Yesterday, I did an interview with CNN Live about Leonora Epstein’s article, “Automatic Online Dating Dealbreakers.” (You can watch it after the jump, if you’re so inclined, but please know the style department will be doing more about my hideous under-eye circles and lighting the next time around.) That same day, Julia Allison, blogging “sexpert,” was on MTV’s “It’s On With Alexa Chung” discussing the similar, but broader topic of dating in the realm of new media – texting, Facebook, online dating, etc. You can watch the segment above. She had five tips prepared for Alexa and then provided two others prompted by viewer questions. Some of her tips I could get behind, while the others kind of blew my mind. I’ll give it to you straight, after the jump…

A male blogger named Anthony Michael Rojas posted a little list entitled “How To Treat A Woman On A Date: The Basics” on his Tumbler blog this week and it got quite a few angry reblogs from women who felt like his suggestions were sexist. Rojas clearly believe his suggestions to be basic “chivalry,” while his detractors seemed to suggest that there is a difference between chivalry and manners, because chivalry is rooted in sexism. I found many of the responses to not only be silly, but also bordering on unintentionally satirical of “feminist” anger. It was clear to me that the original poster wasn’t being a jerk, so why did the responses treat him like one? Still, the back-and-forth did bring up the issue of whether these eight seemingly harmless gestures are actually offensive because they supposedly treat women as the weaker sex. Let’s go through them one by one, shall we?

Yesterday I wrote Advice For The Vertically Challenged and was surprised by some of the comments. Many quite fairly pointed out that perhaps my definition of “short” should be revised, or that I should be clear that just because I feel short at 5’ 5” does not make this height or anything bellow it qualify as “short.” What really struck a chord with me, however, were comments concerning height differences when it comes to dating. I started thinking about my own reasons for feeling short and realized that it was mostly due to the fact that most of the men I have dated have been at least six feet tall. Hmmm, I wonder…

The recession is hitting everyone in their bank account, but there’s no reason it should slow down your man income. So, if you’re broke as a joke and can’t afford to go shellin’ out dough at bars, here are some ways you can meet new people without dropping a dime. Hey, the best things in life are free!