Salon.com > Love http://www.salon.com Wed, 03 Jul 2013 01:14:35 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 My fiancé has a secret child http://www.salon.com/2013/07/01/my_fiance_has_a_secret_child/ http://www.salon.com/2013/07/01/my_fiance_has_a_secret_child/#comments Mon, 01 Jul 2013 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13340018 Dear Cary,

I love your column. I love your writing. Ive been following you for several years. Reading your advice feels like talking to a friend over coffee and that's what I need now.

I've been with my boyfriend for three and a half years, living together for one and engaged for six months. Everything was great, we get along, he has a good sense of humor, we helped each other through some difficult personal issues, my family loves him. We want the same things and are in love.

Except three months ago I borrowed his computer to do a picture album of our story together, and you may know how this goes ... I found pictures of other women in the first year we were together. He said it was nothing. I didn't believe him, I felt I needed to know the truth and I looked at his emails. He then admitted he cheated in the first year of our relationship. I was numb, then angry, but I stayed with him. He said he used to have several relationships at the same time, it was his way of not getting close to women. He was dating two other women on and off and I was the last one to get in the picture, but he said he didn't feel like being with others, fell in love with me and ended the other relationships in the first seven months we were together. I know this is true because I saw the emails. We had a lot of problems in the first year, so I can understand him not taking it seriously. It was a long time ago, we built a great relationship since then and I know he didn't cheat again. It still hurts. I'm a big girl and I can deal with that, but there's something else I'm not sure I can take. I saw an email from a woman he dated a year before we met. She told him about the baby she had, a girl, attached a picture and said she wanted to leave the door open in case he ever wanted to meet her or have a relationship with her. He confessed she is most likely his daughter, said they slept together a few times, she got pregnant, he was scared, told her he didn't want any part in it, and cut off all contact.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/07/01/my_fiance_has_a_secret_child/feed/ 40 Writers in love http://www.salon.com/2013/06/27/writers_in_love/ http://www.salon.com/2013/06/27/writers_in_love/#comments Thu, 27 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13338097 Dear Cary,

I’m a novelist who has put great faith in introspection and self-knowledge. Recently, however, I am blinded, disoriented and unable to interpret my feelings. It feels almost like an illness.

I’ve had a boyfriend for the last two years with whom I have shared a great love. He is also a writer. Our habit has been to live in rotating European cities. We spend a few months here, a few months there. I have a home in one of these cities to which I often return. I get exhausted if I stay too long away. He on the other hand stays on without me in the other, distant cities until we are reunited, often somewhere else again. I would say that in contrast to me, he does not have a home — he does not feel the dominant pull of a single place. He is a strange, idiosyncratic man, with a constantly surprising, brilliantly perceptive, but also counterintuitive interpretation of life. He has very few friends, and both little ability and little need to form ties with others. Maybe for that reason, when he does form a bond, the intensity of his affection and the force of his powers of recognition are overwhelming. I am speaking in terms of my own sense of homecoming in finding him.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/06/27/writers_in_love/feed/ 34 Is my fiancé the right man? http://www.salon.com/2013/06/26/is_my_fiance_the_right_man/ http://www.salon.com/2013/06/26/is_my_fiance_the_right_man/#comments Wed, 26 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13336565 Dear Cary,

I will be married in a few months. And until now I have this horrific, horrific doubt in my head. My fiancé is a wonderful man, Cary. He's kind to me, he has a steady job, and he cooks dinner for me even when he is tired. Also, I got attracted to his life story. He was married before, but his wife died during childbirth, along with the child. Yet when he speaks of it, I see no trace of bitterness or anger. Not even sadness. I got attracted to the fact that here is a person, who, through the bleakest period of his life, managed to keep his sanity, his faith and his humor intact. And I can't imagine a better partner to go through life with. He's also very funny and charming, and I feel that he truly loves me.

Here's the thing: I grew up with this idea of my future husband and he's just. not. it. I grew up thinking I'd get married to a man in uniform, maybe a doctor, or lawyer, what have you. He would be witty and brilliant and also cook well. I would be the supportive wife, the wind beneath his wings.

