Cubs and Other Cougar Partners

I'm not talkin' wild animals. Dear Abby checked in on the cougar issue. The follow-up for this one is still on the way, I think. It will be interesting to see the responses.

"COUGAR" IN NEW YORK wrote:

I am a 59-year-old woman who has been dating men in their 40s.

Good for you.

At first, I refused because I thought they were too young for me and people might laugh.

People might be jealous and envious, too.

Since then, I have decided that as long as they know from the beginning that I'm not looking for a serious committed relationship, I'd be happy to go out.

Good policy.

Abby, why do you think younger men are attracted to older women?

Dear Abby responded:

If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say it's because many older women are independent, self-confident, worldly and not looking for commitment. Those qualities can be very attractive if a man isn't looking for commitment either.

Yeah, pretty much. If a guy is just looking for someone to be on his arm, and doesn't want the bratty drama of someone closer to his age or significantly younger – someone more likely to "fall in love" or get an idea that this will lead to a lifelong commitment – then it can be a good thing. An older woman, in addition to being more socially adept when the couple encounters other people on their date, is more likely to recognize when she is developing an attachment that she shouldn't and take corrective action. Often, she keeps up on current events and can talk about them, unlike a lot of younger women.

If a guy is just looking or sex, older women bring experience, a lack in inhibition, and more of an ability to be discreet.

Either way, she is less likely to be financially needy – in fact, she may actually reverse the money dynamic and pick up the tab and buy the guy gifts. There’s the risk – that the older woman will attract a gigolo.

Also, just like with gals, it makes a young guy feel like he's somehow superior to his peers if someone older and more accomplished/established is interested in spending time with him. Usually this notion is self-delusion.

I wrote about my first relationship with an older woman in this blog entry.

As far as I know, the oldest woman I was ever involved with was in her 50s. If she was older than that, well, then she looked young for her age. I was in the waning years of my 20s at the time. As far as I know she was childless. We spent about two weeks together, and she definitely knew what she was doing and how to please a guy. We both knew at the time that we were not going to be a couple. We didn't live anywhere near each other, and that wasn't going to change. She reported in one of our last contacts that she'd married a guy closer to her age – a guy who had been in her life as long as I'd been in contact with her. She'd previously presented their relationship as platonic, but for all I know she was married to him all along... though I doubt it and I hope not.

Yes, in general, younger women are physically more attractive to men than older women. However, that doesn't necessarily translate into a good date or good sex. So while women are out there dating older men and thus not available for guys their age, some guys their age will happily pass the time with the older women. It can work for dating. It rarely is a good idea when it comes to marriage.

Temper

I screwed up recently at home. I lost my temper because I was frustrated about something (not someone) that was causing stuff to break. When I lose my temper, I don't break things (after all, I was upset about something being broken to begin with). I don't belittle people, I certainly don't throw things – at people or otherwise – or hit or push anyone. What I do, though, is cuss, or swear, or what have you. Mainly it is the s--- word. Perhaps even the f--- word.

I know I shouldn't do it, and I know I especially shouldn't do it when my kids are within earshot. But I do – every now and then.

My punishment doesn't involve putting money into a swear jar.

My punishment is my wife dropping the possibility of lovemaking later that day/night. She may not look it that way. She says my losing my temper "isn't a turn on" so forget about any plans to fool around later. So, essentially, she is saying she is turned off by my fit.

Here's the thing though, at least with the most recent fit. Right now, for reasons I'm not going to get into, my wife's body is pretty much off limits anyway. Temporarily (for reasons I do believe are valid), she won't let me make love to her in any form other than kissing and rubbing her shoulders. I wish it wasn't so, because I really like to do whatever I can to bring those kinds of pleasures to her, and I enjoy her body.

But being the good wife that she is, she still - though not as often as I'd like - wants to take care of me... Except when I have had a fit.

Maybe I just don't understand female sexuality, but I didn't think a woman had to be sexually aroused for her hand or mouth to work. Since it's not like we're going to be attempting intercourse, I'm not sure why she needs to be turned on anyway. That is what makes me think this is a matter of punishment, not simply a matter of my actions turning her off.

