Where all the good guys are

Where all the good guys are -- Women always seem to ask me where all the good men are, as if these near-mythical dudes are hiding behind bushes, chained up in some vampire's basement, or are just rare and elusive, like the snow leopard.

Normally, I have to resist responding, "Maybe the good guys are just avoiding you."

But the answer to this frequent, lovelorn lament is simple: The good men are right under your nose.

And that's the damn truth. That's right, ladies. The good men you pine for are right there, all up in your grill, listening to your bellyaching, patiently enduring your inability to manage your own flamboyant, capricious romantic expectations and dreary reality.

These good guys are co-workers, classmates, and, most importantly, friends. You officially have my permission as a relationship expert with a Ph.D. in Broken Hearts from the University of Feelings, Emoburg campus, to fall in love with your male friends.

I blame your gender, after all, for inventing what The Frisky site refers to as "The Friend Zone." It's not a "zone." One loses weight in a "zone," or tells time there. Or learns a dark lesson about human nature during a twist ending.

No. "The Friend Zone" is actually a gulag. The Bermuda Triangle. A cruel little exile. Right now, there is a man in your life who feels you in his teeth, but who walks around with an "F" for "Friend" seared onto his forehead by a glowing-red iron you keep perpetually cooking in the furnace of your heart. You cannot think of him "that way."

At what point did he go from potential dating material to platonic bestie? Possibly the moment he started remembering your favorite alcoholic drink, instant messaging you about "Mad Men," and listening to you drone on about your thighs, again. Because love is intently listening to someone repeat themselves.

This dude adores you and you are denying yourself potential joy because of some imaginary rule. The heart is a frontier full of peril and plunder, and you should not be afraid to explore what lies beyond hastily built fences.
I'm not saying men and women can't be friends. We totally can. I won't confirm the famous lesson from "When Harry Met Sally," which remains smug Baby Boomer treacle.

I don't want to sleep with all my female friends. I've thought about it, but I don't think that's gender-specific. Just human curiosity.

So do it! Hook up with your dude friend. Life is too short to be afraid of ruining a friendship, especially if there's a chance you could be more to one another, like epically cosmic lovers worthy of your own constellation in the night sky.

Friendships are as fluid as romances; they can end as suddenly as they can begin. In many ways, they're overrated. You know what's not overrated? Love. It's awesome.
We're talking about the meaning of life here. And it's to find someone whom you can grow old, fat, and ugly with. Our romantic rituals revolve around complete strangers negotiating for sex, then attempting to become friends. It's as if our society demands there's a dating you and a real you, and a relationship happens when two people agree to abandon the mutual lie. Cut to the chase. Friends already know how to play, laugh, and forgive each other.

Two of my longest relationships were with women whom I had been friends with. I loved them both, initially from afar. In both instances, we stepped off a cliff together without looking like the Fool in most tarot card decks. We took a risk, molted out of our friendship, and transformed into something else. And there was that moment of recognition, where we both said "screw it," took a risk, and realized that you can't win big if you don't gamble big. And a shot at conjugal and emotional bliss is quite a prize.

The first time, we were in the middle of a "Friends" marathon, and we took a break so she could shower. She came back with wet hair, and I had never seen her without make-up and when she plopped onto the couch, I kissed her. We both freaked out:

She stormed into the kitchen; I paced in a circle. Then we decided to make out some more. It helped. The second was a friend who proved to me she was no princess at a party by shot-gunning a can of beer. I immediately told her that I was falling for her, and she told me to wear a helmet. She kissed me, our quiet garden of a friendship suddenly a wildfire.

I wouldn't say I'm friends with these women; we broke up for the reasons people break up -- changing priorities, the mean little pianos life drops on your head. Maybe we would have drifted apart regardless. We're not friends now, but I don't regret giving it a shot. Kisses are the only things you can steal and never have to give back. And at least I'll have those until the day I croak. ( thefrisky.com )

READ MORE - Where all the good guys are

Don't Dim Your Light for Your Man

Don't Dim Your Light for Your Man - Don't play conservative, if you're not! Don't play anything -- be yourself!

If you're Christian, you grew up singing that song in church, "This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine. Let it shine. Let it shine." My heart melts when I see the toddlers sing that today at my church. Such a simple song with a huge meaning -- God/the Universe has given you a light to shine and therefore you should let it.

I love to watch children play, specifically my Godchildren, Jayden and Elliot. They are discovering the world -- one leaf, one spider, and one ice cream cone at a time. It is wonderful to see them attack life with such a brilliant and pure light.

It is the main reason why I hate to see some parents and adults do things to dim that light by forgetting kids are kids and not adults. I think the worst thing you can do to a child is dim the natural light that shines within her. It is equally disheartening for me to see adults dim their own lights, especially for someone else.

One of my sister-friends, who I'm not that close with, but have known for years, has always been a vibrant person. She's the type of woman who wears those outfits that borderline outrageous, but work for her because she has that type of personality. I have always admired her zeal for life and her indifference to what other people think. She did her thing no matter what!

It was her enigmatic personality that always made everyone want to be around her. She was definitely someone you wanted on the list at your party, as you could count on her to do something ridiculously fun. We all loved her just the way she was.

I hadn't seen her in a couple of years and we both ended up at a mutual friend's birthday party. Turns out, she had gotten married and had a baby. I was so happy for her and wanted to know everything about her husband and her new life. I offered to grab us some cocktails so we could sip while we caught up. She said she no longer drank alcohol. It was a shocker to me because she could drink a linebacker under the table. But, I do understand people evolve and didn't think much of it.

When I returned with my gimlet in hand and her Sprite, we sat down to shoot the breeze. As she told me about her day-to-day life, I felt like I was talking to a complete stranger. This couldn't be the wild and crazy girl that I'd known for years. Instead, some demure Stepford Wife had invaded her body. Then, I noticed how she was dressed; floral print dress, two-inch pumps and pearls. Wow!

As she continued about her life, I felt like I was in an episode of Charlie Brown, because all I heard was "womp, womp, womp!" I was stunned! Don't get me wrong; I know people do change. But, this was like Snooki becoming Mother Theresa; people don't change that much! More importantly, I was getting bored. The interesting, hip, life on the edge girl I knew was clearly gone and I was counting the moments when I could break away from her.

Then, I said it! I was probably out of line, but I had to do it. I asked, "So, what gives? You're a completely different person than what I remember you to be." At first, she was taken aback by the question. Then, she paused for a moment and saw an opportunity to talk. She told me that her husband was really conservative -- a Republican -- and how over the course of their relationship he'd made "suggestions" on how she should conduct herself. He had intentions of running for office.

I could tell she was unhappy with this change, but she clearly loved her husband and child. My question was, "Who did he think he was marrying?" Her response, "He says he saw my potential past all of the other stuff." I was heated! All that "other stuff" was what made her special; it was her light.

Of course, I went on to encourage her to let her light shine. Otherwise, she was going to be miserable for the rest of her life. I asked, "Do you even like pearls?" She gave me that smile that reads, "Hell no!" My goal was not to interfere in her relationship because she had clearly made some choices. I did, however, want to encourage her to seek a way that she could be more of herself and let her true light shine.

I don't know what happened with my sister-friend after that birthday party. I haven't seen her since. I pray that she is becoming more secure in who she really is at the core and allowing herself space to be that person within the confines of her marriage. Not only is she doing her self a disservice, her husband is missing out on a truly awesome woman.

I see so many women dim their lights for men and nothing upsets me more. Don't play dumb! Don't play conservative, if you're not! Don't play anything -- be yourself! If a man is looking for you to mute your music, then he's not the man for you. You can only be someone else for so long before your true self comes out. And, it's usually too late then. So, it's best for you to stay true to the light God gave you and let it shine! ( msn.com )

READ MORE - Don't Dim Your Light for Your Man

Should Your Boyfriend Be Your Best Friend?

