Carina Chocano

This is a lesson we’ve learned the hard way.

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Of course, if the freakish weather and natural disasters don’t keep you inside, the changing economic climate will. Furniture costs money that you, victim of the formerly new economy, don’t have. Luckily for you, style arbiters are catching on to your financial limitations and emphasizing what you do have — piles of dirty dishes and lots of cans.

This month’s Nylon, aka “The Home Issue,” features a group of further-down-the-alphabet celebrities in their natural habitats. The photos are shockingly down-to-earth, reminding us that you don’t have to be chic to be chic.

“A great environment is an extension of you,” writes the magazine’s editor in chief, introducing a feature on the kitchens of “Hollywood celebrities” Catherine Kellner, Jared Harris, Arnold Vosloo and Izabella Miko. Never heard of them? Neither has Robin Leach.

“That doesn’t mean I’m advocating blowing your entire budget on a fleet of modern Italian furniture for your apartment,” he adds. (See above.)

The photos show such previously unappreciated home dicor touches as a potholder dangling from a red plastic adhesive hook, the aforementioned pile of dirty dishes and some coffee stains on a counter, all of which make us feel thrillingly of-the-moment. Add to that Arnold Vosloo’s comment that “the kitchen is the best place for spreading out all the bills and deciding which ones to pay,” and feel confident that you are beyond fabulous.

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Leave it to Elle to lag egregiously behind the times. This month’s issue features the home of the youngest granddaughter of India’s last viceroy, Lord Mountbatten. India Hicks is a former model, bridesmaid of the late Princess Diana and — what else? — a seller of T-shirts and handbags. Did we mention the house is a former plantation in the Bahamas? That Armani makes her feel “elegant but understated”? That people often ask her how she can live in the Bahamas, but that she has “created a life for herself” there that is “very complete”?

Man, is she out of it.

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And speaking of things that are over, here’s an idea: Why not plumb the ’80s for more great fashion tips?

Shoe designers Via Spiga are reviving not just the ice cream cone heel (still), but patent leather ice cream cone heels in white, fuschia, cobalt and, yes, mustard. The offending items are paired with white lace tights. Remember white lace tights? Of course you do. You wore them to the prom.

Yes, you did. Admit it. You did.

OK, we did.

Did we mention the dishes in our sink?

Until recently, standard protocol for handling a humiliating personal betrayal in public was to tough it out. This rule applied mainly to public figures who had no choice but to handle such challenges with all eyes on them, like political wives, who were required to stand by their men in purse-lipped silence, hands folded, eyes cast hellward, or celebrities, who were obliged to pretend to work through their painful feelings in public while carefully drawing the line at revealing anything that might jeopardize future career prospects. In both cases, the same general rule held true: The more painful the humiliation, the greater the need to maintain dignity by refusing to stoop to the humiliator’s level.

But those days are over. Thanks to the increasingly public nature of our lives, the ranks of people who might find themselves having to deal with private humiliations in public have now expanded to include basically everybody. And a surprising number of people recently have trumpeted their private grievances against the bastards who done them wrong, using whatever means are readily available to them. Ailing wife of the former presidential candidate Elizabeth Edwards, most prominently, used “Oprah,” the “Today” show and “The Daily Show” to get back at the tramp who seduced her husband. In January, Prince Harry’s ex-girlfriend broke up with him on Facebook. Tony Blair’s sister-in-law Facebook-divorced her husband after a fight. A couple of weeks ago, former New Yorker staffer Dan Baum breached the Kremlinesque secrecy of his erstwhile employer when, in the name of transparency, he tweeted the details of his firing while painting a less-than-flattering portrait. And Veronica Lario, the long-suffering wife of Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi, let her priapic husband have it (predictably with a lot more panache than Edwards) when she publicly accused him of consorting with an 18-year-old and supporting the political ambitions of models and starlets. “The impudence and shamelessness of power offends the credibility of all (women), damages women in general and especially those who have always struggled to defend their rights,” Lario said to the Italian news agency ANSA. Sisterhood is powerful, but revenge is pretty sweet, too.

 While it’s hard not to side with Lario, whose lashing out, no matter how self-serving, practically constitutes a public service, Baum, Edwards et al. come across as having murky motives. It’s not just that they have books to sell. What’s interesting (and similar) about these stories is that it’s easy to imagine how the behavior started out as fervent revenge fantasies, the kind that have crossed the minds of everyone who has ever been cheated on or fired. As recently as last year, marshaling the power of the Web to get back at one’s ex was considered pretty pathological behavior. When the YouTube divorcee Tricia Walsh-Smith went viral after posting a video disclosing the juiciest details of her collapsed marriage to a Broadway mogul, her story launched a thousand expert opinions about the legal ramifications and psychological effects of living our lives in public. Similarly, when the gossip blog Valleywag publicized the relationship between Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and former Fox News commentator Rachel Marsden by publishing their IM chats, and Wales responded by announcing on Wikipedia that they weren’t together anymore, nobody thought Marsden a hero, or even a person in her right mind, when she retaliated against Wales on eBay and Knol. But that was last year. This year, according to a British poll, nearly half of all people under the age of 21 and 18 percent of 22- to 30-year-olds have publicly dumped someone by announcing it on Facebook, Twitter or something similar in the past 12 months.

