Lemondrop

Remember that episode of "Seinfeld" where George impressed a club full of models by showing them a photo of his beautiful "dead fiancée"? Turns out he may have been onto something.

In a recent study, participants were asked to rate how attractive certain men and women were by looking at their pictures. The researchers then showed them pictures of those same people, each in a couple. People who were paired with attractive mates were rated consistently higher in attractiveness than they had been alone. (Women in particular gave low ratings to men with "unattractive" mates.) The moral? Dating somebody hot makes you hotter by proxy.

Researchers believe that as women, we're biologically obligated to be choosier about who we mate with. It's also possible that women realize that context is everything, so if an average man can land a hot woman, maybe that average man is above average in other respects.

What does this mean for your dating life? Well, not much, unless you can manage to have every possible mate watch you have a very dignified breakup with Robert Pattison. And, perhaps, like the study suggests, both men and women should put pictures of themselves flanked by hot members of the opposite sex on their online profiles.

How much sex do you have? And now, for a completely different question, do you think you're having enough sex?

A recent survey asked women about things like sexual frequency and emotional states and found that anywhere from 28% to 38% of women ages 35 and up report that they "never" have sex.

What? COULD "COUGARTOWN" HAVE LIED TO US!?

What's keeping them from the Doing of the It? Researchers say: expectations. They deduced that women are struggling with unrealistic portrayals of sex in movies, TV, and women's magazines; expectations that we should come home from a long day at work and feel like having wild steamy sex, that "normal" people are having tons of sex all the time, or that guys want sex all the time, no matter what. Then this happens: expectation to do a thing --> natural passion to do that thing dwindling --> resentment that you have to do that thing --> guilt --> repeat.

Maybe what we should really be working on is making sex just as much about us as we do about the people we're having it with. That way, when researchers call us to ask us about our sex lives, we can report on the quality, not the quantity.

Every week, the gentlemen over at GuySpeak answer questions from women the only way they know how: in guy style. Then they handpick some of their favorites and send them over to us here at Lemondrop to answer (read: fix) them in girl style. We call it GuySpeak/GirlSpeak. This week -- how do you help a guy understand the difference between flirting and being creepy?

Every week, the gentlemen over at GuySpeak answer questions from women the only way they know how: in guy style. Then they handpick some of their favorites and send them over to us here at Lemondrop to answer (read: fix) them in girl style. We call it GuySpeak/GirlSpeak. This week -- what do you do with a boyfriend who's wonderful but still lives at home?


Read on for our guy vs. girl advice.

Want to get some love advice this Valentine's Day, but don't want to leave the comfort of your basement? Hop on over to Nerve.com.

Nerve asked three "World of Warcraft" players to answer questions about sex and love submitted by readers, just in time for the most romantic day of the year. (For n00bs, WoW is an MMORPG, which stands for Massively Multi-player Online Role-Playing Game. At last count, it had 11.5 million subscribers, and is the most popular MMORPG ever created.)

Janelle, Mike and Brooke (all avid WoW players in their 20s) were more than game to dole out love advice. It seems Nerve expected these three to nerd out on the questions (maybe answering "does not compute" while running to hide behind their avatars), but they offered sage, charming and useful advice to women who want to use vibrators in the bedroom, or men who like watching porn while they have sex.

Interested in dating a WoW player? Mike thinks you should. When asked if "Warcraft" has taught him anything about relationships, he replied, "The value of compromise, in game and out. In game, you learn that sometimes you need to put the priorities of others above yourself, like if you're raiding and another healer needs a new piece of equipment that would only be a small upgrade for you." Janelle noted that playing WoW with a significant other teaches you a lot about their inner nature, and that you should be wary of a boyfriend who gets jealous over your superior gear, or who runs to grab all the HP when you both need it.

While asking nerds for sex tips may seem counterintuitive, Brooke put it best: "People who spend a lot of time in front of the computer tend to have excellent imaginations -- the brain is our most powerful sexual organ."

Hear, hear!

Every week, the gentlemen over at GuySpeak answer women's relationship questions in guy style. Then they handpick some of their favorites and send them over to us here at Lemondrop to answer (read: fix) them in girl style. We call it GuySpeak/GirlSpeak. This week -- is hooking up the best way to get over someone?


Read on for our guy vs. girl advice!

Every week, the editors over at GuySpeak give answers to women's questions in guy style. Then they handpick some of their favorites and send them over to us here at Lemondrop to answer (read: fix) them in girl style. This week, what do you do when guys who ignored you in high school crawl out of the Facebook woodwork to hit on the grown up you?

Social networking can be exhausting. From the new responsibility (must I "poke back"!?), the new awkward social situations (Facebook, please don't "suggest" I be friends with exes, even if we do have 67 friends in common), and the constant glut of information, what's a girl to do?

Fret not. We've got all the geeky navigating tips you need to make Facebook work for you. In other words, no more drunken pictures sent to co-workers! No more status-update addicts with questionable tastes (or boundaries). It's time to take the power back. Just tell us your issue, we'll point you to a solution. Have a question that's not answered here? Leave it in the comments -- if another reader doesn't answer, we will.

Hide Constant Oversharers
Situation: The best bit of netiquette advice I ever received was from a friend who once told me: "Imagine saying your status update out loud to every single person on your friends list." Whoa. My friends list includes past professors, fourth-grade classmates and 12-year-old cousins, as I'm sure yours does, and imagining myself telling my former philosophy prof about how my cramps make me want to rip out my ovaries has definitely saved me from potential shame.

Solution: If you have an oversharer on your friends list, and the icky joy you initially felt watching her make ridiculous decisions ("I think Curt is the one!" followed by "I'm so through dating psychos!") has worn thin, did you know you can hide their updates? Just hover over their status in your news feed and click "hide." TMI, begone!