As a redhead, I’ve often been told I resemble, well, anyone else who also happens to have red — or even reddish — hair. When I had a pixie cut, people told me all the time I looked like a young Mia Farrow from “Rosemary’s Baby,” and before that, when my hair was longer, I always got compared to Lauren Ambrose from “Six Feet Under.” About two years ago people started telling me I looked like a character on a new series called “Mad Men.” I’d never seen the show, but a friend soon emailed me a picture of Joan Holloway and wrote “Your doppelganger!” in the subject line. I had to admit — we did kind of look a little alike.

It’s one thing to switch on the TV for “Mad Men” each week, vicariously sip whiskey and smoke stogies with Don Draper and Co., and experience (or re-experience) life in the 1960s. I, like most other women in America, jumped at the chance to give my look a makeover complete with red lips, the pencil skirts, the swooping coifs, and the tight cardigans that give Joan, Betty, and Peggy their sexy, vintage sizzle. Hell, I even found myself harboring the urge to tie on a frilly apron and bake something wholesome for my husband. It’s fun, escapist even, to dabble in outdated social stereotypes and play the victim to those womanizing ways that dominated the “Mad Men” era. We’re safe in the knowledge that times have changed, and we can go back to being empowered, successful, respected alpha-females whenever we feel like it. Or so I thought.

There’s no question that I find Don Draper sexy. If I lived in “Mad Men” land for a day, I would totally screw him on his Sterling-Cooper purchased desk. In real life? Not so much. At least not anymore.

I could have just said “I don’t know” or deflected the question. I didn’t have to say anything. But when my boyfriend’s parents asked me over a family dinner the other night what I might want write a book about, I answered honestly: my struggles with depression.

Surprised, I think, neither parent said anything in response, which made me feel nervously awkward. But then another relative chimed in with her own depression story. She said when she started taking anti-depressants, she would sleep all day, so I shared that Lexapro used to make me conk out, too. Then the relative kept on talking, and pretty soon, the dinner convo had veered onto other topics entirely.

I’m not ashamed that sometimes I feel unbelievably sad and my life is temporarily derailed. My extended family knows about it, my roommate knows about it, even my boss knows about it. But I woke up the next morning and asked myself, “Did I really just tell my boyfriend’s parents that?”

It’s undeniable that marriage and relationships in general look nothing like they did 40 years ago. What’s happened? Women’s lib, skyrocketing divorce rates, the death of the nuclear family—and that’s just for starters. The whole game has changed. Sometimes I think that each generation exhibits a reactionary trend to their predecessors. I am part of the “divorced parents” era. Although my parents are still married, about 60 percent of all people I meet my age come from broken homes. While this phenomenon didn’t necessarily make us “anti-marriage,” it has certainly made us “marriage cautious” or “marriage disillusioned.” As a modern woman I know the statistics – if I ever do tie the knot, I know it ain’t gonna be all sunshine and roses. And that’s why I plan to be as sure as I can possibly, possibly be. Before I exchange any vows, I’ve made a vow to myself: I MUST live with someone before I marry him.  I’m not alone in this thinking. About 70 percent of couples are cohabitating before marriage these days.

Yesterday, two of the other lady blogs wrestled over the politics of asking victims of domestic violence why they stayed with their abusers. Are you a bad feminist if you ask someone—say, someone like me—why she stayed with the guy who beat the crap out of her, nearly murdered her, and raped her on a regular basis?

I heart words and communication. This includes emails, text messages, Gchat, Blackberry Messenger, iChat—the works. I am a sucker for a well-crafted email or a witty text message. My motto: The way to my heart is through my brain. That’s why I thought Joe could be Mr. Perfect for me. Joe and I met one night at a work gala. I had already put away an entire bottle of wine when I almost knocked him over on the dance floor.

“Do you like to dance, beautiful girl who almost stepped on my foot?” he asked.

“Only when I’m drunk. When I’m sober, I dance like Elaine from ‘Seinfeld.’” I replied.

It was a rainy October night and Joe offered to escort me to the subway when the event ended, impressed that I could: a.) still walk and b.) do it in 3-inch heels. “Email me,” I slurred, handing him my business card, “I loooove emails.”