Should Your Boyfriend Be Your Best Friend? - On my very first date with my boyfriend, I didn’t know if he was going to kiss me. I didn’t know yet that he loves Concord grapes, plays the saxophone and has never seen a Woody Allen movie. But I did know for certain that I wanted this person with whom I’d just eaten dinner to be in my life, somehow. I remember sitting across from him at a table in a Portuguese restaurant, smiling, and thinking, “Whatever happens after this date, I really hope we become friends. You’re cool.”

Flash forward six intense, crazy-in-love months and this man is not only boyfriend—he is my closest friend now, too, the one who knows everything about what goes on with my family, what goes on at work, what weird dreams woke me up in the middle of the night.

And I’m not entirely sure that’s a good thing.

He is my boyfriend, he’s my best friend, but he’s also filling a vacancy that slowly opened up in my life recently. You see, I don’t have a lot of friends. No, I’m not a complete nutter who can’t keep any friends, I swear. It’s just that, in the past two years, all my closest friends have scattered, literally, around the world:

Christiane was born in Germany and moved back there to be closer to her family; Stephanie joined the Army and right now is stationed in Iraq (at a prison, of all places); and Phil and Andrew are both in grad school in Boston, and it turns out people don’t have much of a social life while they’re attending Harvard Law School. Last, but not least, there was my best guy friend, who I had a pretty major falling-out with last year (it was tangentially related to this story), and I’ve scarcely seen that guy since.

I do keep in touch with my international buddies as best we can. But what sucks is that, back here in New York where we all used to live together, I can’t just make off-the-cuff plans anymore or instantly share stuff that’s going on in my life. I miss being able to do that more than I can say; loneliness is a heavy feeling. It sounds depressing, but there is not a single person under the “Favorites” list on my iPhone whom I could call and grab sushi with after work.

Except my boyfriend, that is.

Don’t misunderstand me about what my relationship is; it’s amazing, he’s amazing, and I don’t want to sound as if I am ungrateful that he’s my best friend, too. I’m glad my relationship is rooted in a friendship as opposed to, say, lust or greed or any of the other emotions that compel two individuals to pair up. But to paraphrase Belle’s boyfriend on “Secret Diary of a Call Girl,” my boyfriend is a friend to whom I want to do things I don’t want to do to my other friends. And that’s where the mental compartmentalization comes in. It has occurred to me that if my boyfriend were to be (God forbid) hit by a Walmart 18-wheeler, I would be isolated. I would be truly alone then and that’s just not sensible for my own well-being. A boyfriend shouldn’t be everything to me, right? What lovers have together isn’t the same thing as what friends have together and I don’t want any obfuscation.

Besides, it’s not fair to him to be inundated with all my stuff. Being someone’s one and only doesn’t mean he should be the one and only person you talk to about your personal life. He, after all, has three very close friends in addition to me with whom he can talk about stuff. Does any one friend really want to hear about every single perceived slight that occurs at work, or every snotty comment from your sister, or every pair of boots you just have to have? I sure wouldn’t, if I were someone’s one and only close friend. I know it’s a disingenuous reason to look for some more friends, but I partially need to widen my social circle so I don’t suffocate the poor guy. (Try as he might, he’s just not as interested in Anthropologie shopping sprees as I am.)

I am trying to make an effort to befriend new people; I’m just a little shy, so it’s hard to be aggressive. But, hey, someone needs to get a manicure and see “New Moon” with me and it’s not going to be my boyfriend. ( thefrisky.com )

READ MORE - Should Your Boyfriend Be Your Best Friend?

A Must to Sleep on A Cotton Mat When Menstruating

A Must to Sleep on A Cotton Mat When Menstruating -- Rima Singh, an executive with an Indian outsourcing company, smokes, drinks and dates boyfriends in New Delhi —- but doesn’t tell her parents back home in small-town India.

Three years ago, the 24-year-old left what she described as a mundane life full of strict social conventions in the town of Mathura in northern India and headed for the bright lights of New Delhi.

“Back there, falling in love is a big crime and expressing yourself is still labelled as a rebellious streak,” she told AFP. “Wearing skimpy clothes, smoking, drinking, having boyfriends are all a strict no-no,” added Singh.

In the Indian capital, a mixing pot of 14 million people, she says she feels liberated from some of the traditions that would restrict her freedom when she lived with her wealthy but conservative Hindu family.

At home, she was barred from entering the family kitchen and had to sleep on a cotton mat when she was menstruating, during which time she is considered to be impure. Tired of putting up with these “ridiculous” diktats, she and her cousin moved to Delhi on the pretext of studying computer science. She opted instead to take up a job with a private IT firm.

“The decision to move to Delhi was the best thing I have done so far,” says Singh who lives on her own in a small one-room terrace house — something unthinkable for Indian women of her background in previous generations. “I am my own master here,” she told AFP.

Singh’s story reflects deep social changes underway across Asia because of rapid urbanisation that will see hundreds of millions move to urban areas in the next decades.

The population of Indian cities alone is forecast to grow from an estimated 340 million people now to 590 million by 2030, according to a report from the McKinsey consultancy published last year.

“Cities are the first to embrace many concepts that are a taboo in towns and villages,” says Sandhya Patnaik, a sociology professor at Delhi University, referring to pre-marital sex, live-in relationships or divorces.

“Anything new or modern touches cities first. Trends percolate to smaller towns at a very slow pace.” Occasionally in India, the battle between village tradition and liberal city culture can have deadly consequences, such as the “honour killings” seen in Delhi’s migrant areas.

In a country where arranged marriage is still the norm for most people, horrific stories of women being killed by family members over their plans to marry “unsuitable” partners are a regular feature of Indian newspapers. But experts say cities across the world generally serve as a positive melting pot, where different cultures intermingle, encouraging tolerance and the interchange of ideas.

“The freedom in a big city comes from diversity,” Jirapa Worasiangsuk, a sociologist at Thammasat University in Bangkok, told AFP. “It’s the choices and the opportunity to choose that make Bangkok or other big cities a better place.

“People have more choices to choose how to live, to choose their career, to do whatever they want.” In the Indonesian capital Jakarta, 22-year-old Nani Yuningsih works as a domestic help and says city life has empowered her.

“All my childhood friends got married young, mostly at the age of 15. I am the only one who’s still single,” says Yuningsih, who moved to Jakarata from a village in Brebes district of Central Java province at the age of 13.

Despite the daily grind, Yuningsih says she disapproves of women depending on their husbands for economic support. She is attending evening classes to get her high school certificate.

“People in the village always belittle me for being single at my age. For them, it’s a nightmare and shameful for women to marry late,” she said.

“They also laugh at my plan to study at university, saying that I’m already old and have to raise children instead.” Tran Thi Ninh, a 48-year-old from a province outside the Vietnamese capital Hanoi, says her experience of city life has brought more independence, but also a sense of dislocation and a loss of identity.

“The community spirit in the countryside is so tight, not here,” Ninh said, explaining that the entire village would try to help out if someone fell sick.

On a recent afternoon, her husband suddenly needed to go to hospital but Ninh could not find anyone to help. “They were busy with their jobs,” she said of her neighbours.

Sociologists say the freedom of cities often stems from a feeling of anonymity — but this can often tip over into loneliness. The Indian executive, Rima Singh says she often feels New Delhi is an isolating, cold-hearted sort of place.

“I have chosen this life but whenever I feel miserable I go back home to be with my parents,” she said. ( AFP )

READ MORE - A Must to Sleep on A Cotton Mat When Menstruating

Five Things Men Should Know

Five Things Men Should Know - If the development and use of Botox has contributed anything to society, it's that the paralyzing and toxic beauty aid served as an effective reminder of just how important eyebrows are when communicating. When you can't move them, your face is jammed in first gear — like you're constantly reacting to a surprise party. Indeed, one of many things you likely didn't know about eyebrows is that by simply freezing them, we effectively wipe out the intricate expressiveness of the human face.