Alas, that doesn't seem to be the case now.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/06/26/is_my_fiance_the_right_man/feed/ 77 Chris Brown launching “Unity Campaign” to promote love http://www.salon.com/2013/06/14/chris_brown_launching_unity_campaign_to_promote_love/ http://www.salon.com/2013/06/14/chris_brown_launching_unity_campaign_to_promote_love/#comments Fri, 14 Jun 2013 16:50:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13326567 Well, this is rich. In a tweet showing an astonishing lack of self-awareness, the easily incited, abusive and homophobic-sounding hip-hop artist Chris Brown last night announced a new "Unity Campaign" intended to promote love. Indiscriminatory, harmonious, peaceful love:

[embedtweet id="345313988374044672"]

The new single is Brown's most recent attempt to win favor in the public eye, but forgive skeptics, feminists and the LGBT community if they remain unmoved.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/06/14/chris_brown_launching_unity_campaign_to_promote_love/feed/ 10 My lover, my client http://www.salon.com/2013/04/30/my_lover_my_client/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/30/my_lover_my_client/#comments Tue, 30 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13285032 Dear Cary,

I am a freelance bookkeeper. I had been seeing one of my clients a couple of times a week at his home office for over 15 years. Over time, we became friends -- having dinner together every once in a while and even going to the movies. He knew my family and was invited to holiday meals. There was never any indication that he had romantic feelings for me even though he has always been very generous and kind. In fact, I always thought he was the best person character-wise that I know but he always has seemed rather cold, emotionally. As an example, there was one time I just naturally tried to give him a hug on my way out the door and he stiffened like I had really crossed a line. It struck me as being very strange. I vowed then never again to be so "friendly." He's never seemed to have any friends much less a girlfriend.

About eight years ago, I advised him to purchase a house as he was making good money and doing so would (and did) save him quite a bit at tax time. He was resistant to the idea and always "teased" that if things didn't work out he would come to live with me. To make a long story short, his business took a dive, he lost the house and had to declare bankruptcy in March of last year.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/30/my_lover_my_client/feed/ 26 Thom Yorke and Nigel Godrich give relationship advice to girls http://www.salon.com/2013/04/10/thom_yorke_and_nigel_godrich_give_relationship_advice_to_girls/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/10/thom_yorke_and_nigel_godrich_give_relationship_advice_to_girls/#comments Wed, 10 Apr 2013 20:49:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13267358 Radiohead's frontman Thom Yorke and collaborator Nigel Godrich, who usually stay away from the public eye, recently participated in Rookie Mag's long-running "Ask a Grown Man" series, in which influential men dispense sage wisdom to teenagers and young women.

Yorke and Godrich fielded questions on breakups, overcoming shyness, and insecurity.

On shyness:

Yorke: “If you have a crush on him, if you're really, really, really, really shy, which is what I was at that age -- also, I was at a boys' school so it was impossible to meet girls anyway -- how about just write him a note? Or if you can’t bear it just throw him against a wall sometime.”

On breaking up with someone boring:

Godrich: “Yeah, of course it’s okay to break up with them. But maybe you can not just say ‘Hey you’re boring me so I’m going to break up with you.’ You can be a lot more politic about it.”

Yorke: “I’d go with that, actually.”

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/10/thom_yorke_and_nigel_godrich_give_relationship_advice_to_girls/feed/ 0 “Girls” recap: Goodbye cruel “Girls” http://www.salon.com/2013/03/18/girls_recap_good_bye_cruel_girls/ http://www.salon.com/2013/03/18/girls_recap_good_bye_cruel_girls/#comments Mon, 18 Mar 2013 15:00:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13244506 I don't know how I feel about the new Hannah-in-crisis. One of the great joys of Hannah was that even — especially — in her blundering, raw ineptitude, she was a force that, nonetheless, moved forward. Unlike the rest of us, with our piddling one step forward, two steps back, her massive jumps of misplaced courage — “I am the voice — or at least, a voice — of a generation” — were decimated by steady, incremental self-sabotage. The best part was that, unlike us, she would have been hard-pressed to differentiate the two.