“Self-righteousness makes people feel superior,” says Pauline Wallin, a psychologist in Camp Hill, Pa., and the author of the book “Taming Your Inner Brat: A Guide to Transforming Self-Defeating Behavior.” “People always find a logical reason for what they want to do — like, that company fired me, the world needs to know what they’re really like. We decide emotionally and justify rationally. We decide first, justify later.” In other words, there’s nothing like getting screwed over to bring out the smugness and moral superiority in everybody. And, these days, who isn’t getting screwed over? The fact that we’re all just an angry e-mail, late-night status update, drunken text message or hormonal tweet away from more disclosure (self- and otherwise) only adds to the already considerable anxieties of the age. Technology doesn’t cause lack of impulse control, it just creates a nice, dark, moist and warm environment in which it can thrive.

It’s possible, if improbable, that there could be something healthy in the impulse to take ownership of one’s own humiliation and cash it in for attention and money, if not sympathy. Maybe it’s a sign of idealism, in an endearing belief in the goodness in people and the brotherhood of man that makes people trot out their lowest moments like circus ponies. Or maybe it’s just the result of a long, slow process of indoctrination. As long as there have been formulaic Hollywood movies, there have been scenes in which the bad guy gets his very public comeuppance. At the end of “Dangerous Liaisons,” for instance, Glenn Close’s character, the evil Marquise de Merteuil, gets booed at the opera after the virtuous young Chevalier Danceny reveals her evil schemes to the world by publishing her letters to Valmont. It seemed like a powerful, satisfying scene to me when I first saw it in college, but it drove my French film professor crazy. “No French person would do that,” he said. He didn’t mean the shunning. He meant the unified public expression of it. He meant everyone coming together for an unembarrassed, cringingly sincere public display of moral opprobrium. In the movies, casual onlookers can always be called upon to join in a chorus of disapproval against the villain, thereby validating the victim’s victimhood and eradicating all grievances against him in one fell round of applause. In real life, and especially in reality TV, we treat such displays with malicious, rubbernecking glee. The more technology allows us to prop ourselves up by putting everyone else down, the more we’ll level our blunderbusses at every passing ant. 

Packed with as much sex and violence as standards and practices will allow, “Kingpin” was still a glimmer in NBC’s eye two years ago, when chairman and CEO Bob Wright wrote that well-publicized bash-slash-mash note to executives, studio heads and producers. His missive was accompanied by a tape of a particularly violent episode of “The Sopranos,” which he denounced as something “we could not and would not air on NBC because of the violence, language, and nudity,” while at the same time urging his people to come up with a critically acclaimed scourge and highly rated menace of their own as soon as humanly possible. So here it is. “Kingpin” is what you get when you suck the soul (and the fat) from “The Sopranos,” throw in some movie references and crudely stitch it all together: Aaron Spelling’s “The Godfather IV: Stuck in Traffic.”

In an attempt to discourage unflattering comparisons, both creator David Mills and NBC entertainment president Jeff Zucker have been diligently working the “Macbeth” angle in the press lately, wisely trying to draw comparisons to productions most viewers are unlikely to have seen. (Zucker told TV critics last month: “Where some see ‘The Sopranos,’ I see Shakespeare.”) But they really needn’t bother. If it weren’t for the fact that there are lots of drugs lying around and idealistic DEA agents getting shot, you’d never know anything all that fishy was up.

The kingpin of the title is a suave Mexican drug lord named Miguel (Yancey Arias), the Cadenas family’s answer to Michael Corleone. (Just to prove it, he has the same name, a similar hairstyle and a WASPy, well-educated American wife.) A slick Stanford-educated MBA, Miguel yearns to run the business like a corporation (though maybe yearns is too strong a word; Arias’ taut, chiseled face registers only the tiniest of emotions, which are known to cause wrinkles).

Given the way corporations are run these days, Miguel’s dream seems comfortably within reach. His power-hungry American wife, Marlene (Sheryl Lee), is the perfect horny helpmeet. They share approximately half a scruple between them, but Marlene lets Miguel hold it. The problem is that, while Miguel bribes judges and makes charitable donations like a legitimate businessman, his Tio Jorge becomes an opium addict and puts his crazy son Ernesto (who appears to reside in the Versace flagship store) in charge. Ernesto feeds a DEA agent to his pet tiger, Marlene becomes sexually aroused when Miguel orders his uncle killed and some jealous voodoo cousins start infiltrating their son’s dreams and experimenting with magic spells that are supposed to make people immune to bullets, but don’t. ¡Ay, Lucy! ¡Que familia!

Oddly, Miguel glides through the wackiness and the bloodshed without ever messing up his hair, but his general air of distraction, and his guilt about not joining his son in a game of backgammon, hint at some emotional discomfort somewhere — or maybe there’s a piece of gravel in his shoe. Given the couple’s utter lack of affect, it’s not surprising that Zucker recently described the dramatic conflict of “Kingpin” as “far closer to the conflict and internal guilt that a Hamlet or Macbeth feels.”