Of course I'd like for her to be turned on. I'd like to also take care of all of her itches.

I suppose it is one of the differences between men and women. Most men would only withhold sex from a woman with whom he's sexually active if he has lost trust in her, and thinks she has been fooling around or is trying to trap him with a pregnancy he doesn't want. She could have just destroyed our prized collection of mobster movies, bought more shoes she doesn't need, and wrecked our favorite car through negligent driving. We'd still gladly jump into the sack. We might leave or kick her out right afterwards, but we wouldn't turn down sex. Some women, conversely, withhold sex as a punishment, and treat sex like a bargaining chip.

Any thoughts? I mean, besides the fact that I need to bite my tongue?

Today's Show is Brought to You By the Letter I

Wow, there was a bit of a theme running this morning on Yahoo: incest.

If you read this blog, you know I check Dear Abby regularly. I find it on Yahoo while looking over the news there.

In the installment of Dear Abby that was posted today, GRIEVING IN MASSACHUSETTS wrote:

For 15 years I was a happily married homemaker with a wonderful husband. "Duncan" and I attended church together, frolicked through the fields, even exterminated rodents together. He was my best friend. It was bliss.

Last year I found out my father had had an affair with Duncan's mother the year I was born, which makes him my half-brother!

Well, yes, if Duncan's mother was not fooling around with anyone else. I guess the implication here is that she was unmarried.

The news was too much for my husband. He had a fatal heart attack not long after.

This is yet another reason not to have sex with anyone other than your spouse, and not to donate eggs or sperm. In this case, this woman's father and Duncan's mother were likely in the same social or professional circle, and so it wasn't a stretch for GRIEVING and Duncan to meet and fall in love and marry. But there was likely another aspect that was at work, something that happens when siblings or children grow up apart from their sibling or parent, and are later reunited. Some people label it "genetic sexual attraction". Duncan probably reminded her somewhat of her father - and for good reason. Duncan probably saw a bit of himself in her. And since they didn't grow up with the mindframe of "this is my sibling", they instead first looked at each other as a male and a female.

Unless there was some reason that both Duncan's mother and GRIEVING'S father were not around leading up to the wedding, it was evil on their part to compound their earlier sin by not warning their children that they might be (or likely were) half-siblings.

You've probably also heard (or will hear of) Mackenzie Phillips' claim involving incest. The Associated Press reported:

Former child star Mackenzie Phillips said Wednesday her father, John Phillips, who was a leader of the 1960s pop group the Mamas and the Papas, raped her when she was a teenager and that her sexual relationship with him later became what she termed "consensual."

Mackenzie Phillips writes in her new book, "High on Arrival," that she had sex with her father on the night before she was to get married in 1979 at age 19, according to People magazine.

I hope that this is really a way to sell more books, and not reality. Of course, her father isn't around to defend himself.

She told "The Oprah Winfrey Show" in an interview that aired Wednesday that her siblings "definitely have a problem with this."

Well of course they do! They are probably wondering why their dad didn't find them attractive enough to have sex with, too. Or maybe he did, and he was "cheating" on them with you.

Phillips, who starred on TV's "One Day at a Time," said the sexual relationship with her father lasted a decade and ended when she became pregnant and didn't know who had fathered the child. She had an abortion, which her father paid for, and "and I never let him touch me again."

Most likely, the child was not abnormal (beyond the parentage – drugs were likely more of a harm to the child than her grandfather being her father), and even if the child had some abnormalities, why kill an innocent baby created by consensual behavior? Why not adopt out? To hide it all from the media and your husband (if you were married at the time)?

Also, how can a husband compete with the bond his wife has with her father if it is also a sexual bond? What a rotten thing to do to a spouse. So "consensual" incest does have victims - children and spouses included.

Phillips said the sexual relationship, although she believes it became consensual, was "an abuse of power" and "a betrayal" on her father's part.