So how can we make peace with this Hannah, who, after finally getting what she wants — a good (enough) job and a nice(ish) boy — is overcome by OCD, a terribly crippling condition in real life, and possibly so in drama. A very smart commenter on Facebook recently noted that the ear-poking seems almost an act of desperation, as if Hannah were trying to dig out her neurosis with a Q-tip. It certainly does, but what about losing Adam has caused this syndrome? Is it stopping her from writing the book? Is the book stopping her from writing Adam? Was the plot stopping Dunham from writing an explanation for either of these? Hannah is poking around for answers, lost and alone. As are we.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/03/18/girls_recap_good_bye_cruel_girls/feed/ 1 Ben’s right: Marriage is work. That’s not necessarily a bad thing http://www.salon.com/2013/02/27/bens_right_marriage_is_work/ http://www.salon.com/2013/02/27/bens_right_marriage_is_work/#comments Wed, 27 Feb 2013 20:02:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13213903 When Ben Affleck picked up the Oscar Sunday night for "Argo," the actor/producer/director/Jimmy Kimmel love slave turned those boring last minutes of the broadcast into a memorably strange statement about marriage. As he looked out at his beautiful wife, Jennifer Garner, he told her – and the world – "I want to thank my wife, who I don't normally associate with Iran. I want to thank you for working on our marriage for 10 Christmases. It’s good. It is work, but it’s the best kind of work, and there’s no one I'd rather work with." And if nothing else had happened the entire broadcast, it would have been worth it for the pinched, "Honey, whaaaaaa?" smile on Garner's face as he said that.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/02/27/bens_right_marriage_is_work/feed/ 20 Study: When it comes to online dating, everyone’s a little bit of a Catfish http://www.salon.com/2013/02/27/study_when_it_comes_to_online_dating_everyones_a_little_bit_of_a_catfish/ http://www.salon.com/2013/02/27/study_when_it_comes_to_online_dating_everyones_a_little_bit_of_a_catfish/#comments Wed, 27 Feb 2013 17:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13213611 I don't know how much I would trust a "study" from a website that allows men to bid money on dates with women, so, you know, let's just start there.

Nonetheless, WhatsYourPrice.com conducted a survey about how honest people are in their online dating profiles, and like similar studies, found that a majority of people lie in them. Women tend to lie most about their weight; men tend to lie most about their height and income. (Oh, and their marital status.)

The survey also found the highest concentration of no-good dirty rotten online profile fabricators in Atlanta, New York and Washington, D.C., while people in Houston, Phoenix, Boston, Charlotte, N.C., and Minneapolis were veritable George Washingtons of Internet dating.

But even the big liars aren't full-on Catfish-ing potential mates, just lacing their profiles with minor deceptions and indulging in the same kinds of white lies that men and women have been telling over watery cocktails at bars since the beginning of time: That they are fitter, better educated, wealthier -- you get the idea.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/02/27/study_when_it_comes_to_online_dating_everyones_a_little_bit_of_a_catfish/feed/ 3 “The New York Review of Books”: Where the literati find love http://www.salon.com/2013/02/14/the_new_york_review_of_books_where_the_literati_find_love/ http://www.salon.com/2013/02/14/the_new_york_review_of_books_where_the_literati_find_love/#comments Thu, 14 Feb 2013 18:25:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13201418 Disappointed by the available stock of suitors on Internet dating sites? Opposed to algorithmal love on principle? Worried your date won't get your "Ulysses" references?

Then why not let the New York Review of Books arrange your next blind date?

Celebrating its 50th anniversary this month, the literary journal that Tom Wolfe once called "the chief theoretical organ of Radical Chic" has been facilitating the union of the literati's not-so-theoretical organs since its founding in 1963.

And while the magazine's associate publisher, Catherine Tice, couldn't tell you why the journal decided to run personal ads, she can quote you the very first one: "Wife wanted: intelligent, beautiful, 18 to 25, broad-minded, sensitive, affectionate. For accomplished artist and exciting life. NYR box 1432," she told NPR.