It's a bit unsettling to consider, but it helps to illustrate the extraordinary role of the eyebrows in our culture. Not only do they accent the face and contribute to attractiveness, they also convey a wealth of emotional expression, and, at one time in our development, they likely provided visual clues of sexual dimorphism to others at a distance (big brow, man; little brow, woman).

For all that our eyebrows do for us, we guys tend to do very little for them. So, let's take a moment and honor the eyebrows with five things men should know about them.

Actor Robert Pattinson shows off his sexy eyebrows as he poses for pictures as he arrives at the French premiere of his movie "Water for Elephants" in Paris, April 28, 2011.

1. The average eyebrow has 500 hairs

The first thing to know about eyebrows is that most men don’t likely have any extras other than the two God gave them, so take heed when it comes to shaping and grooming them.

Not only do most brows feature fewer hairs per square inch than what's found on the head, they also tend to grow back twice as slowly. The lesson here is that any decision made to manscape your eyebrows should come on the heels of plenty of consideration, because you’ll have to live with the consequences longer than you might expect.

2. Fashionable eyebrows were once made from mouse skin

The look isn't as hideous as it sounds. In fact, if contemporary portraits of the colonial elite in America near the end of the 18th century are any indication, the gray mouse skin looks fairly normal, if not slightly bushy by our standards.

In The Eyebrow, authors Robyn Cosio and Cynthia Robins trace the evolution of the eyebrow as a target of beauty and fashion in both men and women back to the earliest-known civilizations. It's clear that, while we may celebrate the eyes as the most beautiful facial feature, it is in fact the brow that is the object of that attention and the area where alterations can bring about the most dramatic change in one's looks.

3. Eyebrows are more vital to facial recognition than eyes

Another thing men should know about eyebrows is that they, not the eyes, are the more likely mirrors into the soul.

In one of the only studies of its kind, researchers from MIT sought to determine whether the eyes or the eyebrows, when omitted from familiar faces, would cause more recognition problems. Not surprising, when, considering the topic of this piece, subjects had significantly more trouble identifying familiar faces when they were presented without eyebrows.

4. Your eyebrows give you away

What you probably didn't know about eyebrows or human physiology in general is that the human face differs from the rest of the body in that many of the muscles used for facial expressions — namely the frontalis and orbicularis oris — are attached or connected to other muscles, making their actions largely involuntary.

This leads to what Dr. Paul Ekman calls "microexpressions," or tiny, split-second tics and other gestures that surrender our intentions to those that can read them. Thus, no matter how hard you try to conceal the truth or tell a lie, your eyebrows are likely to give you away.

5. Men with unibrows were once considered inherent criminals

The last thing men should know about eyebrows is that some styles may subject them to criminal profiling.

The unibrow has been vilified in the West, attributed by various unscientific methods as having a strong association with criminal behavior, substandard intelligence and other perceived human shortcomings, none of which possessed any clinical validity. That said, short of a meticulous goatee on an evil twin, has any specific facial hair ever undergone the same negative scrutiny as the unibrow?

While it is a highly desirable quality in some cultures, the most recent indirect attempt to bring the unibrow into fashion in the West occurred in 2002, when Salma Hayek portrayed iconic unibrowed artist Frida Kahlo in Frida. The film won two Oscars, including the Academy Award for Best Makeup, but, alas, the unibrow failed to catch on. If even the sexy Hayek couldn't make it stylish, you couldn't possibly make it work on anyone else. ( foxnews.com )

READ MORE - Five Things Men Should Know

Earl of Cardigan speaks of marriage to woman he met in therapy

Earl of Cardigan speaks of marriage to woman he met in therapy - The Earl of Cardigan has spoken for the first time of how he met his new wife at an American therapy clinic, and that her son believed she was about to become an accountant, not a countess.

The Earl of Cardigan has spoken for the first time about his marriage to a woman he met at an American therapy clinic.

Lord Cardigan, 58, admitted the couple’s courtship had been “pretty strange” because he was being treated for his “despair” after the collapse of his first marriage.

His new bride, Joanne Hill, 46, was at the Trauma Resolution clinic in Santa Fe, New Mexico, trying to kick an addiction to prescription pills.

Lord Cardigan said he had decided to speak out partly to correct what suggestions that the new Lady Cardigan had left her husband for him, which he described as “rubbish”.

The old Etonian went to the clinic to help him get over the sudden ending of his marriage to Rosamond, the author of a number of cookbooks.

The then Mrs Hill was being treated for addiction to Xanax, an anti-anxiety drug, which she had been prescribed after being sexually assaulted at knifepoint while walking back to her car in Phoenix, Arizona.

David Cardigan, 58, married American Joanne Hill at the beginning of May in a private ceremony in the romantic mediaeval hilltop village of San Miniato, near Pisa in Italy

“I suppose the circumstances of our meeting were pretty strange, because Joanne and I were in therapy,” Lord Cardigan said.

“I was in deep despair and shock in 2005 because of the very sudden termination of my twenty five year marriage. Joanne was there to address the cause of her use of Xanax addiction, which was the attack she had suffered in the first place.

“We met there during very intense therapy when we were both part of the same Trauma Resolution group”.

“Our relationship really began when we went our separate ways at the end of the therapy,” said Lord Cardigan.

“I’d gone to live with my very dear sister Carina, who lives on the Caribbean island of Tortola, in the British Virgin Islands.”

He continued: “I missed Joanne hugely, and we began contacting each other, and it grew from there.”

Lord Cardigan attacked what he described as “malicious rubbish” which had been written about their relationship.

“I think it is as good a time as any to put the record straight, starting with the simple fact that Joanne and her husband had already both filed against each other for divorce before she and I ever even met”.

“Actually we first met in a room where the most personal of things had to be openly discussed, and we had to go through the story of our lives examining the good, the bad and the ugly.

“There were no secrets in there, and to that extent we knew some very deep and very personal stuff about each other before our relationship even started, and like everyone else in that group we implicitly trusted each other with all that.”

The couple married at the beginning of May at a private ceremony at San Miniato, a hilltop village near Pisa and have set up home at Lord Cardigan’s estate in Savernake Forest, near Marlborough, Wiltshire.

Lord Cardigan has two children from his previous marriage, Thomas, Viscount Savernake and Lady Catherine, who is better known as Bo Bruce, a singer songwriter, from whom he is estranged.

The new countess has a 13-year-old son, Wolfy.

Lady Cardigan said her first impressions of the man who became her husband was of an stereotypical Briton.

“When I first met David in group therapy I thought he was an archetypal Englishman. Very up-tight and proper, and initially very unwilling to open up, which of course is what Group Therapy is all about.

“But we learned the worst about each other first, and since then I have come to love him for the warm, sensitive man that he is.”

Lord Cardigan said the couple who, having “put the record straight”, were looking forward to starting life together in Wiltshire.

“My heartfelt wish now is to be reconciled with my two children. I've missed them both enormously”. ( telegraph.co.uk )

READ MORE - Earl of Cardigan speaks of marriage to woman he met in therapy

Why I'll keep opening the door for women

Why I'll keep opening the door for women - Sexism is civilised – whatever the Society for the Psychology of Women might think, says Stephen Bayley.

I always hold the door open for women. But, then, I always hold the door open for men, too. For this small act of graciousness, the peer-reviewed, humourless, bad-tempered, lunatic fringe of feminism – in the form of the Society for the Psychology of Women – now accuses me of "benevolent sexism".

Being, as they insist, a knuckle-dragging male gorilla, I took it to be simple good manners. Thank God I have been corrected before I went too far. Just imagine – I could have ended-up smiling at girls. I was going to write "pretty girls", but it would have been dangerously self-incriminating too early in the piece.

While writing that first paragraph, I said a sly, manipulative "thank you" to a male colleague for the espresso he so kindly put on my desk. I expect he will soon be tempted to raise his game and accuse me of chauvinistic bullying in the workplace. Sisters, believe me, we must be alert and vigilant!