Yes, and that is one of the problems with it, although there are other consensual sexual relationships that are an abuse of power, too.

"I can't be the only one this has happened to," Phillips said. "Someone needs to put a face on consensual incest."

Why? Hey, if anyone is going to do it, I'd rather it be Angelina Jolie. (I am not accusing Jolie of actually being, as rumored, incestuous. But she is a hotter "face".)

Actually, people have already tried to put on a face on this. There have been features in the mainstream media on consensual incest, especially involving siblings who grew up apart. That one famous person claims to have done it likely isn't going to make a difference. And again, why do we want there to be a difference? Shouldn't this be one of those things a person keeps private? Or does she want to warn others of the perils of consensual incest?

Given the drugs and how the Phillips started (by her own claim), I don't know if this was really consensual. Certainly the writer to Dear Abby did not consent in that she did not know her husband was her half-brother, so that was definitely not consensual.

Will we see more famous people coming forward with tales like this?

The Five Basic Groups

There may some exceptions, but I think most heterosexual adults fall into one of these five categories when it comes to relating to the opposite sex.

1. Present Day Peer Pressure Norm – These are people who seek a girlfriend or boyfriend by dating and having sex, and if they find a boyfriend/girlfriend and that lasts long enough or conditions otherwise make it convenient, they move in together – or one moves into the other's place. If that lasts long enough, or perhaps because of pregnancy or children, they get married. The timing of the wedding is often determined by when it will be convenient to have the best party they can.

2. Independents – These are people who do not want to not want to marry and have children under current conditions, and do not seek sex. They'd rather live alone. They do not rely on someone of the opposite sex to entertain them on a regular basis, or financially support them. My guess is that there are many more men in this category than women, many of them identifying as "Men Going Their Own Way".

3. Marriage and Family Minded - These are people who are - or seek to be - married, and usually to be parents as well. They tend to place these desires over immediate sexual gratification and over living high on the hog.

4. Pleasure Seekers – These are hedonists, materialists, narcissists, game-players, or people who desire material possessions/expensive living and/or exploring sexual freedom over and above any desire to be parents or to be married, and intentionally behave toward these ends. Women in this category tend to seek to extract as much wealth from men as possible, by marriage if necessary. Men in this category tend to seek as much sex from as many different women as possible.

5. Passive/Confused – These people let life wash over them. They may get married because their partner pressures them into it, or simply asks. They may become parents because their partner asked for it. They don't display strong desires or a cohesive pattern of behavior towards a lifestyle goal. They may not have any idea what they really want. Guys in this category take sex when it falls into their laps (so to speak), unless, perhaps, they happen to be married to someone else, and tend to knock up their girlfriends or casual dates simply because they were too lazy to use a condom. Women in this category are easy prey for males who just want casual sex, and men in this category are easy prey for women who want someone else to pay their bills or just want some attention. These people are not likely to be the kind of people who accomplish a whole lot, professionally or otherwise. They tend to let their immediate feelings and emotions "lead" them, especially their sex drive.

Notes:

Pop culture mostly assumes and reinforces category 1.

As far as I can tell, followers of Christ, if they are being true to their faith, can only fall under 2 or 3.

Some people in category 2 date, but those who do so should be very clear of their intentions with their dates; they are best off dating other people from category 2 if they are going to date at all.

People in category 3 should avoid dating/courting anyone in any other category.

People in category 4 should avoid dating people in categories 2 and 3. When people from 4 date each other, unless they are both looking just for casual sex, it is a battle to see who “wins” – in other words, how much money a golddigger can get out of a guy relative to how much sex he’s getting, or how much sex a guy can get spending as little as possible. Leykis 101 is in this category, teaching guys how to "get more sex for less money".

Some people in 2 and 4 are in those categories because they are highly driven individuals who want to focus on career, wealth building, and other personal interests or things that are either solitary or done with friends and believe that serious relationships, marriage, and parenting are a hindrance to these things.

People in categories 1, 4, and 5 may be likely to engage in "hook-ups". Guys in category 4 count on it.

