My brother did this throughout high-school. He was never one for breakfast, and my parents figured that it was better to have a piece of (very thick and apple-y!) apple pie than nothing/than waiting until he got to school to eat something from the cafeteria.

The whole thing sounds insanely incestuous to me. I'm all for parents discussing sex, including abstinence, with their children (to help them think through the many decisions they will have to make) but the whole production, the wedding-like trappings, the pledge, just no. *shudder*

I know that I shouldn't be judging an entire relationship on the basis of a single moment, but I find it really striking that the man busily discussing how having a strong father-daughter relationship will help her have better reltationships as an adult (true!) basically ignores her as she holds the door for him,…

Similar experience here. I abstinated my way through high-school and college (and basically avoided any and all physical contact, and any and all flirting, etc.). People who identified as feminists were by far the most accepting and respectful of those choices, because they weren't working on a single model of what…

I think that the problem isn't that he is bad at reading social cues, it's that he feels entitled to have others conform to his misinterpretations. I have a friend who uses similar tricks because she has Asperger's and can't read people well at all. Sure, it can lead to slightly awkward situations until you figure out…

The distinction drawn above between "cultural behavior" and "mental behavior" portrays the two things as distinct and irreconcilable, which isn't really accurate. Pretty much all psychiatric illness involves a cultural dimension. The disease isn't less real or less mental because it manifests itself in ways that are…

College-town bar expeditions are so complicated. In my area it's almost impossible to go to a concert or other similar event without drunkenly running into drunken students. This is an ongoing source of worry in my life, because I'm terrible with faces and terrified of accidentally dancing/making out with a student.

Not me either. I'm a grad student. I've been in school for a long time, with all kinds of teachers - many amazing, passionate, interesting people... and no crushes ever.

I agree. TAs and students interact very closely, and on a very regular basis. It's rarer for profs and students (at least in the first few years of their degree) to interact that closely. If we weren't honest about our work, we could easily give good marks to poor students, and probably fail a good student. It's still…

Perhaps - It is definitely a campus classic at my (Canadian) university.

I agree completely. I'm a grad student, and I've been teaching for a few years and interacting with peers, profs, and students... and I can count instances where students might have been flirting on the fingers of one hand. . I have, however, noticed many behaviours that could be misinterpreted as flirting by someone…

Yes! This is why it's never a good idea. It messes up the dynamic for everyone who comes after the affair has ended.

Exactly. They will eventually know that you don't love them anymore, and that you didn't want to spend the holidays with them. The only choice here is whether you want to learn the horrible news after having spent time that you will always regret and question together, or before spending that time together.

Don't get your future ex a vibrator. Especially not if sex was always a tension point in your relationship. They will resent you and leave it in your bedroom to be (hopefully) discovered by future flames, leading to uncomfortable discussions at inappropriate moments.

Same. I still haven't figured out what my type is, or if I have one, but those men, albeit probably very nice people, mostly seem bland to me.

And we are now (finally!) publicly recognizing that suicides have happened when they do, instead of keeping things quiet and having children inexplicably stop attending school, or of alluding to vague accidents and keeping things quiet.

On the last point - yes, that sort of taunting (probably not the right word) is extremely abusive and should be punished!

I think that the cautions you raise are really important ones, because a badly designed program could indeed victimize already abused children by making them feel responsible for, or deserving of, what happened to them. Your description of the different risks of a poorly designed or implemented prevention program…

Yes - I was shocked to find how nice and helpful people are now that I'm an adult, experiencing things that are only a fraction of what I dealt with on a day-to-day basis as a child. Some of it has to do with the availability of services (e.g. campus health centres, insurance plans that cover therapists/psychiatrists'…

I love the idea of DUI-style checkpoints for bullying - get people talking and thinking about how to create a better kind of environment instead of waiting until things degenerate horribly!