Of course, internal conflict is a lot more interesting when paired with brooding soliloquies than with facial near-paralysis. Aside from occasionally losing his temper (say, when crazy cousin Ernesto shows up at his house with a dead DEA agent in the truck), Miguel seems about as conflicted as a buttered turnip. Marlene, too, is fine, thanks. They are so fine with everything, in fact, that they don’t appear to have bothered to come up with any sort of “waste management”-type lie to tell the kid, who, young as he is, is probably going to start asking where daddy got the private jet with the hot stewardess any day now.

Obviously, “Kingpin” exists in a more rarefied world than “The Sopranos,” but it would still be nice if the family could display a few recognizable human characteristics. Also nice would be any sort of insight on what it’s like — you know, emotionally, psychologically, socially, whatever — to be a big drug lord. Isn’t it a stressful job? (Then again, Tio Jorge describes it by saying, “I have seen the flames of hell! I have swum through rivers of blood!” so maybe we don’t want to know.) Still, when you think about how much sleep Tony Soprano has lost over some stolen fiber-optics cable, and then compare it to Miguel Cadenas’ discreet wince as he watches his cousin feed a federal leg to his cat, it’s hard not to wonder what his secret is.

How does Miguel manage to look as vacant and pretty as a male underwear model while his relatives run around declaring war on the United States government? How does Marlene manage to stay so focused and calm? Does she visualize FBI agents in kilts? And just how do Miguel and Marlene, who display no chemistry, remain so blissfully free of conjugal issues? It may be because Arias is about as expressive as a tuning fork, and may be because Lee has what has to be the most confounding, bizarre and ridiculous role in recent television history. She is at once a steely Lady Macbeth (50 bucks says there’s a vigorous hand-washing scene coming up soon) and a perennial newlywed who has apparently never moved beyond the honeymoon stage with her attractive but emotionally distant husband.

Which must be tough because the entire family openly hates her for being American, which would be ludicrous even if she weren’t their attorney and they were in a different line of work. You’d think a crime family would know better than to alienate their lawyer. But then again nothing about this particular family rings true. Hispanic media watchdog groups worried about “Kingpin” portraying Latinos as murderers and drug-pushers; now it’s clear they should have worried about being portrayed as laughably one-dimensional plot-pushers, albeit ones with nice, Pilates-toned abs.

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“Dragnet” is the old-but-new procedural crime drama from Dick Wolf, a man who has given us more procedural crime dramas than Nebraska has crimes. “Dragnet,” as most everybody knows, is a remake of the classic TV detective drama in which Sgt. Joe Friday rids Los Angeles of human vermin while tossing off zingy, deadpan, mordant and often strangely disjointed observations in voice-over. Like this one, after he is called to investigate a noise complaint that turns out to be coyotes making a ruckus in broad daylight for no apparent reason:

“We smelled the reason before we could see it. A white Jane Doe decomposing. My name’s Friday. I’m a cop.”

“Dragnet,” which premiered last night on ABC, opposite “Kingpin,” is refreshingly retro, if, that is, you are refreshed by musty smells. The old theme song returns as an extended dance remix, and each episode ends with a mug shot and a coda. In between the song and the sentencing, Joe Friday (Ed O’Neill of “Married With Children”) and his young partner, Frank Smith (Ethan Embry), solve crimes by faithfully following clues the old-fashioned way.

At first, a lot of things seem funny: O’Neill’s face, the fact that everyone enunciates pretty clearly, the fact that an autopsy scene in the first episode plays like one of those drinking games where everyone has to do a shot every time someone says “vagina,” “anus” or “semen” and everyone winds up drunk.

Then, after a while, everything still seems funny, but it isn’t as clear whether it’s intentional. Like the part where a serial killer kills two prostitutes and a woman who isn’t a prostitute, and Frank asks Friday whether he sees a connection between the three “vics,” and Friday replies: “Between [the two prostitutes], no doubt. With the woman in the car, no, I don’t see a connection.”

Anyway, it all gets less funny as it goes along, while becoming more oddly comforting, because it is, after all, so retro, and retro is all about certainty and a clear distinction between right and wrong and good and bad. For a show full of rape, murder and larvae, it’s reassuring, sort of. Like when Friday goes to the house of one suspected killer, and he meets with a smart psychologist and says: “I read some stuff you wrote on criminal disassociative behavior when you were with the FBI. Pretty impressive stuff.”

And she smiles and thanks him, and then his boss says, “Take a look, satanic iconography, deviant pornography … It’s the right fit.”

Just in case you had any doubts, a young policewoman walks out of the room with whips, chains, restraints and handcuffs, and someone suggests, “You might want to get those to the lab, ASAP.”

And when it turns out that this guy, though he did kill someone, was not the guy they were after, they find the right guy, anyway — and he turns out to fit a profile, too! To the letter! And then Friday predicts he will get the death sentence, and the murderer disagrees but in the end he does. And it’s really nice to know, in this uncertain world, that for at least one hour out of the week you can park yourself in front of the TV and know exactly what’s going to happen next.