Other favorites from the associate publisher:

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/02/14/the_new_york_review_of_books_where_the_literati_find_love/feed/ 1 Gallup report: The world is filled with love http://www.salon.com/2013/02/14/gallup_report_the_world_is_filled_with_love/ http://www.salon.com/2013/02/14/gallup_report_the_world_is_filled_with_love/#comments Thu, 14 Feb 2013 17:02:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13201273 Bloomberg News and Gallup took a look at the state of love in the world, and the prognosis is pretty good.

In 2006 and 2007, Gallup went to 136 countries and asked people, “Did you experience love for a lot of the day yesterday?” Bloomberg broke down the numbers, revealing that there are actually a lot of gooey feelings going around in the world.

In the United States, 81 percent of respondents reported feeling loved in the previous 24 hours, but the Philippines came out on top, with 93 percent of people reporting that they felt that loving feeling for a majority of their day. Armenia, where only 29 percent of respondents felt the warm glow of affection, came in a sad last.

Other interesting findings from the data include indicators that marriage, while a boon for love, might not be the best means of experiencing it. According to Bloomberg, "Across the world as a whole, the widowed and divorced are the least likely to experience love. Married folks feel more of it than singles. People who live together out of wedlock report getting even more love than married spouses."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/02/14/gallup_report_the_world_is_filled_with_love/feed/ 0 True love, according to the feds http://www.salon.com/2013/02/14/true_love_according_to_the_feds_2/ http://www.salon.com/2013/02/14/true_love_according_to_the_feds_2/#comments Thu, 14 Feb 2013 16:51:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13201319 Raised a denizen of the Internet, I don't have a lot of hard-copy photographs. I only own one photo album and it's tucked away in a box file on a shelf that I can't even reach. I've rarely looked at the crimson binder of amateur snapshots -- my wedding album -- lovingly compiled for the perusing eyes of a federal agent.

I don't have a green card marriage. I do have a marriage green card. The process to get it, as anyone who has gone through it might attest, was a dizzying, panic-inducing bureaucratic obstacle course; a strange lesson in state determinations of love and partnership.

A New York Daily News article last year about the officials who interrogate couples applying for green cards noted, "The green-card gumshoes use old-fashioned sleuthing to ferret out marriages of convenience from cases of true love." But in my experience, "true love" as recognized by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is an uncomfortable act to perform.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/02/14/true_love_according_to_the_feds_2/feed/ 12 Love isn’t dead. Here’s proof http://www.salon.com/2013/02/14/love_isnt_dead_heres_proof/ http://www.salon.com/2013/02/14/love_isnt_dead_heres_proof/#comments Thu, 14 Feb 2013 15:43:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13201092 It's Valentine's Day, everyone. If you're like me, you are wondering what there could possibly be to celebrate in an era when the Internet has killed courtship and Taylor Swift is seemingly incapable of finding the one.

Oh, I jest. People still go on dates and T-Swizzle is 23 years old and figuring stuff out, so please everyone just get off her back, OK?

Love isn't dead. It's actually kind of everywhere. It's fleeting. It disappears only to show up again later. It doesn't always look the way we thought it would. And it often involves a lot of heartbreak and frustration. But it happens, and it's real.

Just to prove it to you, I've compiled a list of couples that remind us all that romance takes many shapes and forms over a lifetime. So kick back, crack open a box of Russell Stovers and come on this love journey with me. And feel free to tell me in the comments which couples inspire you.

[slide_show id=13200430]

 

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/02/14/love_isnt_dead_heres_proof/feed/ 1 Perfect pairings: The best film/drink combos to snuggle up with on Valentine’s Day http://www.salon.com/2013/02/14/perfect_pairings_the_best_filmdrink_combos_to_snuggle_up_with_on_valentines_day/ http://www.salon.com/2013/02/14/perfect_pairings_the_best_filmdrink_combos_to_snuggle_up_with_on_valentines_day/#comments Thu, 14 Feb 2013 08:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13201283 Ah, Valentine’s Day; a day thrust upon us on which we are forced, willingly or unwillingly, to get cards chocolates, or bubbly for our loved one, and pay four times the usual price of a dinner.