It is possible that someone will change categories based on life experience, religious conversion or awakening, or whatever.

Am I being too simplistic? Am I missing a significant category? I plan to referring back to this list in future blog entries – that’s the point of this list in the first place.

Scary Parole Possibility

It’s like a plot from Law & Order: SVU. I wouldn’t be surprised if they use this.

A prosecutor from Orange County, California, traveled to a state prison to argue against paroling a serial child molester who was a fugitive for almost 30 years. Larry Welborn of the Orange County Register has the story. And if you go to the website, you can see a picture of this guy. Creepy.

George Joseph England, 65, was captured in Florida in 2006, extradited to Orange County and sentenced to four consecutive one-year-to-life-in-prison terms for molesting three young girls in Costa Mesa in the mid 1970s.

He also molested a Vietnamese girl – whom he purchased from her mother while the war raged in Vietnam – for years while he claimed her as his adopted daughter, according to prosecutors.

Have you lost your appetite yet?

When he sentenced England to prison in September 2006, Superior Court Judge Robert Fitzgerald said "I expect that you will die in prison."

But after serving only three years for the molestations in Costa Mesa, England became eligible for his first parole hearing because of the laws that were on the books in the 1970s.

Senior Deputy District Attorney Rebecca Olivieri, of the DA's Special Prosecutions Unit, will attend the hearing to oppose parole for England on behalf of the Orange County District Attorney.

I hope Ms. Olivieri was highly persuasive.

He was convicted of those charges in Orange County Superior Court in 1977, but was allowed to remain free in lieu of bail pending his sentencing so that he could tidy up his affairs.

But instead of showing up in court, England removed the Vietnamese girl from protective custody and fled, spending the next 29 years as a fugitive until he was captured in Florida.

Oh, Floridian alligators - you failed me. You could have incapacitated this guy in such a way and place so that the abundant insects of Florida could have had their way with him over several painful days. Oh well. Prison must be loads of fun for this guy.

UPDATE: He was denied parole for now, but he'll be up for release again soon.

She Didn't Get the Liberation Memo

There's nothing like young "love" problems as expressed in a letter to Dear Abby.

DESPERATE IN TUCSON wrote:

I'm 19 and currently dating a guy I can't stand.

So much for liberation. Generations of women and girls didn't have a choice in the matter, but you do, sister. Don't waste your freedom.

I don't know what to do.

Dump him. You are being unfair to both of you, and probably a lot of people around you.

He's leaving next year and my friends tell me I should just bear with it until then.

Why? You could be spending your time better and so could he. Are your friends afraid you'll be worse to deal with without him? Why would they want you to endure him?
Do they all insist on double-dating? Will they not hang out with you for girl time?

I also don't feel comfortable with premarital sex, but he's sure he can change my mind.

That's because he's young. Why would he want to change your mind? If he wants to pursue sex at his age with girls he doesn't even really like, he's better off with a girl who at least has experience. Less work, more fun, less likely she will stalk him down the line.

He constantly reminds me how "patient" he can be about it.

Especially if he is getting some somewhere else, which he may be. But perhaps he considers you a challenge. It is stupid on his part.

I feel like hiding in my room and not answering the phone.

You are letting this ruin your life. Dump him and move on. Don't take his calls. Do not hear him out if he hounds you in person. If he persists, get a restraining order. It he gets violent, prosecute.

There are over six billion people in the world. That one person is not right for you as a romantic prospect still leaves more people to learn about than you'll ever have time to date. It is ridiculous to waste your time and energy on someone who is such a mismatch for you.

I speak from experience.

Life got so much better for me when I resolved not to ever again continue to date someone when it was more trouble than it was worth. Someone doesn't have to be a bad person to be trouble as a date. Someone can be a great person and not right for you. So I promised myself I wasn't going to put up with any crap, or do things I didn't want to do in order to get along with someone to whom I had no obligation. I wasn't going to fight, argue, or be disrespected. And it worked. Less time and money wasted, less heartache. That approach is part of what helped me find my wife.