Like, where are the guests? After three days on the air — three long days spent in the “co-hosting” company of Snoop Dogg, a man whose conversational skills and extemporaneous wit would be put to shame by a volleyball with a smiley-face painted on it — Jimmy has spent an inordinate amount of time visiting with security guards, deeply disturbed “paranormal experts,” relatives and Tammy Faye Bakker. You can’t blame him for not appearing to be fascinated or even quite engaged — but then again, it is his job, isn’t it?

One of the few innovations of “Jimmy Kimmel Live” — the fact that audience members and guests were allowed to drink alcohol on the set, a presumed attempt to add “fun” to the proceedings, or perhaps a calculated attempt to impair audience judgment — was nixed after one audience member vomited backstage on the night of the debut. Three days later, it remained a topic of conversation.

Another innovation seems to be that “Jimmy Kimmel Live” is a talk show in which nobody has anything much to say. There is no monologue, hardly a mention of politics or current events and nobody even seems to be promoting anything. Booking highlights have so far included George Clooney, the Rock and Al Michaels, the voice of “Monday Night Football.”

Aside from Tammy Faye and the crazy ghostbuster lady, girls have stayed away in droves. Maybe they fear they will be inadvertently stepping onto the set of “The Man Show II.” (Though how anyone could confuse the bloated, rococo set of “Jimmy Kimmel Live” with the “Romper Room”-on-Viagra vibe of “The Man Show” is beyond me.) Perhaps they are afraid of being asked to don bikinis and jump on trampolines. But even this seems strange, as Kimmel’s mensch persona — he is cuddly, friendly, slightly self-effacing — was a benign antidote to Adam Carolla’s motor-mouthed obnoxiousness on “The Man Show,” and generally helped keep it from descending into total offensiveness.

Maybe celebrity publicists, not known for their willingness to take chances, want to see how things go for Kimmel before allowing their charges to spend a few unsupervised minutes in his presence. (Then again, we are not talking about an obscure little show on basic cable.) Whatever the reason, the utter absence of estrogen inspired Kimmel to present Tammy Faye with a sash and a bouquet on Tuesday night for agreeing to come on.

After canceling Bill Maher’s “Politically Incorrect” last year and briefly flirting with the idea of building a show around Jon Stewart of “The Daily Show,” ABC has decided that the best way to gain late-night market share in the 18-34 demographic is to keep things dumb, slow and harmless. Whether it will work is anybody’s guess. But as long as we’re guessing, I will venture to say that A) it’s time to retire the whole 18-34 idea and start thinking in terms of “good” and “not so good,” and B) if networks and advertisers are going to cling to the idea that audiences born within a particular 16-year period universally favor adolescent mediocrity to the exclusion of anything and everything else, then they should have at least let Kimmel bring the “Juggies” with him and kept the vodka handy.

As things stand now, Kimmel is a not-so-great conversationalist struggling to squeeze fun from a stone (or a stoned Snoop; show No. 3 included clips of show No. 2, in which the rapper’s eyes had narrowed to the width of coin slots). A second-night gimmick intended to mock NBC’s patently absurd “Blizzard Monday,” in which its entire prime-time lineup was subjected to heavy precipitation, fell flat. Fake snow falling on a boring show somehow just highlights the “boring show” part.

Tuesday night’s show ended on a particularly sad note, when Kimmel was reduced to announcing that the next night’s lineup would consist of some musical guests and — whoever else happened to turn up. Somebody please help him.

Still, when it goes wrong, when it fails to appear, or when it comes home blind drunk at three A.M. and pees on the bed, we experience disappointment and a crushing sense of failure. This causes many of us to suffer from what my mother (a picturesque foreigner) amusingly calls “low self-steam.” We blame ourselves. We vow to embark on a vigorous self-improvement program the very next day. We may even purchase a self-help manual, or maybe a mug with an encouraging saying on it. But the path to self-improvement can be an expensive and hazardous row to hoe, assuming one would even want to hoe a row in the first place. Most of us, on consideration, would prefer not to.

In such a climate, it is not easy to talk about serial monogamy. For one thing, we don’t have the words. Look up the word “relationship” in the thesaurus, and right away you’ll see the problem. “Blood relation” doesn’t do it, unless you have an attractive cousin and have decided to take advantage of recent changes in the law. “Connection” seems a weak and rather tepid alternative, given the highly volatile nature of this particular type of “connection.” “Dating” — an antiquated word that refers to something people did in the fifties and stopped doing once it became okay to openly sleep around — doesn’t describe it either. Relationships can begin as early as the first “date,” even if that “date,” as such, never takes place.

But where are the words for that thing that happens when you meet someone (say, in college or at your first job or through a friend), hang out for a few weeks, keep hanging out for a few more years, and move in together, making sure not to purchase any big-ticket items together without holding on to the receipts? And what box do you check on your insurance forms when you’ve been living with the same person for five years but still aren’t sure you want to get married because there are some things you have to work on first?

You know. Relationships. What’s another word for them? It may very well be a semantic problem. As words go, “relationship” is conveniently elastic, and can be used to describe any number of associations, connections, affiliations, dalliances, flings, flirtations, long- and short-term bonds. In almost every instance, it is used to describe ambivalent sexual liaisons that are neither legally binding nor particularly exciting.

