Devil get behind me, it’s cold and flu season. Maybe it’s because I grew up with a mom who refused to categorize any of her five kids as officially “sick” unless fluids were exploding and the temperature hit well into the hundreds, but I am not the person you want taking care of you when you’re not feeling well.  Conversely, when I’m under the weather, the first thing out of my boyfriend’s mouth is always an offer to rub my chest down with alcohol just like his Greek mama used to do when he was a kid. No, thanks!

I’ve found there are two types of patients—the cranks and the crybabies. I’m more of a crank. I want glasses of cold water, complete silence for the duration, and whatever medications I’m taking within arm’s reach. Don’t talk to me if you don’t want to get yelled at.

Like everyone else, I’ve been glued to the Chris Brown/Rihanna debacle, and was saddened when I read reports that she might get back together with someone who left her so bruised and battered.

But here’s the thing: loads of couples breakup and then make-up and sometimes things work out great. But knowing when, and under what circumstances, to forgive and forget is key, and most of us won’t know until we’re thrust into that situation. Here are six scenarios to consider…

What do you get when you fall in love? According the fan-freaking-tastic Dionne Warwick—and she should know from heartache—“You get enough tears to fill an ocean/That’s what you get for your devotion.” Sing it, sister!

Sure, you get other stuff, too: hearts, cupids, hickeys, the fun stuff. But sometimes the bad outweighs the good, and every once in a while a lady needs to take a break and keep her heart safe from scoundrels looking to shatter it.

However, that doesn’t mean you should hole up alone in beat-up pajamas with only your old pals Netflix and Jim Beam for company. Even when you’re not in the market for love, it’s good to keep one toe in the dating pool. You just need to date effectively. Here are some ways to keep your heart safe while the rest of you has fun.

It seems that all anyone is talking about lately is the economy, so why is money still such a tough topic to discuss with your nearest and dearest?  They say married couples fight over money more than anything else, but what about when you just started dating? That’s possibly even more awkward. 

Valentine’s Day is a minefield. Whether you’re single or hooked-up the potential for misery is high because, much like New Year’s Eve, it rarely lives up to its reputation.

For the Single Ladies

1. Don’t fall into the trap of believing that because there won’t be some significant other mailing you a mass-produced cardboard sentiment this year, that you are somehow lacking or unworthy of love. Valentine’s Day was designed specifically to sell greeting cards. (And to make single people miserable.) Does being single on Halloween make you wish you were a zombie? No. See how silly you’re being?

Q: The best part of having a workplace boyfriend?
A: Kissing on the sly in the utility closet at your office.
Q: The worst part about having an office boyfriend?
A: Your boss walking in on the two of you kissing on the sly in the utility closet at your office.

Kidding. The worst part is when you have to deal with Mr. Once-Wonderful after you dump him. Or—far worse—he kicks you to the curb. But let’s try to look at the bright side. I know everyone swears that office dating is a recipe for disaster, but according to recent studies cited in Fortune and GQ magazines,  somewhere between 22 and 50 percent of office romances lead to marriage. So someone’s doing something right. Possibly in the cubicle right next to yours!

The biggest, baddest, most terrifying part of falling in love is opening up and letting yourself be vulnerable. When it works, love can seem like the stuff of fairytales: you meet someone, you get to know and like each other, you enter into a mutually trusting and respectful relationship, you fall deeply, madly, hopelessly in love, and you live happily ever after.

At least, for a while.

Between the Internet, blogging, and social networking, the concept of courtship can seem pretty antiquated. Depending on how Web-present you are, with the push of a button a guy could potentially access everything from your videotaped colonic to your SAT scores to mortifying details of your most recent heartbreak. All this before you’ve even met him in real life.

Once, I was regaling a new date with a funny story—only to have him interrupt and finish it for me. It wasn’t a case of sudden onset Alzheimer’s. I’d never met him before. He’d Googled me and read a piece I’d written that contained the anecdote. I was busted for plagiarizing my own material.

With any luck, your online presence isn’t as loud and embarrassing as mine. Still, living in a post-privacy world begs the question: How much information is too much information? Negotiating the privacy line becomes especially crucial when dating someone new. So here are some guidelines for what to reveal and what to leave unspoken. For now, anyway.

I never trust couples that claim they don’t fight. I don’t believe them, and even if they aren’t lying, who wants to be with a guy who agrees with everything you say? How boring would that be? The best part of being in a relationship is exposing yourself to new ideas and ways of thinking. If you don’t have any conflict, you’re probably not going to have many sparks.

It may sound counter-intuitive, but one of the most important things a couple should figure out early on is how to fight fairly and effectively. Here’s what not do when you’re engaged in battle….

A good friend of mine recently reminded me of some advice I’d given her back in college. She was about to sleep with a new boyfriend for the first time and had been fretting about some body part. Apparently I shrugged and told her, “Please—boys are just happy to have a naked girl in the same room as them.”

I was kind of surprised and impressed when she told me I’d actually said these words. Over the years I have had pre-sex panic attacks over (in no particular order): my eyebrows, nasally voice, bad breath, body hair, belly roll(s), teeth, table manners, inner thighs… basically if I had it, I wasted valuable lady hours worrying about it.

Your passive-aggressive aunt bought you a Match.com subscription for Christmas. While your first impulse was to hit her with a brick, you’ve always been curious about online dating. “What the heck?” you figure. “I’ll write an ad and take a look around.” But when you’re on your own in virtual reality, the search for computer-generated love can be daunting. Here are the top online dating types to avoid.