At 19, you should be first and foremost focusing on your education/career. In dating, you should be dating different guys, learning more about what you like and don't like in them. Why tie yourself down to one person until you are ready to marry? That was one of the mistakes I made at 19. But I deluded myself into thinking there could be a future with my girlfriend at the time. You are under no such delusion.

Be free! Revel in your liberation!

A Widower and Male Day Care Provider

Both of these guys recently had their letters printed in Dear Abby.

BETWEEN LOST AND FOUND wrote:

I lost my wife of 10 years after a long battle with cancer.

That is one of the worst things that can happen to someone. Ugh. The poor guy.

I am 50 and have a 10-year-old son. If it wasn't for raising my son, I don't think I'd even want to live anymore, but the good Lord gave me this job, and I want to make sure I do it well.

He's depressed. That is not unusual after what he's been through. Our lives have inherent worth regardless of whether or not we have a partner, though.

It is very lonely at times without a woman around.

Yes, that it is typical for a widower to feel that way. There are guys who live full lives without ever getting married, though. He needs to keep himself involved in things he enjoys than he can do with his kid, friends, or by himself. If he is just talking about sex and doesn't have a moral compulsion to abstain outside of marriage (which I officially endorse), then he can get snipped, make sure his sperm count is zero, and have casual encounters when his kid is at school, sports practice, or at a friend's house, so that his kid doesn't have to deal with the women. But try to avoid bringing these women back to where you live, sir, or they could be a problem for you and your son when things sour. Try to keep those casual encounters at their place.

When I do get out and meet women 40 to 50 years old and they hear I have a spoiled kid at home, they turn away.

They don't want to deal with the baggage. You son doesn't need them. He needs you. Nothing will ever replace his mother, but he needs your attention more because she isn't here.

I know at my age I should be a grandpa.

Says who? Maybe that is the way you thought your life would go, but it should have been evident when you didn't have a child until age 40 that you weren't going to be a grandfather at 50 - whether or not your wife survived.

Is there any chance for me to find another lasting love to spend the rest of my life with?

Yes. But give it time. Concentrate on your boy. He needs you. You'll make a better choice in a partner when you get some distance between the loss of your wife and when you find someone else. I think of Paul McCartney, who apparently had a wonderful marriage with Linda, and then she died, and then he expected to find something like he had with Linda again, married Heather Mills, and paid dearly for it. Lasting, happy marriages are not the norm these days, unfortunately, and if you had one happy marriage, consider yourself ahead of the odds.

Dear Abby responded:

Plenty of women would find you attractive, and not be turned off by the fact that you are raising a son. I'm talking about single women with children of their own to raise.

How about we not mess up everyone's lives more than they are already messed up? The Brady Bunch was light-hearted idealistic fiction. It rarely works out anywhere near that well. His son doesn't need the competition, the favoritism, and the drama.

PAUL FROM PENNSYLVANIA wrote:

As a child care provider for a local program in my hometown, I am often treated differently because I am a male.

That could be because of sexism. It could also be because men and women are different. There's probably a mixture of both.

If women can do anything men can -- including the same job -- shouldn't the opposite be true?

It's not really true. Men are generally physically larger and stronger and can run faster than women, and are generally unable to naturally carry a child inside of them and lactate to feed that child. Men even tend to have a different biological reaction to crying babies than women.

Do you think society will ever completely accept male teachers and child care workers?

Probably not. Teaching used to be a decidedly male profession – think seminaries. But times change. Secretaries used to be male, until typing became the norm and the hands of women proved better at typing. Some things change over the years, but some things don't.

Dear Abby responded:

Male teachers and child care workers can give fatherless children something that female teachers cannot -- a male role model with whom they can identify.

It is interesting that Dear Abby seems to think male role models are important, yet from what I've read in her columns, she doesn't think there is anything wrong with a two women deliberately bringing children into a fatherless situation. Maybe I've misread her. I'd love to be wrong about this.

