It's not even December, but the "aggravating trends in holiday commercials" list is already filling itself out quite nicely, and right behind the chart-topping scourge of twee that is Pomplamoose has to be the surge in ads for diamond merchants like Jared, Zales, and Kay, all of which have decided that the best way for a man to celebrate the season is to put a sparkly ring on his intended's finger. But all these ads are doing for me, a red-blooded American female, is solidifying my belief that that I never want someone in a relationship with me to feel like they have to "propose." READ MORE

Here is an advice-seeking letter from a single lady who is being somewhat self-deprecating about her choices regarding relationships, and who is wondering if maybe the problem is her. In the opening paragraph she notes that in the past she has looked for "someone who likes competing in triathlons and baking pistachio biscotti, who would consider moving to Botswana for a few years with me as a development worker or researcher, who eschews motorized vehicles and television and prefers bicycles and books, and who can make a witty reference to Kant and macaques in a single sentence, without too much effort and without sounding smarmy." Now, if that bit was the entire letter, sure, this woman sounds somewhat garden-variety special-snowflakey in that "Let me give you a Moo Card with my Etsy site's URL" way. But in the paragraphs following she notes that maybe she is expecting too much by wanting that whole package, given her own tendencies toward sloth and lateness and impatience and other general imperfections, and that perhaps she is avoiding intimacy by creating a checklist that is not dissimilar to the ones presented by online personal sites, only with more personalized features. And it sort of gives her checklist a bit more of a humorous edge! READ MORE