relationships

We need to talk about love.

It is a wonderful thing. It makes the world go around. But sometimes it doesn't live here anymore.

It is then that bad things can happen.

You might get cut off by your ex, your gym membership suddenly inactive. You might hear from friends that you did none of the work in the relationship. You might hear that you were mean and cruel.

On the other hand, your ex might actually be the mean and cruel one.

For you might suddenly find that your passwords, bank account numbers, and even that photo of you wearing nothing but a caring grin on a remote Indian beach will suddenly see the light of more days than are comfortable. … Read more

Which came first? The unfriend or the unfriending?

This is the disturbingly scientific thought that wracks my sinews on hearing of a devastating piece of research performed by the University of Colorado Denver.

You might have thought that the virtual world is just that, that Facebook is merely a collection of make-believe friends who make believe that they're interesting -- and interested in you.

Allegedly not.

This research insists that if someone unfriends you on Facebook, it alters your behavior -- yes, your real-world behavior.

A fulsome and neurotic 40 percent of people admitted that if someone defriended them … Read more

Some people are just unlovable. Or they seem to attract lovers who are one leg short of a stable table and cause them such misery that they have to consign them to history.

This would have been fine in olden times. They would have gone to a bar with a book, and drunk themselves quite silly.

But now there's Facebook, the all-encompassing, always-on repository of everything that is happening to everyone.

So being a singleton doesn't look good. It makes you look like the spare part that no one desires.

Thankfully, a group of very caring Brazilians has … Read more

Almost one in three teen girls ages 14 to 17 say they've taken a relationship they started online into the real world, according to new research out of the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.

The survey of 251 teen girls finds that 30 percent of them went ahead and met offline with people they'd initially met online -- and without first confirming those people were who they claimed to be.

Not all meetings end up being dangerous, of course, but Jennie Noll, lead author of the study, has discovered a disturbing trend among the girls she's surveyed. Those with a history of neglect or abuse (roughly half of the girls surveyed) were more likely to display their online personas in sexually provocative ways.… Read more

Cell phones are more interesting than people.

They're smarter. They're much quicker on the uptake. And, unlike people, they're far more interactive.

This is because, most of the time, people have their noses pointed toward their cell phones.

Some very sharp minds at Baylor's Hankamer School of Business have researched young people's obsession with their cell phones and declared that the sane development of our youth is being threatened by these gadgets.

Baylor's Dr. James Roberts was quoted by the Daily Mail as offering these dark thoughts: "Mobile phones are a part of … Read more

Whenever a new modern thesis comes along -- especially one with technology at its heart -- I tend to brace myself.

We already know that technology has turned us into superficial, lazy worms who believe that our whole lives can be enacted through fingers and screens. Now along comes The New York Times to reveal that our smartphones have turned us into "ill-mannered flakes."

How has this occurred? Well, our little iPhones and Galaxy S3s offer us the perfect means to get out of social engagements.

They make it easier for us to text "Sorry, my bunion has grown an inch. I can't walk," hit send, and then waddle along to the nearest bar to gawk at a large television or a luscious barperson.… Read more

You can meet a new lover in unexpected places -- like on a bus, at a winery, or at a pharmacy counter.

Such a chance encounter allows for the relationship to develop organically, right down to the bitter organic end.

For some people, though, chance encounters tend not to offer the precision they require. One of those people is Japanese programmer Noriko Higashi.

She, you see, knows precisely what she wants. Please believe me, it's quite a lot.

In order to find the man of her (rational) dreams, Higashi decided to advertise on social-coding site GitHub. Perhaps because she … Read more

Humankind is never satiated.

People make promises in front of altars, and then, soon after, they sacrifice themselves to take another person's spouse. Because, well, they can. Or they have to. Or they feel like it. Or something.

One excuse I hear is that married lovers are more assiduous -- or even more grateful.

The only issue, it seems, is whether your current husband or wife begins to suspect and make investigations.

App developers have not been slow to help your cheating heart beat easily. So I am grateful to the Huffington Post for bringing together some of the more imaginative applications that hide your indiscretions. … Read more

Regular readers will know that my love life is akin to that of Elizabeth Taylor -- without the joy or the marriages.

For example, the last one -- no, wait. You'll cry at the serendipity, the love, the miscommunication, the emotional blindness, the stuffed toys on the window sill, and the cruel, cruel end. Tears are not good for a Saturday.

I have tried online dating and met some very peculiar people -- though, luckily, just the one stalker.

So I am unremittingly fascinated by a new dating site called Tandem.

Tandem, you see, offers protection from some of … Read more