There’s a short brunette with dimples, and we catch eyes. I go for short brunettes with dimples all the time. Short, dimpled brunettes rule. Yet her polished, frosted-blonde friend, clutching a Manhattan, calls to me. I like everything about the brunette, but I ask the blonde out.

A week later, I’m at dinner with Frosted. Turns out, she’s casually racist.

I’ve got this close female friend who always asks me why the hell I chose to approach one girl over another girl, when one is clearly better for me in every way and probably wouldn’t deny the Holocaust before she got her entree.

It’s a valid question: All things being equal, why do guys choose one woman over another? Read more ...

This debate ran on The Frisky a year ago. Given the Tiger Woods controversy, we’ve decided to re-run it, so that the readers we’ve gained since can chime in.

We’ve all heard some variation on the maxim “once a cheater, always a cheater.” In my personal experience, the decision to heed or not to heed said aphorism seems directly related to just how sprung one is on the guy in question. But nine times out of ten, the truth will come out. And that truth generally involves a wandering wang. 

I’m not the only one who thinks so. Relationship expert Dr. Gilda Carle, who’s written a book on the matter, How to Win When Your Mate Cheats, thinks that without the genuine desire to reform and a good therapist, a habitual cheater is doomed to repeat him- (or her-) self: “If they’re willing to put in the time and effort and acknowledge they have an issue, then there’s a chance they won’t cheat again. But if they think, ‘I can get away with this. My father was like this, my uncle was like this, all my buddies are this way,’ then you don’t have a shot in hell of reforming this guy. And no woman should try to reform a guy anyway because it’s a lost cause.” Of course, every relationship is different. Take a gander at two women who represent both sides of the debate, after the jump ...

I have just ended a long-distance relationship. We both agreed at the time of the breakup that circumstances wouldn’t allow our relationship to continue. I cared about her deeply, but that wasn’t enough for her, and I understood her point. The relationship was passionate, and I believed we both loved each other. However, I found out through some common friends that she had started cheating on me at least a week before she broke it off, and lied about it while ending it, pretending to still care about me. She was going to continue doing this behind my back. I want to confront her about this, but I can’t betray my friend’s trust. I want her to know she did something wrong, that she passed on a chance at real happiness, but I know it’s over because I can’t love her anymore. What should I do? What is the proper etiquette for confronting an ex over indiscretions learned after the relationship is over? It is hard for me to let this go. — FrustratedEx

I do things on impulse: I bought a $250 pair of high heels I didn’t need, I pierced my tongue, and two years ago, when a Jewish co-worker/yenta promised I could meet my beshert for $40 a month, I joined the Jewish dating site JDate that very night. The thing is, though, I’m not Jewish. Not even “halfsies.”

I am a huge fan of online dating. I met my long-term boyfriend on Nerve.com and the majority of the weddings I’ve been to over the past few years have been between people who met online. Though I still have friends who are reluctant to try it (you know who you are!), I encourage every single person looking for love to give it a whirl.

But even I raised an eyebrow last year when I read writer/comedian Carrie Seim’s NY Post story on how she entrusted her love life to a virtual assistant in India. It’s one thing to weed out dudes using their blurry photos and attempts at wit; it’s quite another to have some stranger pick your dates for you. After suffering through too many disastrous fix-ups, I even stopped letting my friends set me up.

Reader Amelia sent us this picture, saying, “You can’t really see it in the photo, but this tag has been repainted every time it starts to wear away. I walk by it every day and have noticed its various incarnations, and finally decided to take a photo.”

Have you seen graffiti that’s kind of sweet (even if it is against the law)? Send your pic to tips@thefrisky.com.

I’ve been dating my boyfriend for about four months. The past couple weeks, he’s been getting sick pretty often and his doctor hasn’t figured out what’s wrong with him. At first, we thought it might be the flu, but it seems like it could be something worse. I’ve noticed that since he started feeling ill, he’s been more reserved and even more distant. His libido dropped and he’s tired often. I remember before all this, we used to go out and have a lot fun together. I don’t even mind particularly if I come over and help him out while he’s feeling down and maybe just cuddle and watch a movie, but it’s definitely not the same. I used to be happier. What’s really killing me is the emotional distance. He used to call me almost everyday but now it’s much less often. In any other situation, I would say we’ve grown apart and should end things, but I’m wondering if (and perhaps hoping that) this is due to the sickness. My question is: should I stick with him and try extra hard to reach out and support him? I can compromise on going out, having sex and dealing with his energy level, but I still need some attention. How often should I call and offer to spend time with him before just giving up?  Call me old fashioned, but I usually take it as bad sign if I’m the one initiating the majority of plans, but [this] situation has me thrown for a loop. — Florence Nightingale

Jesse was too attention-starved. Brendan was too spacey. Darrick was too needy, not to mention a big-time conservative. But for the first few years of my relationship with Chuck, he didn’t seem to have a fatal flaw. Sure, he was allergic to cats, but that hardly seemed like a dealbreaker. It wasn’t until the three-and-a-half year mark that my usual relationship doubts kicked in. Was he too pessimistic for me? Too introverted? Too stuck in his own ways?