While it may be good advice to encourage a single/widowed/divorced mother parenting a child with no father in the picture to seek male role models (her own father, her brother, teachers, coaches) to be a strong male presence mentoring the child, my advice to males is to avoid putting yourself in the position where you can be accused of abusing someone else's child. Men are not trusted, and the accusation alone is enough to ruin you for life. These men, especially if they have their own children to take care of, need to consider protecting themselves over the needs of someone else's child. It is sad, and if more guys took that advice there would be fewer mentors for kids, but that is the world we have created. Male teachers and coaches should never be alone with a student behind closed doors, for example – that way, it will be much more difficult to accuse them of abuse.

Suicide

I came across this on a Los Angeles Times blog entry by Shari Roan.

About 32,000 U.S. adults kill themselves each year. But millions more think about suicide or even make plans to kill themselves, according to a new national survey. The 2008 survey found that an estimated 8.3 million people ages 18 and older -- 3.7% of the adult population -- had serious thoughts of suicide in the previous year.

I used to have suicidal thoughts, but that was mostly when I was under 18. I never actually made plans to kill myself. I was an emotional kid, full of passion, and it was easy for other kids to get a rise out of me or tears by picking on me. The nature of where I lived meant dealing with the same jerks throughout most of my childhood, and they would gladly use something embarrassing from years back to nastily hound me. If I got into a fight instead of just letting myself be teased or literally pushed around, I would get in trouble for fighting. I can remember my father getting called in to school because I bit another kid in the arm. The thing is, I bit his arm because he had it wrapped around my mouth from behind. I begged my parents to let me transfer elementary schools. They declined, saying I would have the same problems. As it turns out, my school got shut down and I spent a year at that other school (along with some of the other students from my old school). Even with some those other students, my problems lessened. Maybe I matured, but I doubt that was it. Unfortunately, everyone was back together the next year as there was only one junior high school, and so there were hell to deal with.

I also hated things like my voice. I was very self-conscious about it. If my father told me to (usually in more polite words) to shut up, I was convinced it wasn’t because I was speaking out of turn, but because he hated my voice. Looking back, he never actually gave me any indication that he didn’t like my voice, and it probably didn’t bother him at all. Ironically, as an adult, people compliment me on my voice all of the time. It has changed a lot, of course. I remember uh… actress… Denise Richards saying she was teased for her odd looks as a young teenager, and the irony was that later, when she grew up a little, she was considered beautiful. It is kind of like that with my voice. I got picked on for my hair, too, but like my voice, my hair turned out to be one of my best features.

There was also the sudden loss of my best-friend-from-birth when we were barely eleven years old. He was killed in an accident.

It didn't help that I paid attention to the news, and between some of the crap they fed to us in public school and the alarmist doom-and-gloom news, it seemed like life was hell and was only going to get worse. The air and water pollution were going to kill us if AIDS didn't. There may have also been some inherited biological depression - I never bothered to seek a diagnosis.

I look back and see that in general, I had a very good childhood. But kids don't have perspective. So there were times I felt like it would be better if I killed myself.

Thankfully, I was still young when I decided that life was too short as it was. Then, in my late teens, I picked up a hobby and a related job far enough away from where I grew up that I was essentially getting a blank slate. People would see me for who I was then, not the seven-year-old or eleven-year-old kid I once was. It was a tremendous help. I get plenty of respect and compliments in my professional life and my hobby life. I still have trouble accepting compliments from anyone other than my wife. My mother, generally a great mother, somehow gave me the idea that anyone outside of the family who complimented me was doing it for some ulterior motive. Old notions can have a hard time dying.

Something else that helped was that I discovered that my life doesn't belong to me. It took years for the full understanding of that to sink it, but it helped to at least know from the start that God didn't want me to kill myself.

It has been many years since I've had a suicidal thought. I do believe that there is almost always hope to improve whatever situation one is in. I would implore almost anyone that suicide is not the solution. I write almost because it could very well be better for the rest of us if a murderer, rapist, or child abuser who can't seem to stop such behaviors took themselves out of the picture. For everyone else - there are people around to help. There are solutions to problems. Life can improve. Just find help.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline coordinates a network of 140 crisis centers around the country to provide help at any time of the day or night.