I remember being a little girl and hearing my mother use the term “soul mates.”

“What is ‘soul mates’?” I asked.

“It’s beshert,” she said.

“Be-what?”

“It’s meant to be,” she explained.

I will never forget the feeling in my stomach the night I found out the guy I was dating was still sleeping with his ex.

The fact that he was canoodling with any other woman behind my back was bad enough. The fact that it was ex added insult to injury. But what really made me want to throw up was that she was a complete and utter train wreck. 

We all know train wrecks. She’s your college roommate who drank every night, never went to class and slept with the football team. She’s your friend whose favorite hobbies are causing drama and being self-destructive. She’s all the girls from “Rock of Love.” And sometimes, she’s the girl your man leaves you for. 

Before I got engaged, I used to think a couple’s truest test of compatibility and readiness for marriage was living together. What could be more of a test, I reasoned, than successfully sharing the same space, splitting the bills, and delegating household chores while still enjoying each other’s company and remaining sexually attracted to one another? That’s why, when my boyfriend proposed after nearly a year and a half of co-habitation, I didn’t hesitate in saying ‘yes.’ I’d lived with a boyfriend before — for over three years — and when that relationship eventually became more like brother-sister than boyfriend-girlfriend, I ended things and wondered if it was even possible for me to live with someone and continue loving him in the romantic sense. But then I met Drew and realized it was.

Gollum slithered around the picnic tables in a bald wig and a loincloth. Bilbo Baggins manned the barbecue.  An elf with pointy ears asked if we had any veggie burgers.

My boyfriend, David, and I had not come dressed for the “Lord Of The Rings” theme for his family’s annual group vacation with their friends. But costumed or not, I knew I’d be under scrutiny: I’m the first woman he’d brought along to introduce to everybody in his 26 years of attending.

As Gollum lumbered by towards the card table full of key lime pies and cookie burgers, I turned to David and grinned. “Real love,” I said, “is spending the weekend with your parents and their friends when everyone is dressed like Hobbits.” He grinned back and we kissed.

Forty-eight hours later, David and I decided that we would move in together, waking up next to each other every morning and falling asleep together every night. Beginning our lives together this way felt like the right thing to do.

But did I mention we’ve only been dating for two months?

Would a guy date a woman with a disability?

That’s not the sort of question guys are expecting to hear amidst the typical flurry of getting-to-know-you questions. But it’s nonetheless an important – even critical – one for me. It’s at the top of my list, actually. It’s a question I’ve been asking myself since high school when my peers so easily began to couple-off, and I watched from the sidelines. It all seemed so natural and effortless for them, yet I couldn’t help but feel as though the Dating Gods had forgotten to “cc” me on their Dating 101 memo. I’m sure the memo talked about the basics: courting, flirting, maybe even some tips for hiding those tiny flaws and insecurities on the first date.

But what about those not-so-tiny flaws? What about those insecurities you can’t simply hide with a cute jacket or a thick layer of Maybelline foundation?

Since I got engaged early last month and began planning a wedding for this summer, I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be hitched. As someone who already lives with her husband-to-be, I wonder just how much marriage will actually change things, whether I’ll wake up the morning after the wedding feeling any different. I’ve also been thinking a lot about what kind of wife I want to be, what it means to be a “good” wife, and how — if at all — being a “good wife” could compromise my identity or personal needs and interests.

I don’t feel a pressing desire to “prove” to myself or anyone else that I won’t change, that I won’t compromise anything, because at some point I’m sure I will. (Isn’t compromise a big part marriage, after all?) But I’m also certain that while bits of my identity are bound to shift, just as I would expect them to with any big life change and new perspective, the core of who I am will remain the same. No new name, white dress, ring on my finger or any other traditional convention is going to change that. For better or worse, I am who I am and I’m pretty solid in my identity. So when I read a column in the Guardian recently by Abigail Gliddon, a woman who claims “when a woman takes her husband’s name, she surrenders her former identity and adopts his,” I wondered how she came to have such low expectations for other women.