It is not known, exactly, when the word “relationship” came to replace other, more descriptive, terms like “courtship,” “engagement,” “marriage,” “illicit extramarital love affair,” and “rebound.” Experts trace its modern usage back to a time when people were no longer forced to conduct their love affairs in private, but were still too embarrassed to use the word “lover” in public. Thankfully, this is still the case.

I do not claim to be an expert in the field of successful relationships. But if any subject lends itself to the sort of indolent, poorly researched, and whimsically half-cocked theories I will put forth in this mercifully slim volume, it’s the practice of segueing from one committed relationship to another without pausing to consider why one is segueing from one committed relationship to another.

Is there advice contained in this book? Yes, but it’s terrible. On the other hand, it’s probably just the sort you generally give yourself, so there’s no hard work involved. If you follow it, you will learn how to leap blindly from relationship to relationship, how to ignore your better instincts, how to drag out a doomed affair, how to enter into an exciting rebound, how to make the most of your ex-girlfriend persona, and more — just like you’ve been doing all along. The fact is that serial monogamy is now the norm. Consequently, there’s no reason to keep looking upon it as some kind of repetitive failure pattern. Maybe we should just start regarding it as a flower pattern or paisley.

So, whether you’re sticking it out in a halfhearted entanglement or jumping into the arms of the next emotional disaster to come along, just remember: whatever your justifications for choosing “toxic,” “dysfunctional,” or just “long, difficult, and ultimately doomed” relationships over fun, supportive, carefree love romps, an unbroken string of failed relationships will not earn you frequent flier miles, but it is not without rewards.

The world is a treasure trove of possibility. Perhaps you will inherit a million dollars someday and spend your life traveling to far-flung, exotic locations. Until that happens, however, why not make the most of traveling to exotic emotional states and flinging yourself face-first on the bed? After all, if it weren’t for so-called “bad” relationships, many of us would have no relationships at all.

Someday your prince will come. And if he doesn’t, some other dude will. In the meantime, why not milk the drama for all it’s worth?

Bend Over: Assuming the Position of Compromise

As with most things in life, relationships are a series of compromises. If you find it easy to compromise your desires, your ideals, and your judgment, you’re well on your way.

Step 1: Lower Your Standards

A general rule of thumb when it comes to looking for love in the modern world is to stop being so picky. If you include your nightmares, the person of your dreams is within your reach. Once you’ve expanded your horizons to include people you formerly deemed “unacceptable,” including bosses, therapists, spiritual and political leaders, sworn enemies, and distant cousins, you’ll find a whole universe opening up to you and you’ll be well on your way to a series of delightful adventures, unexpected surprises, and astonishing displays of bizarre behavior. If you’ve already done this, do it again. You’ll be amazed at the sheer number of unsuitable matches to be made right in your neighborhood.

Start by asking yourself the following:

Does he really have to be attractive?

Does he really have to be smart?

Does he really have to be financially secure?

Does he really have to be funny?

Does he really have to be clean?

Does he really have to be sane?

Step 2: Question Your Instincts

Your gut is telling you to run far away. Pretend not to hear it. If it insists, pretend not to speak gut. Conveniently store your better judgment under the bed until next needed, usually when the relationship starts to sour.

Step 3: Accentuate the Positive

Don’t get bogged down in your negative emotions and judgments, as negativity may obscure a potential boyfriend’s boyfriend potential. Before dismissing someone as “ugly” or “crazy,” take the time to examine his positive qualities:

Is he wonderfully weird?

Is he thrillingly obsessive-compulsive?

Is he expertly medicated?

Is he relaxingly boring?

Is he delightfully clueless?

Is he charmingly vain?

Is he adorably childlike and helpless?

Step 4: Adjust Your Mental Image

It is important to avoid formulating any sort of mental image of an ideal mate, as this may prevent you from falling for the first person to come along. Having nothing to compare actual partners to, your standards will be more malleable, and with any luck will evaporate entirely.

Step 5: Keeping the Ball Rolling

In Mandarin, the word for “I want your things out of here by tomorrow morning” is the same as the word for “opportunity.” A true serial monogamist never looks upon a breakup as an end, but rather as a shiny new beginning. She also plans in advance whenever possible. Below are some tips from the pros.

The Marathon

However exhausting and emotionally draining, dragging out a doomed liaison does have its advantages. It provides an excellent excuse for shirking actual paying work in order to “work on the relationship” and is useful in helping to extract large quantities of attention from family and friends in the form of meals, interim lodging, tea, and pity. Also, drawing out an inevitable breakup over a period of several years is an excellent way to avoid being single. In order for this method to work, your partner must be as insecure and dysfunctional as you are. How can you tell if your partner is in it for the long — but not permanent — haul? Various behaviors can tip you off, including a willingness to enter couples counseling in order to gain an ally and the habit of making popcorn at the beginning of each argument.