Do you know anyone who keeps their New Year’s resolutions? Or even remembers them after January 15? I sure don’t. Most of us vow to lose weight, quit drinking, or cut up those credit cards. But some of us make relationship-related resolutions, and that’s what we’re here to talk about. After the jump are four resolutions. One of the four is valid; the other three are less so. Let’s see if you can tell which is which.

Writing about dating is my full-time job, so, naturally, I hear a lot of pretty deranged tales of love gone wrong. But last week I received a letter from a woman who was convinced that men wouldn’t go out with her because she was just too … beautiful.

She fully believed her breathtaking attractiveness was anything but a man-magnet—as one might expect. Instead, she said, her beauty acted as a Romeo-repellant, causing suitors to run screaming from her. Obviously, I explained the situation to her (perhaps it wasn’t her gorgeous outsides, but her narcissistic insides that were doing the damage), but it did get me to thinking about all the other ridiculous reasons that women—myself included—come up with when they get dumped.

Locking lips. Making out. Smooching. Kissing. It sounds so pleasant and easy, yet do a little research and you’ll soon discover that while everyone may be doing it, few are doing it well. For your edification, I have rounded up the different varieties of bad kissers and broken them down by the traits they share with members of the animal kingdom: 

Iguana: Characterized by cool, dry lips, and a tiny pink tongue, Lizard Lips is about as arousing as, well, a small reptile crawling around your mouth. One victim noted, “He’d dart his tongue in and out at a million flicks per second. Kissing is supposed to get you hot, not give you calluses.”

Maybe it’s because we’re forced to deal with our families more than usual during the holidays, but these can be trying times for women without rings on their wedding fingers. Aunt Esther’s annual grab at your left hand and subsequent clucking over your naked ring finger is annoying, but you write it off because she’s senile and will die soon. When your cousin Myrna gasses on about her impending nuptials over eggnog, you actually feel a little sorry for her because you see the way her betrothed keeps eyeing her sister. But when your baby sister flashes the rock that her professor-turned-paramour put under the tree, you succumb to a little condition called “The Ring Tizzy.”

Though I can’t remember his name, I can still recall the face of the guest who whipped out a handful of Ziploc bags as a long ago Christmas party was winding down. “Do you mind if I take some of these cheese puffs home with me?” he half-asked, shoving the leftover snacks into a bag. “What about these tortilla chips?”

Too shocked to do anything but nod, my acquaintance left with a stash of snacks and a permanent place on my own personal Do Not Call list.

When I first started writing this piece, I figured it would be about not making a fool of yourself at the company holiday party. But the more I researched, the more it seemed that pretty much every business on the planet has cancelled their annual soirees. I get that you can’t lay off half your staff and then ply the other half with six-foot sandwiches and cheap booze, but I think a lot of companies are using this financial downturn as an excuse. Bah humbug!

Have you ever gotten a gift so ugly, so utterly not you, that you can’t even fake a kind response? That’s how I felt opening a box that contained the silver-plated, faux-turquoise-encrusted bracelet my then boyfriend gifted me one Christmas.

“Santa Fe fake?” I asked, slipping it over my hand, and removing it before it could turn my wrist green. I could tell that he was a little hurt, but c’mon. I had fire engine red hair and a pierced nose. He may as well have given me a beige mu-mu and a hairnet.

How does that old adage go? ‘Tis better to give than to receive? Generally, I disagree with this sentiment (after all, who doesn’t like presents?), but in that particular case it rang true. Gift giving and receiving introduces a whole new element of tension in even the most established relationships. Will it fit her? Do you think it’ll cover his bald spot? So I’m here to help you negotiate this treacherous terrain by making sure you don’t do the wrong thing.

There comes a time in every free-wheeling, fun-having relationship where a lady has to suck it up, buckle down and meet the people who spawned her beloved. Nine times out of ten, this happens around the holidays, and there is almost always a festive meal involved. The most wonderful time of the year? Yeah, right.

The first thing you need to do is get the skinny from your man. What are his parents like? Are they churchgoers? Recovering hippies? Military? You need to know what you’re up against. Though each set of parents is different (and once you throw in stepparents, you could be dealing with a couple sets), there are some universal things you should definitely not do if you want to make a good impression. Here are a few examples:

Last week, we covered how to avoid being a bad heartbreaker, so this week we’ll tackle the other side of things. Coincidentally, it’s a side of dating I’m far more familiar with: how to accept being dumped with dignity.

Just as there are myriad ways to screw up breaking someone’s heart, the possibilities for botching a “getting-broken-up-with” are limitless. Here are some behaviors to avoid so you won’t compound your heartache with a total loss of self respect.

There are two sides to almost every breakup — the dumper and the dumpee. (Sorry, I don’t buy those “mutual” decision splits. I’m sure they happen, but they’re as rare as a fat cell on Madonna’s rear end, so they don’t count.) While it’s ideal when both sides leave the relationship with dignity, it’s much easier to be the Gracious Ex when you’re the dumper. After all, it was your bright idea to break up. You’ve had time to wrap your head around it, and really, who are you kidding? You probably have a replacement lined up already. So, we’re going to start with you, the breaker-upper, because your list of “How Not to Be” is a lot shorter. Without further adieu, you definitely should not ...