That, of course, is if we have a loved one.  If we don’t then Valentine’s Day can be a day of feeling lonely and depressed, which causes us to eat those chocolates and drink all that bubbly by ourselves.

I have never been much for those expensive dinners, but bubbly, chocolates and a movie are right up my alley.

Herewith, a small sampling of movies for a multitude of Valentine’s Days, and the best drink to accompany them.

FOR THE LOVE OF FOOD:
Julie & Julia - Little is more satisfying than watching this movie (based on an Open Salon blog) in which two women, in two different points in time, spend a large portion of their lives cooking and then stuffing their faces with the results. Give me this movie on a night alone with a good red wine and a massive dish of mac 'n' cheese, and I am a happy girl.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/02/14/perfect_pairings_the_best_filmdrink_combos_to_snuggle_up_with_on_valentines_day/feed/ 0 The worst of Valentine’s Day http://www.salon.com/2013/02/14/the_worst_of_valentines_day/ http://www.salon.com/2013/02/14/the_worst_of_valentines_day/#comments Thu, 14 Feb 2013 01:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13199351 I've always been a tad suspicious of the consumerist motivations behind Valentine's Day -- but that was before I became a "sex and relationships" writer. Now I'm a conspiracy theorist wearing a tinfoil-hat made of Hershey's Kisses wrappers. You need only take a glimpse of my in box around this time of year -- or better yet, actually read through the dozens of the scheming, hackneyed and downright bizarre V-Day pitches you'll find there -- to understand why.

I'm a fan of laughing instead of crying -- especially when it comes to the ceremonial excess of Feb. 14 -- so I bring you this year's 10 worst attempts to capitalize on Cupid's holiday.

[slide_show id="13199454"]

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/02/14/the_worst_of_valentines_day/feed/ 2 Whispering sweet post-structuralist nothings http://www.salon.com/2013/02/11/whispering_sweet_post_structuralist_nothings/ http://www.salon.com/2013/02/11/whispering_sweet_post_structuralist_nothings/#comments Mon, 11 Feb 2013 21:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13190809 My favorite love song of the past few years is “Video Games,” by Lana Del Ray because of the third line of the chorus. It's the song's most burlesque moment, a come-on that should feel scuzzy and hackneyed, that should ruin everything: “I heard that you like the bad girls, honey.” But it catapults the song over all the barricades I’ve erected in my soul against love songs and against songs in which the singer self-identifies as “bad.” The reason is that the melody in which this particular line is sung cuts against its meaning. Because the words are about sex, you’d expect the song’s heretofore sultry melody to remain sultry or wax sultrier. Instead, on the words “bad girls, honey,” the vocal goes high, chaste, folky. If you only heard this snippet of melody, without words or context, you’d guess it belonged in an Indigo Girls song about ghosts or injustice, or in a lament about Scotland. That’s why the “bad girls, honey” kills me: The words are able to register as hot because the notes are cold. The operative principle here — you can get away with saying something very warm if you deliver it in a cold medium — also explains why Lana Del Ray gave this warmest of torch songs the coldest of names.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/02/11/whispering_sweet_post_structuralist_nothings/feed/ 3 “Girls” recap: Musical chairs http://www.salon.com/2013/02/04/girls_recap_musical_chairs/ http://www.salon.com/2013/02/04/girls_recap_musical_chairs/#comments Mon, 04 Feb 2013 03:30:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13189630 The strangest about getting older is that you look back and realize you were always exactly where you needed to be. Not, as we'd like to think, because this nomadic progress constitutes some path toward growth, but because it is only in theory that people plan a future, then coexist in it peacefully. In practice, to move on by getting ourselves kicked out.

Taking leave of the premises of Hannah's apartment in this episode is Elijah. We've already watched Charlie's unbearable clinginess lead to his ejection, then Marnie's tetchiness towards Adam lead to hers. It's not surprising that the merging of Elijah and Marnie — on Hannah's own couch, yet — is the impetus for Elijah's.