The Relay

Some people prefer to seek out their next relationship while securely ensconced in the old one. This is not unlike going out to lunch right after breakfast, just in case locusts decimate the crops. Because this practice is generally frowned upon, it is recommended that you display some serious agony over the shift. Explain that your new affair “just happened,” despite your best efforts to the contrary. No one will believe you, but you should never admit the truth until your new boyfriend has become a permanent fixture at family functions and your old boyfriend is nothing more than a hazy memory. Once your old boyfriend has been forgotten by your friends and family, you can laugh about the whole crazy situation, coming across as adorably madcap and romantic. Everybody loves adorable madcap romantics, especially when the adorable madcap romantics’ ex-boyfriends keep calling them in tears, searching for answers.

The Sprint

If the prospect of looking for a new relationship from the security of your old relationship makes you queasy, you might consider sprinting. Sprinters dash from one relationship straight into the next without so much as a backward glance. Sprinting has none of the ethical disadvantages of the Relay, while yielding similar results. On the downside, sprinters have less time to do their homework on new lovers, leading them to form dubious commitments very quickly. On the upside, arranged marriages aren’t usually preceded by long getting-to-know-you periods, either, and they are proven to last longer and be more satisfying. Furthermore, sprinters will find that they can easily shift into marathon mode when the relationship begins to go south.

Singlehood and You

Maybe you are languishing in a monogamous relationship, toying with the idea of taking the leap into the yawning chasm of single life. Or you have already made the leap and are about to land in the outstretched arms of someone new. Naturally, you want to make sure to avoid mistakes. Any decision you make at this critical juncture will factor heavily in your future happiness, or at least in your happiness over the next two weeks, which could feel like forever. Meanwhile, you keep hearing things about the advantages of taking a long break between lovers. Friends begin to suggest that you consider “taking some time” to “focus on yourself,” “reevaluate your priorities” and “heal.”

Should you listen?

First, ask yourself who is doling out the advice. Chances are these people fall into one of three categories: single people who don’t have your many opportunities and would sooner eat their own livers than see you fall in love again, single people in desperate need of other lonely single people to fill up their free time, and miserable couples with a stake in your unhappiness. Angrily reject their guidance, taking the opportunity to list their many failings in the arena of love and romance. Be sure to point out to them they are just jealous, as they may not be aware of it.

Next, try to determine whether you have the skills it takes to be single. Not everyone is equipped to handle the arduous task of tending to themselves without any outside assistance.

Can you reach all the high places in your apartment? Are you handy with a drill? Do you take life’s little obstacles in stride, or do you crumble in the face of adversity? At parties, are you skilled at looking people in the eye and enunciating clearly? Or do you have a tendency to drink until you cry? Do you enjoy exciting hobbies like mountain biking, kayaking, and volunteering? Or do you prefer to spend Sunday afternoons curled up on the bath mat, getting angry all over again about the time your dad gave you an eleven P.M. curfew on prom night?

It is important that you answer these questions honestly before taking the big step into single life. The decision to become single is not a step to be taken lightly, as it can lead to all sorts of problems that could become serious down the road. Try to picture yourself, single, at a variety of functions such as siblings’ weddings, high school reunions, and your own funeral. Do you like what you see? In your mind’s eye, are you interacting graciously with others, with no regard to their availability? Or are you glued to the buffet table, interacting with the cheese selection? Do you look okay? What are you wearing?

If the images that have just run through your head give you pause, perhaps you should reconsider “taking that time for yourself.” Let’s be honest, you’re lucky that anyone wants to take that time away from yourself in the first place. No matter how trying the company of your current partner, it is important to remember that your own company, undiluted, may be even more loathsome.

Behold the Wrong Boyfriend

Maybe you are wondering, “What if I have committed to the serial monogamist lifestyle, and suddenly, out of nowhere, I happen upon my soul mate? What should I do? How can I ensure that I don’t start a relationship I can’t finish?”

This is an excellent question. Nothing is more embarrassing to a serial monogamist than finding true love. The best way to avoid this is by repeatedly falling in love with one of the following types:

The Mingler

Charming, funny, and impressively skilled at working a room, the Mingler is a snappy dresser with a mouth that more than makes up for that nose/bald patch/walleye/gout. While you never thought you could feel sexually attracted to a guy like the Mingler, his puckish charm will grow on you. You find yourself gradually warming to the idea until you thaw completely and leave an embarrassing puddle on the floor, at which point the Mingler will excuse himself and move on.

Mr. Crusty

A proponent of the view that beauty is on the inside, at least when it comes to him, Mr. Crusty always has several projects of a creative nature cooking at once. He doesn’t have time to shower, so don’t hassle him. In fact, it is possible that Mr. Crusty may not yet own a shower. This is because Mr. Crusty lives in a warehouse, loft, or other formerly industrial, now stealthily toxic “space” with inadequate heating, which he is remodeling himself. This accounts for his interesting coloring, which is actually ground-in soot, and his shortness of cash.

The Trust Fundamentalist

The Trust Fundamentalist is very intense, having had years of leisure to devote to honing his intensity. Like many rich people who have never worked a day in their lives, the Trust Fundamentalist may have a slightly skewed view of the glittery universe that revolves around him. It’s not his fault if he is easily distracted. He may ask you to marry him on the first date, a sure sign that he will not ask you out on a second.