It's an incautious man who makes the case for sexism

In the summer of Dominique Strauss-Kahn's discontent, it's an incautious man who makes the case for sexism. But my roiling cauldron of ungovernable hormones encourages recklessness, so here goes. Sexism is a mark of civilisation, as is all behaviour based on perceptions and intelligently adapted to different circumstances. Life is about gradients – the ascending, sometimes meandering, paths between different values. Vice/virtue, young/old and male/female are simply the most obvious.

Manners are the device we use to negotiate these sometimes tricky and precipitous social slopes. It's a contract based on respect, an unforced standard of conduct intended to enhance another's self-esteem. This is why, when body-checked on the elevator at Piccadilly Circus this morning, I didn't kick the obstructive old boy in the ankle and say: "Get out of my way, you economically insignificant, ugly, feeble-minded crumbling old dotard."

I wonder what goes on in the firmly closed minds behind the bitterly closed doors of the Society for the Psychology of Women. I imagine the stern researchers responsible for coming up with the idea of "benevolent sexism" are charged with scrutinising global media for occult offences against the pure, uncontaminated cause of feminism. Enraged to madness by pervasive images of elegance and notions of courtesy, they remove themselves to the Ops Room to plan a world drained of enchantment and refinement. Fortunately, you can recognise leading Society members quite easily: most have suffered maxillofacial trauma, broken teeth and soft tissue injuries when liberated males, sensitised to the charge of "benevolent sexism", have preferred to let heavy swing doors thud into their faces.

It's true, of course, that new technology has tended to confuse the old contract. Somehow, doors are often involved. That business of opening the car door is made nonsensical when you have a remote blipper to do the central locking. In public buildings, automatic doors remove the need for the farcical theatrics of after-you-no-after-you. Meanwhile, sat-nav has freed women from the irksome, debasing, sexualised chore of map-reading, during which Ordnance Survey sheets were routinely covered by floods of tears.

The victories and liberations of classic feminism have, deservedly, become well-established. I don't think anyone argues about opportunities (equal), ceilings (glass), careers (open to talent), pay (rational) and housework (shared). Advanced males have for 30 years been extremely self-conscious about all of this, and of practising conventional politeness – or, indeed, any sort of conventional gender-based behaviour – lest they be accused of jungle-based stereotyping.

We know all of this. Very glad it happened. And this gives the survival (or revival) of good manners an added force. For my part, I have never met anyone who plays rugby, or been to either a football match or a stag do. And I much prefer that my wife (who is a woman) lets me do the shopping and cooking. Yet I still want to do that courtly thing with doors and compliment women on their appearance. Mind you, I compliment men, too.

This is why the absurdly negativist ideas of the Society for the Psychology of Women are so ugly and wrong. They seek to forbid charm, subtlety and nuance in human behaviour. Still, we must not attribute to malice what can readily be explained by stupidity. Do they have a copy of Doris Langley Moore's The Technique of the Love Affair (1928) in the society's library? Do they know that the ultimate in female packaging, the bra, was the work of a woman and peace activist called Mary Phelps Jacob? Or that it was another woman who told us blondes have more fun? I take my hat off to them, sexists one and all. Except that, being a truly advanced male, I don't own a hat. ( telegraph.co.uk )

READ MORE - Why I'll keep opening the door for women

If you want to rebuild Britain, the family is a good place to start

If you want to rebuild Britain, the family is a good place to start - The gaps in the Big Society give Labour a chance to find out what people really want - Is God a Tory? David Cameron must hope so. Last week Eric Pickles invoked the wisdom of Wesley and Wilberforce in a sermon to faith communities. "Is it not the great end of religion… to smooth the asperities of man?" demanded Saint Eric. Alas, only up to a point.

The Community Secretary's wish "to tap into the secular side of your work" provoked some asperity, not to say outrage, among his hosts, the Cinnamon Network of 100 Christian charities. As one organiser says: "That sounds as if he's only after our expertise."

It is easy to see why Mr Pickles covets the 72 million hours devoted to the community by church volunteers each year. This social goldmine, worth over £1 billion in Britain, is even more lucrative in the States, where the policy prophet Robert Putnam claims in his book American Grace that believers are nicer people and better neighbours.

If Britons are more sceptical about the Lord's capacity for marvels – 84 per cent of Americans believe in miracles – they reserve even graver doubts for wonders wrought by government. Mr Cameron is as likely, in many voters' eyes, to conjure loaves and fishes from the ether as to get his Big Society off the ground.

Nothing daunted, the PM is about to share with ministers a much-delayed White Paper promising to give citizens cash budgets to buy health and social care and education. One trouble in a plan aimed at sidelining local authorities is that Mr Cameron's "Big Society Bill" relies on providing bespoke services at pound-store prices.

Any relief for parents of disabled children at being able to pick a school of their choice will be mitigated by cuts in welfare benefits that will, according to the Children's Society, cost some families £1,400 a year. Swimming with dolphins, or whatever Mr Cameron has in mind for gravely ill people seeking a range of options, won't beguile patients sinking with the NHS.

For once, however, the PM is not for U-turning. He has clung to his Big Society vision because he knows that no party can regain trust and rebuild Britain in hard times without the endorsement of family and community. Ed Miliband is equally convinced that the age of top-down politics is dead. Whichever leader more accurately reads the social signals will win the next election.

Mr Cameron has the harder job, with the Tory-supporting ResPublica think tank about to report that parks and Sure Start centres are shutting down, while Mr Miliband has time to engender what he calls "your neighbour is my neighbour" reciprocity. The Labour leader's admiration of Margaret Thatcher centres largely on the long-termism he hopes to emulate through a policy review whose workings, thus far, have been subject to the sort of omerta that makes Cosa Nostra look expansive.

Last week, however, I spent an afternoon with a citizens' jury of mothers convened to finalise the ideas on family that will now go forward for consultation. These women, from a political cross-spectrum, had been asked to bring an object symbolising their daily lives. The most popular were their children's games consoles, symbolising an atomised society, and stories about rising gas and energy prices they had clipped from newspapers.

All the women worked, but many thought they would be better off on benefits. Their yearning to belong to a wider community was shot through with resentment. As Tessa Jowell, who is leading the family policy review, says: "You can't pretend there's no issue about benefit cheats and immigration, when you hear people saying it. You can't disappear into a comfort zone that denies reality."

The reality, for many of the women, was a fraught life without much or any backing from the fathers of their children. Several spoke of unreliable, abusive or manipulative men who contributed money sporadically or not at all. None called for errant fathers to be made social pariahs, as Mr Cameron wishes. Their futures, and their children's, hinged not on headline-grabbing political fantasy but on practical remedies.

Of the ideas they discussed, including community centres for all ages and extra citizenship teaching, the most popular was a scheme to give grandparents the right to take paternity leave to cover for an absent father as well as pay and leave entitlements for those who care full-time for their grandchildren. A "kinship allowance" is now likely to be a key part of Labour's policy.

Family and "communityship", as one mother called it, were central to a wishlist based on an enabling state. These women, with no time or inclination to knit their own version of the Big Society, wanted to put the sprawling families of the 21st century at the heart of civic revival. BritainThinks, the company conducting the research, found that 78 per cent of people prize neighbourhood bonds, but only 28 per cent believe their children and grandchildren will grow up feeling part of their community.

That is where Arnie Graf comes in. Mr Graf, an American who is said to be one of the three best community organisers in the world, has just finished meeting civic leaders and banging on doors on Mr Miliband's behalf. At first, Mr Graf was reluctant to take the assignment suggested by the Labour leader's adviser, Lord Glasman, not least because of a haziness shared by many voters over Mr Miliband. "I had no idea who the guy was," he says.

Mr Graf, briefly a mentor to Barack Obama, was sufficiently impressed by his first meeting to take up an assignment for which he declined a consultant's fee, visiting 14 towns in 17 days and staying in Premier Inns. His instructions from Mr Miliband were, he says: "Take the pulse of the country and be absolutely honest about what you found."