When we broke up a few months later, there was no big flame-out or slamming of doors—just the mutual acknowledgment that we were no longer right for each other. Still, I was devastated. After 48 hours of eating the proverbial Haagen Daaz, I found myself walking the 13 blocks to the ASPCA Adoption Center on New York’s Upper East Side. For the past four years, Chuck’s allergies had barred me from getting a cat. Now I was ready to adopt one—the longer the hair, the better.

There’s a great article on Huffington Post this week about the mistakes smart women make when it comes to dating. The article’s written by Dr. Alex Benzer, who regularly runs young alumni events for numerous Ivy League universities. But don’t worry, his advice applies to all women, brainiacs or not. After the jump, let’s take a look at what many of us are doing wrong and how we can increase our chances of finding the right person ... or at the very least make the dating game a little more fun to play.

Many times when a relationship ends, the reason for the split is quite simple: One or both of the people involved in the romance simply aren’t into it anymore. In a perfect world, that’s all that someone would have to say. Unfortunately, humans aren’t perfect, and sometimes relationships end for dumb and/or ridiculous reasons. Men and women often look for really dumb ways to avoid commitment, sometimes with pathetic results. Here are a few common (but stupid) reasons that a guy might decide to break up with you, as well as some of the ridiculous reasons that some women choose to end a flailing relationship.

For four years I’ve been really good friends with an on and off girlfriend, during which time it’s been back and forth between sexual intimacy and more of a best-friend relationship. Whenever I bring up the idea of something more permanent, she gets evasive. In undergrad it was easy to skate around this; we both saw other people occasionally, and while we wouldn’t go into details we remained very close, often returning to each other for what was familiar and ‘safe.’ I am leaning towards wanting a permanent relationship with her. I already feel like we’re in a tacit monogamous relationship because neither of us has been out on a date with another person in at least a year, sometimes we spend weeks on end at each others places, other times when life catches up we may miss each other for a week or two, but we’ll still talk every day. The bottom line is that getting to the head of the conversation with her seems really hard. We communicate really well otherwise, but I think she purposefully evades the conversation because she doesn’t want to commit. At this point, what would the difference be by putting a label on it? — Confused in DC

The internet has brought me a lot of joy over the years. There’s no denying its myriad charms: its ability to connect me with people, to entertain and amuse, to inform me, to expose me to new things, to help me max out my credit card on frivolous purchases I’ll regret later. But lately, I have been feeling like technology is turning against me. 

Over the last two months, the internet has delivered not one but two decimating blows, first in the form of an unceremonious GChat dumping by a boyfriend I’d (ill-advisedly) reconciled with, and, more recently, in the guise of a sterile, business-like email I had the pleasure of opening last Sunday, informing me that I was no longer needed at my job. Um, f**k you, internet! 

My boyfriend of 1.5 years was offered a job across the country a few months ago, to begin in late summer of 2010, and before he accepted it, he asked me if I would move out there with him; I said “yes” and he accepted the job. In the meantime, I’m graduating from my masters program in a few weeks and am actively seeking employment here before I move across country with him. While we are both very excited about the move, the short amount of time I have between now and then makes me very unemployable, as I can only commit to seven months or so. Confounding this, is that my boyfriend says he wants to get engaged before we move out there and wants to be married in the winter or spring of the upcoming year (with me planning the wedding). So, I’m trying to graduate, trying to find a job in this state as well as the one across country, planning a move, perhaps anticipating an engagement and then needing to plan a wedding—I feel overwhelmed. To add to it all, my mother is concerned about my move because I am not engaged or married yet and have still made the choice to join him. Although I am a grown woman, my mother’s approval means a lot to me and not having it is just adding to my stress. (It also does not help that when she was my age she made the same move for her then husband who ended up cheating on her repeatedly and running off to join the military…) She thinks that I am silly to give up job opportunities because it means that I am compromising myself and my future for one that I don’t even know is going to happen yet (i.e. marriage/ a continued life with my boyfriend). While I don’t feel that a ring or a marriage will make us more committed for any specific reason, I cant help but feel that she has a point.  Please tell me that I’m crazy and to take a deep breath. — Stressed Girlfriend

Years ago, when I was about, oh, a year into my relationship with my now ex, he and I got in a fight (over what, who knows), I lost my temper, and I started hitting him. Not in the face, but on his arms, my fists balled up. I think I shoved him a few times too. He didn’t do anything back, aside from wrapping his way stronger arms around me, so I couldn’t hit him anymore, and to calm me down, because I was crying. Once I settled, he told me I could never, ever, ever hit him or shove him or do anything physical like that again—that it was unfair. Even though I “was a woman” and significantly less strong than him (seriously, we would play-wrestle and I would be defeated in, like, two seconds), taking my anger or frustration out on him physically was not OK ever, especially because he never would or could do the same to me and have there be any excuses.

If you have a wedding video, I am sure it is very lovely, beautiful, and romantic, but, my God, this is a wedding video for the ages. I’m not really up on all things wedding video-related, but I kind of thought they were boring, hand-held affairs that the newly married forced their unmarried friends to watch as some kind of passive-aggressive punishment. The wedding video of model/actress Roselyn Sanchez and model/actor Eric Winter is another story altogether. Held at a historic fort in San Juan, Puerto Rico, it is probably one of the most glamorous and romantic weddings I’ve ever seen, and the video is a really sweet and gorgeous homage to the couple, their union, and their guests. I’m verklempt, people! [The Red Sole Bride]