Johnny Hurt

Johnny Hurt can trace the roots of his anguish for three generations. Naturally, he is cautious. Though willing to “do the work” from the second date forward, he is, unfortunately, far less willing to “do the fun.” While at first you will want to care for and nurture Johnny Hurt, you will soon want to hurt him, too.

Mr. Successful

Are you the other half in the power couple he envisions? Are you beautiful enough to make his friends want to rip their own heads off? Does your father own a media empire? Does your mother own a Brazilian coffee plantation? If you cannot answer yes to any of these questions, you might want to reconsider your interest in Mr. Successful. Mr. Successful does not fool around. That’s why he’s Mr. Successful.

The Urban Outdoorsman

The Urban Outdoorsman loves nothing better than being alone in the woods, which is why he moved to the city. Clearly, the urban outdoorsman has many issues, which will not soon be resolved. Do not be confused if the Urban Outdoorsman expects you to keep up his jaunty pace while you are shod in heels. The Urban Outdoorsman is a great believer in sensible footwear, even when attending well-heeled events at well-paved locales.

Child of the Universe

The Child of the Universe is a great person to meet after life has beaten you down. He will impress you with his willingness to ask the universe for everything and anything he needs. Unfortunately, the universe is usually busy and rarely gets back to him. He will then impress you with his willingness to ask you for anything and everything he needs, including the rent money.

The Aspiring Genius

The Aspiring Genius has certain priorities, none of which include you. Highly sensitive and emotional when it comes to his art, his greatest and most lasting passion will always be reserved for his critics, especially when they act as though he doesn’t exist. If you are interested in an Aspiring Genius, you would do well to follow this example. If your lack of interest fails to arouse his, try giving him a nasty review. This will never fail to elicit a passionate response.

The Drummer

Any person who enjoys hitting pot-shaped things with sticks has not managed to make the transition from the anal to the oral stage.

“Do You Love Me or Am I Just Paranoid? The Serial Monogamist’s Guide to Love,” by Carina Chocano, is excerpted with permission from Villard Books.

Is it weird that the bad butt jokes outnumbered the bikinis? I don’t know. But between the rueful financial services ads, the wistful, down-to-earth job-board commercials, the histrionic, “Reefer Madness”-style public service announcements and the triumph of the beer-for-beer’s-sake ethos, a weirdly dispirited message emerged: Get a job, any job, because the fact that your stock portfolio sucks doesn’t mean you won’t be audited at any minute. So don’t smoke, don’t do drugs and … buddy, you look like you could use a beer!

Several advertising trends emerged last night, although it’s unclear exactly why. They went something like this:

When making a cultural reference, make sure it’s outdated and/or irrelevant.

Two ads borrowed heavily from feature films long since available on video. An anti-drug public service announcement paid homage to the 1999 ghost thriller “The Sixth Sense,” and a FedEx spot resuscitated the 2000 Tom Hanks one-man show “Cast Away.” Not to be outdated, a third commercial, for AT&T’s mLife, exhumed the 1964 hit show “Gilligan’s Island.” Curiously, both the mLife spot and the FedEx spot riffed on the ways in which technology improves our lives. AT&T imagines what would have happened if Gilligan had owned a cellphone (he would have gotten off the island much sooner), and FedEx wonders what would have happened if the package the castaway neglected to open in the five years he was marooned had contained a satellite phone, a GPS locator, a water purifier and some seeds (he would have felt like an ass).

Ass may be a thing of the past, but butt jokes are the future.

Bud Light embraced the trend by betting, not once, but twice, on the universal appeal of gluteal comedy. In one ad, a young man is preparing to meet his future mother-in-law for the first time, when a friend reminds him to scope her for physical flaws the bride-to-be may soon inherit. Presently, the women arrive and the young man is relieved to find that the mother is reasonably attractive. It’s only after he opens the door that he discovers that she has a comically large, protuberant hindquarters. That’s when beer comes to the rescue.

The second ad features a man in an upside-down clown suit walking into a bar and ordering a beer. He takes the bottle and starts to drink. Unfortunately, the trompe-l’oeil structure of his costume makes it appear as though he is self-administering a Bud Light enema. This upsets the establishment’s other patrons, so, naturally, when the man in the upside-down clown costume asks for a hot dog, the bartender refuses to serve him.

A Reebok spot starring NFL linebacker Terry Tate stood out as one of the funniest of the night (as well as the least germane to the product), but even it couldn’t resist a sly reference to rectal mischief. In the ad, a company president talks about his decision to hire the linebacker as a sort of office efficiency expert. (Tate handles office slackers by tackling them in the halls.) The company is called Felcher and Sons. Is it A) simply a humorously unappealing surname, or B) a coy allusion to deviant sexual practice? You decide!

Talking animals are finally out.

The talking-animal era has drawn to a merciful close. Critters were as popular as ever this year, but, happily, they kept their yaps shut. One highlight: A Budweiser spot spoofs the NFL instant replay by showing the famous Clydesdales standing by while a zebra obsessively studies the monitor and cowboys look on. (“That referee’s a jackass,” says one. “No, I believe that’s a zebra,” the other replies.) Pepsi’s ads for Sierra Mist feature clever animals finding innovative ways of refreshing themselves.