In an hour-long private meeting last Wednesday, Mr Graf reported back. Britain, he told Mr Miliband, felt that Gordon Brown had not done enough to tackle immigration. People were mostly not racist, but they were resentful as well as worried about manufacturing, education and "kids running amok". So far, so obvious. But Mr Graf, whose work including transforming parts of the Baltimore estate where The Wire was filmed, had another message that Mr Cameron might usefully heed.

Graf's law, a political variant of Through the Looking Glass, involves reversing all truisms. Listen to people, not to think tanks. Send special advisers away from Westminster to tap into what's happening on the ground. Heed citizens instead of hectoring them. Forget party interests and trickle-down politics and, most counter-intuitively, stop trying to win votes. As Mr Graf told Mr Miliband at their debriefing: "If you only think about the election treadmill, you're lost."

Mr Cameron's attempt to bombard families with empty powers they do not want is doomed. Whether Mr Miliband can do better remains to be seen, but he at least understands that anyone hoping to lead a country through austerity must speak not only for the people and to the people but with the people. Tomorrow's society will not be made in Whitehall or, as Mr Pickles's foray demonstrated, in heaven. Policy, like charity, begins at home. ( telegraph.co.uk )

READ MORE - If you want to rebuild Britain, the family is a good place to start

The house that dad built

The house that dad built - Windows that dimmed the light, bedrooms too small to sleep in – Isobel Atkinson’s childhood home was eccentric but enchanting

In the 1930s, when my father became engaged, he bought an acre of land and the stone from two derelict cottages and drew up plans for building our family home.

It wasn't something of which he had any experience, but he was optimistic and undaunted, a practical Yorkshireman. His fiancée lived some distance away in Scotland and was the very opposite of practical, so I think that her input would have been slight.

I have a photograph of my mother, on a visit to the site, nicely dressed, smiling to camera and holding a stone. I suspect that will have been the only stone she ever held.

The house plans were eccentric, the unequal distribution of interior space due to the fact that my father had already bought the matrimonial bed. He had purchased at auction an enormous half-tester with matching sideboard.

This furniture was created from carved wood, reputed to have come from Wakefield Cathedral during the time of the dissolution of the monasteries. The bed had pegged figures that could be lifted from their niches and heavy side curtains. This was the bed in which I was born, the doctor taking the precaution of having the wooden figures taken down before asking my mother to push.

On Sunday mornings my brother and I were allowed to join our parents in their bed and given strict instructions not to wriggle and let in any cold draughts. There was room for the whole family to stretch out in comfort. Because of this bed my parents' bedroom had been designed to be large. Our home, overall, was not. This presented no problem at first, but when my brother grew until his feet touched his bedroom wall the upstairs rooms had to be reconfigured.

The house looked well enough from the outside with its stone walls and leaded windows. These had small diamond-shaped panes that threw only a subdued light into the rooms and were a nightmare to clean. 'Home improvements' were constantly taking place. It was clear that a man had designed the house. The kitchen was not a practical place and after alterations it became even less so.

My father was full of bright ideas. One of these was to have an ironing-board fixed within a cupboard. Open the cupboard door, let down the board, et voilà! This worked well enough until he decided to move the kitchen door a little to the left, in order to give more space for his armchair in a favourite corner of the living-room. Once the door had been moved you could iron or you could go in and out of the kitchen but you couldn't do both because the ironing-board now neatly filled the doorway.

The staircase was ill lit, twisting up with a short flight of steps before each right-angled turn. I took every corner with care for fear of what might be around it. If I could not persuade anyone to accompany me upstairs then I would sing loudly for a bit of false courage and arrive on the landing with only one more turn on the corridor before the safety of my room. No architectural prizes for you, father!

The house was set well back from the road and approached over a long straight driveway, and the gates were usually kept closed to give our dog the freedom to roam the garden. The postman disliked being ominously shadowed up and down this pathway by the doberman and waved his cap to send the dog away.

What a mistake! From then on our postal service became very erratic. When letters did arrive the envelopes often bore the pencilled message, 'Could not deliver, dog out.' I loved the garden and especially the orchard, where the fruit trees were under-planted with hundreds of spring bulbs.

I worried as a child about having to grow up and leave my home, but as a young adult I went without a backward glance. My parents sold the house while I was living elsewhere. I have never been back, but I sometimes wander happily through my childhood home in my dreams, accompanied by my grown-up daughters, who have never been there. There are some places that you never leave. ( telegraph.co.uk )

READ MORE - The house that dad built

How Likely Is Your Partner to Cheat?

How Likely Is Your Partner to Cheat? - A fear of sexual failure combined with a lack of concern about sexual consequences makes both men and women more likely to cheat on their partners, a new study finds.

While it may seem counterintuitive that someone with performance anxiety would seek out something extra on the side, insecure cheaters might look for risky situations to boost their sexual arousal, researchers reported online June 11 in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior. Or they may be trying to avoid the baggage of their sexual anxiety.

"People who score high on this [trait] may feel less pressure when they're engaging with a person who doesn't know their sexual history," study researcher Kristen Mark, a doctoral candidate at Indiana University, told LiveScience.

New software helps catch unfaithful spouses

Identifying infidelity

Estimates of how many cheaters exist differ based on how cheating is defined. However, several nationally representative studies in the 1990s put the numbers at about 20 percent to 25 percent of men and 10 percent to 15 percent of women. In the past five to seven years, however, the cheating gender gap has closed, Mark said, with women cheating at similar rates as men. [10 Surprising Sex Statistics]

Numerous factors play a role in infidelity, including money (high earners are more likely to cheat) and the health of the couple's relationship (partners in ill relationships are more likely to stray). But the new study finds that a person's sexual personality is more important than demographic or relationship factors.

Using an online survey, Mark and her colleagues asked 506 monogamous men and 416 monogamous women about their relationship quality, sexual behaviors and whether they'd cheated in their current relationship. The median age of the study participants was 31, and half were married.

Both genders cheated at similar levels, the survey revealed: 23 percent of men and 19 percent of the women said they had done something sexual with a third party that could jeopardize their relationship if their partner ever found out. People who had cheated were about half as likely to be religious than non-cheaters, and slightly more likely to be employed. Unsurprisingly, cheating was also associated with unhappy relationships.

Sexual personality

But most important of all were the participants' sexual personalities. Men who reported that they easily became sexually excited were more likely to cheat. For every unit increase in sexual excitability, propensity to stray went up 4 percent. Women's sexual excitability wasn't related to cheating, though their relationship satisfaction was. Being unhappy in a relationship or feeling incompatible with a partner increased the likelihood that a woman would cheat by between 2.6 percent and 2.9 percent.

For both men and women, fear of sexual consequences and anxiety about sexual performance influenced infidelity. When people had little concern about the consequences of sex—including pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases and being caught Tweeting pictures of your crotch to strangers — they were more likely to step out on their partner. One unit of increase in concern on this scale made women 13 percent less likely to cheat and men 7 percent less likely to cheat.
Anxiety about one's own sexual performance had the opposite effect. People who worried a lot about their ability to stay aroused or orgasm cheated more often—women by 8 percent for every increase in concern about their sexual function and men by 6 percent.

Your cheatin' heart

The important takeaway, Mark said, is that understanding sexual personality is important to understanding infidelity. If you're worried about, say, marrying a politician because he or she might cheat on you, you might be better off looking at the person's attitudes in bed than his or her day job.

"We found that some of those demographics were important," Mark said. "But once you included all these other variables, we realized quickly that they weren't nearly as important, and their relative importance disappeared." ( foxnews.com )

READ MORE - How Likely Is Your Partner to Cheat?

When's the last time you asked for a raise?

When's the last time you asked for a raise? - If you're like most people, it's been a while -- in large part because it's an intimidating conversation to have.

Here are 10 things you should and shouldn't do to make the conversation go smoothly:

• Pick your timing carefully. Check out these right and wrong times to ask for a raise.

