listen. "Seriously, never ever bring it up. It will only scare him away. He will figure it out. As long as you don't act too keen."

Deal breakers are to be broken
One singleton remarks she broke up with a man because she wanted to move to Europe with him but he wouldn't go. So she went on her own, but soon came back. Two years on she's discovered he's living in Italy, happily dating an Italian model and is about to open up his own restaurant there.
Another woman dumped a dude due to his lack of willingness to do any exercise. Years later he's now running marathons and she's struggling to get rid of her post-pregnancy baby weight.
A man I know dumped a woman because she didn't want to get married. She thought she was supposed to pretend she didn't want to get married so that he would come up with it all on his own. In the end they both lost out.

Living together before marriage is a good (bad?) idea
"You're supposed to live together before you get married," says Harriet. That's because when she married George, they had never lived under the same roof before. His health habits (and strange internet habits) shocked and repelled her to the point whereby nine months on they're getting a divorce. "I'll never marry someone I haven't shared a house with," she now tells anyone who will listen. "Don't you do the same."
Shelly lived with her boyfriend for six years, before realising that living with him meant he was never going to propose when he already had what he wanted: sex on tap, meals on tap and someone paying half his rent. It would be customary at this point in this column to quote the saying, "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?" To which Harriet cries, "If free milk means avoiding divorce, stuff your price tag - give it for free!"

It's a numbers game
A singleton will learn all the ways to "find someone", which these days includes going online, getting set up by mutual friends, Facebook stalking, going on a dating hiatus, calling up an old flame, avoiding any old flames, playing games, not playing games, being yourself, being more confident, being less talkative, being more talkative, dressing less sluttily, dressing sexier ... the list goes on.
One woman I know logged on to an online dating site and set up 50 dates back-to-back in the space of a few days. She did eventually meet The One after the fifth date on the fifth day at 5pm. Thank goodness. Another stopped dating altogether until one whom she liked came along unexpectedly while she was shopping for groceries. "It was only when I had a clear head and no other dates on the horizon that I could recognise the right thing when it was in front of me."

Acting keen v playing games
"You must always be yourself and not hold anything back," says newly engaged Tina. "With Tom it was just easy. Our communication was never an issue. We didn't play games."
"Oh, so you called him?" I ask.
"What? Oh no. Never. I always let him initiate. It has to be the man doing all the work at the beginning. Otherwise it will never work in the long term."
Sigh...
What do you think?

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/lifematters/blogs/ask-sam/things-you-only-know-if-you-are-single-20110801-1i71t.html#ixzz1TnX6NrL0