Two spots, one for Trident and another for Bud Light, showed the fun side of attacking animals. The Trident spot explains the mysterious “four out of five dentists” claim. (A deranged squirrel surreptitiously crawls up the fifth dentist’s leg and bites him just as he is about to concur with his colleagues.) And the Bud Light shows what happens when a sexually unattractive young man tries to emulate the suave flirting techniques of a more attractive counterpart. (A lobster crawls out of a conch shell and attacks his face.) In another Bud Light ad, a man in want of a Bud Light overcomes a seemingly insurmountable obstacle (no pets allowed in the bar) by placing his long-haired dog on his head and adopting a Rastafarian speech pattern.

In an unrelated note, if there were a prize for most faithful use of a thesaurus when brazenly ripping off its own product, the honors would go to the Pepsi Corporation for its lemon-lime creation, Sierra Mist. Think all the good names are taken? Think again. If you like Mountain Dew and Sierra Mist, you’ll love Hillock Moisture!

Getajob.com

Not only were Monster.com and Hotjobs.com the only dot-coms advertising during the Super Bowl this year, but they had two of the best commercials of the night. The Hotjobs spot was a montage of (mostly blue-collar) workers singing the famed Kermit the Frog ballad “The Rainbow Connection” while dreaming of a better job. There’s something weirdly melancholy about the ad, which is shot in muted colors on humble-looking sets. As the hopefuls dream of better jobs, it’s hard not to wonder if they might not be, in fact … kidding themselves.

The Monster ad features a truck without a driver careening down the highway, while a trucker without a truck sits in a diner, drinking coffee. Monster plays matchmaker. It’s a clever concept, executed beautifully, and the message is refreshingly clear. But what really made it stand out was the tagline (“Blue collar, white collar, no collar … Now Monster.com works for everybody”), which either hearkens the return of Depression-era values, like the Hotjobs ad, or else just decided to take the opportunity to rub it in.

Some of the best:

The Pepsi Twist ad featuring the Osbournes: The “twist” has been around for a while, but the casting made it fun (if predictable) again. As Ozzy fumbles with a garbage bag, Jack and Kelly approach him with cans of Pepsi Twist and announce that they are not the Osbournes, but the Osmonds. The upside: Watching Donny Osmond almost crack himself up as he and Marie launch into a rendition of “A Little Bit Country, a Little Bit Rock-and-Roll.” The downside: Ozzy wakes up from this nightmare screaming for Sharon and finds he is actually married to Florence Henderson. The second twist can’t compete with the first.

All the ESPN spots, the “Coach” one in particular: It’s hard not to sound maudlin when describing the ESPN spots as offbeat little insights into the ways that spectator sports influence the culture, but they really do that. The best one cuts between different families watching the game and yelling at the TV. The tag line reads, “Without sports, there’d be no one to coach.” It’s one of the only spots that manages to be smart, funny and touching, even if you’re not a sports fan. Which I guess makes it persuasive, too.

The Master Card check card ad featuring the dead presidents: The “priceless” campaign has been around long enough that it can afford to get weird. So it does. In the spot, a guy goes on a date and uses his check card to pay for everything. Meanwhile, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Jackson sit around, waiting for him to come home. The “priceless” part: Leaving your cash at home. It makes no sense at all, but it has a pleasantly nightmarish quality.

Some of the worst:

Nissan Frontier: What goes into making a Nissan Frontier? Steak, the head of a Viking and, no kidding, brass balls. How does one know they are balls of brass? Because they are brass-colored metal balls with the words “100% Brass” stamped on them. All these manly totems, as well as some others, are smelted and forged to create one really dumb-looking truck.

Sony: An older gentleman trains for a space ride, thereby blowing his children’s inheritance on the new millennial equivalent of a red Ferrari acquired in middle age. “When your children ask where the money went,” goes the tag line, “Show them the pictures.” They forget to add: “And run.”

Dodge: A young construction worker gets in a Dodge truck while eating beef jerky. He teases the driver of the truck about his diet. The young guy then chokes on beef jerky, so the driver of the truck drives recklessly until the regurgitated wad of meat is dislodged from his throat and lands with a “thwap” on the windshield. The older man studies the wad from a distance, a look of restrained displeasure on his face.

Gatorade: Michael Jordan takes on his digitally re-created younger self on the court. Then his even younger self shows up and … um, what?

Levi’s: Skinny urban couple clad in denim tuxedoes confront a stampeding herd of urban buffalo. They stand still, tears streaming down cheeks, as the buffalo politely stream around them. One advertising site calls it “Euro, sexy, cool.” But it’s more like “Stupid, unintentionally funny, crap.”

The Don’t Smoke Dope Ad: Kids shouldn’t smoke pot because it affects their memory, damages their lungs, reduces their fertility, etc. But grown-ups who want to be taken seriously when they tell kids not to smoke pot should consider ditching the “Reefer Madness”-style ads. The current anti-marijuana campaign focuses on the connection between pot-smoking, date rape and teen pregnancy. It’s really weird … like they got the stoners mixed up with the football players and pot confused with beer.