• Understand what your manager is likely going to be thinking. And what is in a manager's head when a staff member asks for more money? Typically, it's this: "Is this reasonable? Am I going to lose this employee if I say no? Where would this put her salary in the larger context of our overall salary structure? And most importantly, how valuable is this employee?" Managers are much more willing to go out of their way to accommodate someone fantastic who they don't want to lose--and much less likely when the request comes from someone they're lukewarm about.

• Don't talk about personal reasons for wanting a raise, like your expenses. Your request needs to be all about your value to the company, not about the fact that your rent is going up or that you have bills to pay. Employers don't pay people based on each person's own financial needs--after all, the company isn't expected to pay more money for the same work to someone supporting a family of four versus someone single and without kids. Stick to reasons that are about business and your value to the company.

• Don't compare your salary to your co-workers'. Sure, it's absolutely frustrating to see someone doing a worse job than you and getting more money, but for better or for worse, managers do not respond well when employees use a coworker's salary as the basis for a raise request. Base your salary requirements on the industry norm and what you'll be bringing to the company, nothing else.

• Base your request on your value to the company. Build a case for why you've earned a raise, and for why your company is better off because of your work. Think back to any special achievements in the last year (and it's good to keep running notes on these throughout the year so that you can remember them when you need to!). Think about the positive impact you have on the business. Pretend that you're your own manager and ask what about your performance would really impress you, or what your manager should be upset to lose about you if you left.

• Provide details to support your case. For instance, maybe you can show a file of compliments you've received from customers. Or maybe you can show that your idea increased revenue by X dollars, or that your productivity rate is twice the average rate. The idea here is that you want to show a case for your value to the business.

• Don't threaten to leave if you don't get a raise. Even if it's true, you don't need to say this out loud. Managers understand that this is the implied subtext when someone asks for a raise; it's definitely on their mind that they risk losing you if they can't do what you're asking. You don't need to spell it out.

• Don't have an attitude of entitlement. You want to be confident and direct, but it won't go over well if you feel entitled to a raise just because a year's gone by, or because you've done the basic requirements of your job.

• Rehearse what you're going to say ahead of time. For instance, you might open with something like this: "This company has been wonderful about rewarding my performance with increased responsibilities and more challenging work, and I'm really appreciative of that. However, I've been performing at a high level for a while now, have consistently exceeded my sales targets, and have played a key role in mentoring new staff as well. I'd like to talk to you about adjusting my salary to reflect these contributions."

• Know what to do if your boss says no. If your boss turns you down, ask what you would need to accomplish in order to earn a raise in the future.

And if your boss says yes, congratulations! You just got a raise. ( news.yahoo.com )

READ MORE - When's the last time you asked for a raise?

FIFA Intervenes in Indonesia FA Crisis

FIFA Intervenes in Indonesia FA Crisis - FIFA intervened directly in Indonesia’s football crisis on Monday, announcing it was appointing a committee to take over from the local federation on an interim basis.

FIFA said in a statement that the so-called normalisation committee would organise elections for the Football Association of Indonesia (PSSI) leadership by the end of next month, stop a rebel league and run the association on a day-to-day basis.

Indonesian soccer fans shouts slogans and show a poster of Football Association (PSSI) chief Nurdin Halid as a wanted person, during a rally in front of PSSI headquarter in Jakarta on February 23, 2011. Hundreds of soccer fans protested against corruption in the national league and demanded the resignation of the disgraced PSSI chief.

The decision followed chaotic scenes 10 days ago when an assembly to organise the first PSSI elections in four years was called off after opponents of chairman Nurdin Halid stormed in claiming they had been stripped of voting rights. Halid was jailed in 2007 for misusing funds but continued to run the PSSI from his cell.

“The FIFA emergency committee came...to the conclusion that the PSSI leadership had lost all credibility within Indonesia and was not in a position any more to lead the process to solve the current crisis,” said FIFA in a statement.

FIFA added that the PSSI’s lack of control was “proven by the failure to gain control of the breakaway league, set up without the involvement of PSSI, or by the fact it could not organise a congress whose sole goals were to adopt an electoral code and elect an electoral commission.

The normalisation committee would consist of Indonesian football personalities who would not be able to run in the PSSI positions and would act as an electoral commission, said FIFA.

“The mission of the normalisation committee is to organise elections based on the FIFA electoral code and PSSI statutes before May 21, to bring the run-away league under PSSI control.....(and) to run the day-to-day activities of PSSI in a spirit of reconciliation for the good of the Indonesian football,” it said.

Halid is in his second term as PSSI president but has faced growing criticism at the poor performances of Indonesian teams, especially the senior national side which is 129th in the world rankings. The three-month old breakaway league has attracted teams from the PSSI-supported Indonesia Super League (ISL), a host of southeast Asian players and former England international Lee Hendrie.

Despite a huge soccer-mad population, Indonesia’s only World Cup appearance was in pre-independence days in 1938 as the Dutch East Indies and is not recognised by the PSSI. Indonesia have only played four times at the Asian Cup, going out at the first hurdle every time, and its clubs have never reached an Asian Champions League final. ( reuters )

READ MORE - FIFA Intervenes in Indonesia FA Crisis

Average age for women to marry hits 30 for first time

Average age for women to marry hits 30 for first time - Women, on average, are waiting until they are 30 before they get married, according to official figures which indicated people are leaving it later than ever before to tie the knot

The average age at which a woman gets married for the first time climbed from 29.9 years in 2008 to 30 years in 2009, figures published by the Office for National Statistics said. This is the first time that the symbolic age barrier has been reached.

The average age at which women and men get married has been getting consistently later in recent years. The mean year for first marriages for women in 1991 was 25.5 and just 23.1 back in 1981, the year of the last major Royal wedding.

Lady Diana Spencer, as she was then, had just turned 20 when she married Prince of Wales. Catherine Middleton, in contrast is 29 years old, suggesting that the forthcoming Royal Wedding is – despite its pomp – more reflective of British social trends than some admit.

The average age of men has climbed from 25.4 in 1981, to 32.1 years in 2009.

The figures also confirmed the long-running decline in the institution of marriage, with the number of marriages hitting a fresh all-time low, with fewer people being married in 2009 than in any year since figures started to be recorded in 1895.

There were 231,490 marriages in 2009, more than 4,000 fewer than the year before and a lower number than the 228,204 marriages recorded in 1895. Just 1.92 per cent of unmarried women and 2.13 per cent of unmarried men wed during the year, compared with peak of 8 per cent of men and 6.3 per cent of women during World War II, when many rushed to marry before they were sent off to fight.

Experts said the poor state of the economy was a leading factor in the deterioration of marriage rates.

Jenny North, head of public policy at Relate, the counselling charity, said: “A continued fall in marriage rates and numbers is no great shock to Relate, but it is worrying. Research shows us that the aspiration to marry is still high amongst the younger generation of the UK, but fewer and fewer are fulfilling that aspiration.

“There is evidence that couples are setting themselves a ‘to do’ list before getting married – perhaps buying a house, getting the perfect job or buying the dream car. As money gets tighter, these things get harder to achieve, and we could see less couples tying the knot as a result.”

Anastasia de Wall, director of family a the think tank Civitas, said that it was inevitable as a greater proportion of women went to university that marriage ages would increase. "Your 20s have now became a decade for establishing yourself, education, degrees and a career. The 30s is now the decade for establishing a family.

"What is worrying, however, is if unemployment and financial insecurity are thwarting people's aspirations to get married. We know from studies that people still very much want to get married."

The ONS figures also showed that – for the first time – the proportion of weddings that took place as part of a religious ceremony declined to below a third, with 32.7 per cent of marriages taking this form.