To cut or not to cut an ex from your life after a breakup, that is the question. Just last week, a dear friend of mine had her divorce finalized after a long, drawn-out three year separation. Upon hearing that her now ex-husband wants to cut off all communication with her for the foreseeable future, she’s distraught. Over the course of their separation, they’d managed to remain quite friendly, keeping in touch with phone calls and texts, and even meeting up for occasional dinners out and seeing bands together they both loved. But now that the divorce is finalized, her ex says he needs time to process the ending of their marriage and to really close that chapter and move on. She’s devastated that she won’t have him in her life the way she has in the last few years and thinks he’s being unreasonable and even a little mean. I, on the other hand, think he’s doing what’s best for them both and that a little space will give them the kind of closure they probably could have benefited from years ago.

When I was in college I bought my first car. The first car I actually owned was a hand-me-down from my parents (a 1988 Nissan Stanza to be exact, not exactly a pimp ride), but its life ended my senior year and I needed a replacement. At the time I was in a bit of an extended fight with my dad and we weren’t speaking at all. So when it came time to buy my car, I had to rely on my limited knowledge of automobiles in order to get the best deal on a used car that would see me through graduation. Normally this was a task that I would have heaped on my dad’s shoulders; after all, Dads are the people you turn to in times of vehicular crisis. Mine wasn’t there, so I went at alone. What did I end up with? A 1993 Volkswagon Jetta. With 250,000 miles already on it. But it was teal! And the guy who sold it to me was 18 and tan!

Needless to say, it was one of the more traditionally “girly” decisions of my life and I paid for it. The car had major clutch problems within months and just BARELY made it through the year. When it came to buying a car, I needed a man’s help. As sexist and as backwards as that may sound, I need one now too.

My first gray hairs were cause for celebration. My mother, politically liberal, but parentally strict, had forbidden me from coloring my hair “until you start going gray.” So when, at 14, I was able to show her a few silver hairs buried in my thick black mop, I was overjoyed.  And, God bless her, she took me straight to the store for the box of burgundy dye that was the obsession of adolescent girls (thanks to Angela on “My So Called Life” of course). By the end of high school, I had grown out a Bonnie Raitt-like gray streak on one side.

Okay, real talk.  This isn’t exactly the happy-ending story I’d like it to be, but I’ve got to share with you the details of my recent fantasy crush cum real mini-relationship, if only to encourage everyone to buck up and make some moves in the new year. 

Have you ever seen a guy working in a store you frequent, and developed a massive crush on him?  Er…I have!  For the past eight months, I’ve been completely smitten with a guy who works at my local bookstore.  I’ll admit the crush had become a bit extreme; I’d spent over a hundred bucks on books and befriended the entire security staff in an effort to work up the nerve to talk to this dude.  Why?  Because he was, hands-down, the hottest guy I’d ever seen.  Also, anytime we’d spoken, (i.e. “Did you find everything, okay?”) I thought it was obvious that we’d have a real connection.  Clearly, things were getting serious. I’d even started setting aside Chris Brown during my sexytime fantasies, and thinking of bookstore boy.  So, eight months after the inception of the mega-crush, I introduced myself. 

I’m no sexual stunt woman. I didn’t even know female ejaculation existed until about five years ago. At the time, it seemed like nothing I needed to worry about. You’d probably have to really put in an effort to make something like that happen, I figured. I had more important things to do. But then it happened to a friend of mine quite unexpectedly, as she was doing it with a boy toy, and my interest was piqued.

Look, I like being in a relationship, I really do. I especially love being in a live-in relationship. I like that my boyfriend and I cook dinner together, how Sunday mornings are never lonely, and I’ve always got a travel partner and someone to see movies with. More than just being in a relationship, I love the person I’m in a relationship with. My boyfriend’s one of the kindest, funniest, most generous people I know, and I have more fun with him than anyone else. Yet, I can’t stop fantasizing about other men.

I’m smack in the middle of my thirties and about to get married. For some childless women my age, this is tick-tick-tick time. However, while other women may be intimately in touch with their ovulation cycles, I’m in no hurry to have kids now, if ever. My old man and I have talked about it, but we’re both horrified by how much our lives would have to change—not to mention how big a pain in the ass kids are for, oh, say, 18 years.