This time, because he hasn't even paid for it, Hannah, at George's urging, gets to keep Elijah's furniture. "I'm going to sit on this chair all day," Hannah says, rubbing her bare bottom all over the seat as she informs Elijah that some people are meant to stay in the past, if not their green steel café chairs. "I'm keeping everything he paid for."

And note "paid," because, unlike some people who are old as even producer Judd Apatow, writer and director of "This Is 40," Dunham is not shy about depicting that, whatever their level of oft-discussed privilege, the cast of "Girls" is fairly clueless about how to use it.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/02/04/girls_recap_musical_chairs/feed/ 28 Should we medicate parents to prevent divorce? http://www.salon.com/2013/02/01/take_ecstasy_save_your_relationship/ http://www.salon.com/2013/02/01/take_ecstasy_save_your_relationship/#comments Fri, 01 Feb 2013 19:04:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13188200 The divorce rate is high. Internet dating has killed romance. And we are all going to die alone.

But it might not have to be that way, says Oxford ethicist Brian Earp and colleagues Anders Sandberg and Julian Savulescu. Not if couples start taking trust-enhancing drugs like ecstasy, that is. While Earp does not advocate taking illegal drugs, his research poses a provocative question: In a tightly controlled research setting, could drugs like MDMA be the answer to a commitment-averse culture? As Earp tells Ross Andersen at the Atlantic:

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/02/01/take_ecstasy_save_your_relationship/feed/ 12 Ronaiah Tuiasosopo “deeply, romantically in love” with Manti Te’o http://www.salon.com/2013/01/30/ronaiah_tuiasosopo_deeply_romantically_in_love_with_manti_teo/ http://www.salon.com/2013/01/30/ronaiah_tuiasosopo_deeply_romantically_in_love_with_manti_teo/#comments Wed, 30 Jan 2013 22:30:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13186243 The Manti Te'o saga enters its third week today.

After Deadspin first broke the story on Jan. 16 that Notre Dame linebacker and Heisman runner-up Manti Te'o's girlfriend -- who had supposedly died earlier in the season -- wasn't real, the media began chipping away at an elaborate online hoax that left the media wondering whether Te'o was part of the scheme, or whether he really was somehow duped into falling in love with a fake woman.

Last week, Te'o spoke with Katie Couric to tell his side of the story, maintaining that he was the victim of an online hoax perpetrated by a man he believed to have been the fake girlfriend's cousin, Ronaiah Tuiasosopo.

This week, Ronaiah Tuiasosopo will speak out in his first televised interview since the story broke. In this preview, released today, Dr. Phil reveals that Tuiasosopo had fallen "deeply, romantically in love" with Te'o. "Are you then therefore gay?" asks Dr. Phil. Tuiasosopo responds, "When you put it that way, yes," adding, "I am confused."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/01/30/ronaiah_tuiasosopo_deeply_romantically_in_love_with_manti_teo/feed/ 7 Life according to “Dear Abby” http://www.salon.com/2013/01/17/life_according_to_dear_abby/ http://www.salon.com/2013/01/17/life_according_to_dear_abby/#comments Thu, 17 Jan 2013 19:41:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13174341 Pauline Friedman Phillips, who wrote the long-running and much beloved “Dear Abby” column, has died after a long battle with Alzheimer's disease. She was 94.

Perhaps because of her diagnosis, Phillips' daughter took over the column years ago, but there is still a veritable treasure trove of advice from the original "Abby."

On life's little surprises 

DEAR ABBY: Our son was married in January.  Five months later his wife had a ten-pound baby girl.  They said the baby was premature.  Tell me, can a baby this big be that early? -- Wondering

DEAR Wondering: The baby was on time, the wedding was late.

On love

DEAR ABBY: Is it possible for a man to be in love with two women at the same time? -- Jake

DEAR Jake: Yes, and also hazardous

On men

DEAR ABBY: I know boys will be boys, but my 'boy' is seventy-three and he's still chasing women.  Any suggestions? -- Annie

DEAR Annie: Don't worry.  My dog has been chasing cars for years, but if he ever caught one, he wouldn't know what to do with it.

On good manners

DEAR ABBY: When you are being introduced, is it alright to say, "I've heard a lot about you?" -- Rita

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