Back in 1981, just over half – 51 per cent – of wedding were part of a religious ceremony. ( telegraph.co.uk )

READ MORE - Average age for women to marry hits 30 for first time

Men, Women, and the Two Stories Behind Every Kiss

Men, Women, and the Two Stories Behind Every Kiss - The meeting of lips may feel harmonious, but it isn't. Men are always pushing to make kisses sloppier, while women always want to keep at them long after the show's over. And kissing style isn't the only point of contrast: In light of recent findings by psychologists, a kiss shared between a man and a woman seems more like a clash of spirits than a meeting of souls.

"Women tend to use kissing to create a bond with their partners, and to assess them as potential mates," Susan Hughes, a psychologist at Albright College in Pennsylvania, told Life's Little Mysteries. "Meanwhile, men use kissing as a means to an end." That end being sex. "Males are kissing primarily to increase arousal for their partner," Hughes said.

Those statements may strike some as obvious and others as old-fashioned, but regardless, they're scientifically proven. Hughes and her colleagues published a study in the journal Evolutionary Psychology three years ago that helped test, and prove, several theories evolutionary psychologists have long held about kissing. The researchers probed the kissing preferences and opinions of more than 1,000 males and females in their sexual prime — college undergraduates — who were asked to mark their answers to a series of detailed kissing questions on a 5-point scale.

The results showed that both men and women consider kissing an important and highly intimate interaction. Both sexes use kissing to gauge the relationship compatibility of themselves and their partners. Furthermore, both may become more or less attracted to their partners based solely on their experience kissing them, a result that lends support to the theory that pheromones and other important biochemical signals get exchanged when people kiss.

But the similarities end there. While women usually consider a bad kiss to be a deal-breaker, men reported that they would more than likely still have sex with a woman even if she were a bad kisser. In other words, biochemical cues be damned!

In fact, the data showed that males feel much more strongly that kissing should lead to sex than females do, period. "Whereas females felt there was a greater likelihood that kissing should lead to sex with a long-term partner than a short-term partner, males felt that in either instance, kissing should lead to sex," the researchers wrote in their article.

Men also like significantly wetter kisses. The gender divide becomes drastic when the kissing involves short-term partners, who presumably hold primarily sexual rather than romantic appeal. In the short-term, men like kisses to be wet, while women do not. Psychologists hypothesize that males "perceive a greater wetness or salivary exchange during kissing as an index of the female’s sexual arousal/receptivity, similar to the act of sexual intercourse," Hughes wrote.

Follow-up research conducted in 2009 by Helen Fisher, an anthropologist at Rutgers University, even found that men pass testosterone to women via their saliva when they kiss, which may momentarily increase women's sex drive.

Perhaps more surprising than the fact that men like sloppy kisses is that "they'll even forgo kissing altogether if they can just have sex," Hughes told Life's Little Mysteries. Indeed, Hughes' survey found that over half of men would be willing to have sex with someone without kissing them, while only 14 percent of women would do so.

Sheril Kirshenbaum, a science journalist, extended that finding to adult men and women for publication in her book, "The Science of Kissing" (Grand Central Publishing 2011). She found that guys really don't grow out of their indifference to kissing: As in Hughes' survey, the adult men in her survey did more often than not express a willingness to have sex without kissing. Meanwhile, "Several women actually called or e-mailed asking why they'd even be in that situation in the first place," Kirshenbaum wrote. Two women asked if the survey question was referring to prostitution.

The gender divide is indeed dramatic; it even extends to when men and women like to kiss. "Basically, most men don't like to kiss after sex," Hughes said. "This is even true of men in long-term, committed relationships, which we thought was a bit surprising." Though men typically want to kiss only until the sex starts, women like kissing before, during and after intercourse.

Why all the differences? "From an evolutionary perspective," Hughes explained, "females are limited reproductively, so they want to bond with a mate, whereas males can have a lot of partners and so are generally more interested in having promiscuous sex. Both use kissing to get what they want."

In summary, women use kissing as a screening tool — to find a man with the right pheromones. Then, when a good mate is found, kissing is used to increase mutual feelings of attachment. Men, on the other hand, kiss primarily to gain sexual access.

A great kiss, then, by no means results from great minds thinking alike. ( lifeslittlemysteries.com )

READ MORE - Men, Women, and the Two Stories Behind Every Kiss

A day in the life of Lu Hao, the four-year-old toddler who weighs nine-and-a-half STONE

A day in the life of Lu Hao, the four-year-old toddler who weighs nine-and-a-half STONE - As he struggles to haul his massive bulk from the ground, it is clear four-year-old Lu Hao is no ordinary toddler.

The obese Chinese child's parents told last week how their son - who is five times the size of children his age - eats a staggering three bowls of rice for dinner each day.

And as these pictures show, Lu Hao's daily routine revolves heavily around sitting, sleeping and - less surprisingly, eating.

Finding his feet: Lu Zao struggles to stand up as his mother buckles under his nine-and-half-stone frame

His father Lu Yuncheng and mother Chen Yuan remain mystified why he has grown so big, after being born weighing a perfectly healthy 2.6kg (5.7lbs).

His weight has dramatically ballooned from three months old when his near-insatiable appetite grew by the week.

According to Lu Hao's parents, their son gains weight no matter how hard they restrict his diet or push him to move about.

He has gained 10kg in the past year, despite all attempts by his mother and father to take keep him active.

Lu Hao walks with his parents and even works up a sweat playing with a basketball.

Unsurprisingly however, even when attempting exercise the enormous toddler chews on a lollipop.

More please: Hao, with a piece of food apparently stuck to his face, demands an extra serving during kindergarten class

Having a ball: Hao stretches to reach a basketball while sucking on a lollipop near his home

Pictured at kindergarten near his home in Foshan, Guandong province, the rice-loving boy clearly enjoys one of his favourite parts of the day as he waves an empty food bowl at a teacher.

Some of the shots of Lu Hao's daily routine raise concerns about whether his sight is impaired by his chubby cheeks.

His parents are worried he may be bullied when he becomes older and more self-aware, though pictures show that Lu Hao is already an object of fascination for his kindergarten classmates.

Later in the day he is seen napping during a break in class after clearly tiring from his earlier activities.

Since Hao was one-year-old his parents have tried to keep a careful eye on his diet.

Time out: The four-year-old 'hates walking to school' and is instead taken there on his mother's motorcycle

Hao strolls near his home with his mother Chen Yuan, left and father Lu Yuncheng

However, Lu Hao - who hates walking to school and often gets a ride there by motorcycle - has now grown so big that his mother is unable to pick him up.

Chen Yuan said: 'We have to let him be as if we don't feed him he will cry non-stop.

'He is quite happy that I could ride him to kindergarten instead of walking him there.'

To push Hao to do more sports, the family installed a basketball hoop in the yard and often take him to swim in a local river.

But the exercise just make him hungrier and results in him putting on more weight.

His father Yuncheng said: 'We took him to three hospitals and one said he has a tumour in the head, while the other two said there is no tumour in the head.

'Doctors said his hormones are at a normal level. It's hard to know why he could be so big.'

'We now worry the most about his health. As if he continues to grow at this rate his heart could fail,' said Yuan.

'Our biggest hope is one day Hao could get slim.

Nap time: After having his energy sapped from a busy morning at kindergarten, Hao takes takes a snooze

The four-year-old is five times bigger than children his age and faces being bullied when he is older according to his family ( falymail.co.uk )

READ MORE - A day in the life of Lu Hao, the four-year-old toddler who weighs nine-and-a-half STONE

Are you a Dummy Mummy?

Are you a Dummy Mummy? - New parenting jargon shows mums are replacing sexiness with silliness - New mothers have a tendency to think that everyone is just as interested as they are in their baby - and talking about little else.

And now there's a label for such women: Dummy Mummy.

A worrying study of modern day parenting jargon has revealed that Yummy Mummy has been replaced by nicknames for women rendered brain dead or forgetful by their children.

One-track mind: Do you know a Dummy Mummy - someone who only talks about their child?

Dummy Mummy is closely followed by Pramnesia - which describes forgetfulness caused by child-rearing - in the list of top phrases.

