Lookit kb, schoolin' me on the mating dance (humanodon agrees; apparently it's the girl's responsibility to carry on conversations! that makes me feel annoying and needy). If I am confident in the attraction I won't be shy. I cut back on texts when I'm sending multiples with no reply or when it seems I'm being ignored on multiple occasions...or, yeah, when I feel like I'm hitting them up first all the time. Can't I expect some effort from a guy?

3) OK, so sometimes I hang out with really shady dudes who try to convince me to crash in their bed overnight after repeatedly trying to keep making out with me after I've said I'm not interested. I guess I could have gone for the couch? But by then I just wanted to get the hell out.

5) Monogamy makes everything easier if everyone's on board for a monogamous relationship. Is it also the girl's job to bring up monogamy? Did I fuck up that too? None of the guys I spent time with last summer wanted a relationship. I won't be monogamous to someone unless there's an agreement we're both monogamous; it often would take a conversation or two with various people for me actually become monogamous (or I guess I could have just ignored them completely) and I figured I didn't want to have those conversations until I knew I needed to. Never needed to. I guess my advice is don't jump the gun on monogamy. Eggs, one basket, missed opportunities.

6) I often observe that after an given interaction is over, at some point, parties will attempt to reignite it for various reasons. "I was an idiot", "I want you," "I miss you," "I shouldn't have slept with your best friend," whatever. Then you get back together, realize/remember all those things you hated and still hate about the other person, and tear everything down again. So I'm saying: Don't. Skip the getting back together. When you break up, fucking break up and move on and if you don't move on at least leave the other person alone. This could partially be a personal tweak: when I am done with something, I am done. Also, this dude seems to think I'm going to sleep with him again after he slept with my friend, and that's like "You kidding me, man? After what you did the first time, I'm not giving you another chance." I'd probably walk in on him with my sister mother or something, and it would be partially my fault, because I'd be an idiot to get back with someone like that. If you had good reasons to break up, they won't go away just because you realized you miss the other person.

8) But KB, whine that was like, the 9000sssss. Email was hardly a thing. (I joke.) And clearly, your wife is a goddess among women.

9) Ah, but maybe they were the exception and you were still the rule? I could also be talking out my ass here. You didn't marry either of them; they weren't the exception. (Maybe?) I meant, "don't hope to be the magic exception to someone else's pattern, i.e., the girl who waits patiently while the guy goes through woman after woman until he looks up, sees her, and realizes he's been in love with her all along." I guess perhaps your crazy wiccan bisexual strippers were exceptions to a pattern, but there being two of them and at the same time...Well, I guess you took your rules and said fuck 'em.

10) Yes. Someday I'll realize I've dated all the way out of the good pool and am stuck. That's okay. For now I'm young enough that I shouldn't get too hung up on anyone; they're not the love of my life or end of my world. The end of one relationship is not the end of my hope for all love in life. And yes, for now, it's still relatively easy to meet guys (though I need to start aiming for higher grades, methinks, which will push me out of my comfort zone of bars).

11) That's fair. But also, observe whether they're actually trying to be what they want, or whether they're just talking about it. Someone in my life has been talking about getting a new job for a month now and not done a whit to achieve it. You can want something but you can't just want it into existence. I have attempted to help this person achieve his goal, offering multiple extremely viable options on multiple occasions. Has this person taken me up on a single one? No. Am I going to hound this person until he actually does something? Fuck no. I am not his mom.

You believed that your wife could do it. You saw that she was serious about her goal and you probably had a couple of conversations (maybe?) and you backed her. That's what you need.

I believe in support. I don't believe in force-feeding.