Here's their number: 1-800-273-TALK

Suspected Burglar Killed

If you've read my past blog entries on crime, you know that I think that just about anything bad that happens to you while you are trying to commit a property or personal crime is your own darn fault. I have little sympathy for someone hurt or killed while trying to harm someone else.

Jack Leonard and Robin Mayper report in this Los Angeles Times blog:

A suspected burglar was killed early today [Sunday] when a heavy metal gate fell on him as he tried to break into a South Los Angeles business complex, authorities said.

Police believe the man was trying to slip past the gate in the 1800 block of East 41st Place near Alameda Street when he was crushed, said Los Angeles Police Lt. Faryl Fletcher

I would include the guy's name, but they didn't have it yet.

The real tragedy is that some family member of this guy will probably get lots of money from the gate manufacturer and the property owner.

CRI Off SoCal Airwaves

The 3pm weekday hour used to be so crowded with radio shows I wanted to hear. Tom Leykis and Larry Elder are both gone. I just found out that "The Bible Answer Man", the Christian Research Institute's radio show, has been off the air in the Los Angeles area for at least a month.

That tells you how often I was listening lately. (If I've been listening to radio at that hour, it has usually been John & Ken on KFI.)

I've written about the BAM show before - just check the "CRI" or "Christian Research Institute" tags at the end of this entry.

To think that southern California is where the program had its origin for so many years, and now it is barely heard anywhere in California. I remember when both KKLA 99.5 and KWVE 107.9 (Calvary Chapel's radio station) ran the program at the same time, until KWVE dropped it and had their own call-in apologetics show.

I guess CRI President (and show host) Hank figures "Who needs KKLA? We've got XM and podcasting!" But I have yet to get into the podcast habit myself. I feel like such an old man.

Hank, Larry, and Tom... now there is a diverse bunch. Diverse opinions and views make ya think, though.

Friends First Revisited

We can revisit the "friends first" issue with this edition of Dear Abby. WANTS MORE IN NEW JERSEY wrote:

I'm a 22-year-old male who has never been in a serious relationship.

Good. You shouldn't be in one until you are 25, or have achieved your dream and are established and looking for marriage.

About six months ago, I went away to grad school and met a girl. We have become good friends. We talk a lot and I flirt, but I'm not sure if she's flirting back.

She laughs at my stupid jokes and touches me when we joke around, but I think she may regard me as just a friend. I enjoy having her as a friend, but I can't stop thinking about how I'd like to be more than just friends.

It could be too late. She probably thinks of you as her gay friend.

Should I take the chance and tell her how I feel and risk our friendship -- or let things remain the way they are?

This is why you should be dating at least a few women. If this woman is interested in you "romantically", it would become very obvious when she realizes you are going out on a date with another woman. She may even try to compete for your attention.

Be prepared to be dropped the minute she finds a guy who actually makes a move. Such is the case with a lot of male-female "friendships". Either you are just being somewhat of a platonic surrogate, or her new guy will not want you around, because he knows you would make a move if you ever worked up the guts.

Dear Abby responded:

A clue that she might be mutually attracted to you is the fact that she touches you.

Women do that with their gay friends.

Chances are, if she did consider him a possibility early on, she's long since moved on mentally. Unless she likes being reminded that she's not attractive enough to this guy for him to make a move.

Look, I used to be the guy who silently pined away for the girl. I'm sure there were a lot of junior high school kids in the same boat. I should have grown out of it by high school, but I didn't. It’s no way to live.

Man up. Learn to accept rejection. If you are most like most single guys, you consider any woman who doesn't repulse you to be a potential date. So ask different women. Some will say yes. What’s your goal? Are you a marriage-and-family-minded guy? If so, then your dates now will help you pick your wife – later... when you are done with graduate school and professionally established. If you're just looking for "a good time", then you can find that easily. But don't become friends with them first, because that'll just give them the wrong idea.