Meanwhile, Dadmin refers to jobs particularly suited to Dads - perhaps because Dummy Mummies would not be able to do them properly.

The terms are among those used by modern parents, according to a poll commissioned for the launch of the DVD release of bringing up baby comedy Life As We Know It.

The study also revealed that a Baby Gaga is a toddler who likes to show off and Nansformer is the grandparent who goes from little old lady to multi-tasking supergran as soon as she has a grandchild to cope with.

Others which came out of the research include Code Brown to describe the need to change a nappy and Calpoholics, children who are given medicine so often to keep them quiet they become hooked.

From yummy to dummy: Pramnesia describes forgetfulness caused by child-rearing

Disnefying It is what parents do to mundane places to make them sound exciting to children, such as telling them 'We're going to Asdaland today where we can go on the trolley ride!'

A spokesman for the survey said: 'The term Dummy Mummy is used to describe a new mother who has lost the capacity to talk about anything other than her new born child!

'Further slang alluded to the remarkable abilities of grandparents when it comes to providing baby help (Nansformer) and the soaring cost of childcare (Nanny McFee).'

TOP TEN EXAMPLES OF PARENTING JARGON

1. Dummy Mummy - A woman rendered brain dead by the arrival of her new born who can't talk about anything other than babies
2. The Naughty Two-Step - Ritual dance performed by child to demonstrate reluctance to go and sit on the naughty step
3. Baby Gaga - A little show-off
4. Nansformer - When granny transforms into a multi-functional super-efficient domestic robot upon a baby's arrival
5. Dadmin - Jobs particularly suited to Dad like emptying a nappy bin or putting up a shelf in the nursery
6. Code Brown - A nappy-filler
   
7. Pump and Dump - Pre-expressed milk before mum's night out with the girls (so she doesn't get the baby drunk when she returns)
8. Disneyfying It - Making chores interesting e.g.we're going to Asdaland
9. Pramnesia - Forgetfulness caused by child-rearing
10. Calpoholic - A baby who displays a disposition to medicines ( dalymail.co.uk )

READ MORE - Are you a Dummy Mummy?

Profile of 'golden boy' Prince William

Profile of 'golden boy' Prince William - Prince William is the royal golden boy who will one day be King of England.

Growing from a boisterous toddler into a shy teenager and then a confident and settled RAF pilot, Prince William is about to embark on the next stage of his life.

As witnessed on his recent tour of Australia, he is a tall and charming man who has inherited the good looks of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales as well as her ability to talk to people from any background.

The Prince has been in a relationship with Kate Middleton, his former flatmate at St Andrews University and now his bride to be, since his student days.

As the more sensible, older brother to Prince Harry, he relies on a circle of close, trusted friends and still regards the media with suspicion.

Prince William as Commodore-in-Chief-Submarines attends a naval ceremony

The Prince's childhood was marked by the bitter breakdown of his parents' marriage while he was a student at Eton and then, in 1997, the death of his mother in a car crash.

The 15-year-old and his brother, who was just 12, were watched by millions around the world as they walked behind their mother's cortege at her funeral in front of vast crowds of mourners.

Prince William Arthur Philip Louis of Wales was born at 9.03pm on June 21, 1982, at St Mary's Hospital, Paddington in London, weighing 7lb 1 1/2oz.

The Princess became pregnant just four months after her fairytale wedding to the Prince of Wales.

He wrote to a friend after his first son was born: ''He really does look surprisingly appetising and has sausage fingers just like mine.''

Prince William was christened by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Robert Runcie, on the Queen Mother's 82nd birthday on August 4, 1982 in the Music Room at Buckingham Palace.

As naughty as any other youngster, he sometimes played up in public - notably at the Duke of York's wedding, where he pulled faces at the bridesmaids.

He was sent to Mrs Mynor's Nursery School in west London aged three, then Wetherby School and Ludgrove School in Berkshire before attending Eton.

Early school reports showed he had a flair for spelling and was good at sports.

In 1991, he suffered a depressed skull fracture after being hit on the side of the head with a golf club by a friend at school, which has left him with a faint scar on his forehead.

As a teenager, the Prince would, like his mother once did, hide under his floppy blond fringe when confronted by photographers.

His parents' marriage crumbled amid scandal and intense press interest while William was at Eton.

Then on August 31 1997 his mother was killed suddenly in a car crash in Paris,

The Prince of Wales, who was with his sons at Balmoral, let them sleep through the night before breaking the news to them in the morning.

In the aftermath the media agreed to leave the princes alone while they finished their education, meaning news on the boys during their teen years was limited.

At Eton, William went on to gain 10 GCSEs in 1998, with three A*(star) grades, five As and two Bs, and became one of 21 prefects.

In his A-levels he gained an A in Geography, B in History of Art and a C in Biology.

After leaving school, he went on a gap year which included jungle training in Belize with the Welsh Guards and a stint with Raleigh International in Chile.

The Prince was shown tackling domestic chores - making him possibly the first future King to be pictured in rubber gloves scrubbing a toilet floor.

He began his four years at St Andrews university in Scotland in 2001, but stayed away from Freshers Week to avoid the spotlight and later struggled to adjust.

He switched from history of art to geography, got used to the isolated town and began dating flatmate Kate Middleton.

His 21st birthday - an Out of Africa themed do at Windsor Castle - caused a security scare when ''comedy terrorist'' Aaron Barschak gatecrashed the party.

During his final year, news broke that his father was to finally marry his former mistress Camilla Parker Bowles.

William, who acted as a witness on the day, supported his father's decision, knowing Camilla - now the Duchess of Cornwall - made him happy.

He gained a 2:1 in his MA and his graduation was attended by his new stepmother and the Queen.

His first solo foreign tour was to New Zealand in the summer of 2005 when he joined the British Lions to support them in their clashes against the All Blacks.

His first royal patronage was announced the same year - Centrepoint, one of his mother's favourite homelessness charities.

In December 2009, he spent a night sleeping rough on the streets of London after being challenged to do so by Centrepoint.

He is also President of the Football Association and has taken on the numerous other patronages, including Tusk Trust, the African conservation charity favoured by his friend and rumoured ex-girlfriend Jecca Craig.

The Prince has started to carry out royal engagements, but his public appearances remain limited, with his focus being on his military career.

In 2010, he embarked on his first official overseas tour to Australia and New Zealand and by the autumn of that year had graduated as a full-time RAF Search and Rescue helicopter co-pilot.

While his younger brother scuffled with a paparazzi photographer and dabbled with cannabis, the Prince stayed out of trouble in his teenage years and beyond.

When Harry wore a Nazi uniform to a fancy dress party, sensible William went as a lion.

But the royal brothers were united in remembering their mother on the 10th anniversary of her death, holding a concert and a memorial service in her honour.

Their careers initially followed similar paths with William following Harry into Sandhurst to train as an officer in the Army in 2006, and then joining his sibling's regiment, the Household Cavalry's Blues and Royal.

But William later decided to transfer his service to the Royal Air Force and became a full-time co-pilot with the RAF's Search and Rescue Force.

He faced criticism after he landed an RAF Chinook helicopter in a field at Kate's family's house in Bucklebury, Berkshire, while training.

An aviation expert branded the flight ''ridiculous and inappropriate''.

In 2006 the police inquiry into Diana, Princess of Wales's death concluded that the Paris car crash was a tragic accident.

The Princes wanted the findings to bring an end to the speculation surrounding the matter, but this did not happen until the long awaited inquest concluded in 2008 with the jury finding the Princess and her lover Dodi Fayed were both unlawfully killed.

Protective of his wife-to-be, William has been angered by the attention she was receiving from photographers, with aides saying he wanted more than anything for her to be left alone.

Now with Miss Middleton propelled into the spotlight as his wife-to-be, William is unlikely to be able to shake off the press interest which has already shaped his life. ( telegraph.co.uk )

READ MORE - Profile of 'golden boy' Prince William