My sister met her husband when he was living with (not married to) another woman. In short he cheated. My sister wasn't satisfied with a one-night stand, however, and she ultimately confronted him about it months later (after she'd found out about the girlfriend). He said to her "Do you like me?" and when she gave…

The fasces, which symbolized the powers of the consuls, praetors etc; the origin of the word "fascism".

I'm always surprised at how taboo this word is considering it's been around in English for at least 800 years, wasn't originally considered to be vulgar, and was also part of several other Germanic languages.

Sorry that was intended as a reply to Outspacer's original post! My disqus is acting up this morning.

It was a terrible thing to say but let's make allowances for her being in a stressful, embarrassing situation and the letter doesn't give much detail about what else was being said by the two of them leading up to it. I know I've said a few things in the bedroom that I immediately regretted, especially when I was…

One sentence, grammatically incorrect = 0%. I'm a hard marker, especially towards people throwing stones in glass houses.

By the time I was in my early thirties my three cardinal dating rules were: 1. Complete break with exes; 2. Never move in with someone you're dating (as opposed to engaged or married to); 3. Never date someone for longer than a year (because I wanted to get married and have kids one day and at that age twelve months…

If you are using classic spring loaded traps then bait them with peanut butter and place about 6-8 of them against a wall you know he goes past (as I'm sure you know, they crap every few inches or so, so you should have no trouble figuring this out) *all in a row touching each other*, with the bait side closer to the…

Alas there is probably a positive correlation between smartest-person-in-the-room-syndrome and actual intelligence.

I think it usually springs from "always have to be the smartest person in the room syndrome" which I guess exists everywhere. And which I take to be a sign of insecurity.

Ah gotcha, no, I didn't mean to single out her choice of columnists as relevant.

Hmm, apparently PhDs and lawyers have more in common than I thought!

First Point: not sure I follow you. My lack of sympathy has nothing to do with her sexual orientation? If you're saying that the problems caused by her social ineptitude are exacerbated by the fact that she's a lesbian (and therefore she's already working with a much smaller dating pool), then I agree with that.

I get it and that's fine but if she wants to be such a book snob then I have little sympathy for her when she writes to Dan Savage moaning about the paucity of suitable partners. So I'm on a first date with an English professor and I kind of expose myself by confessing to enjoying a kids' fantasy/mystery series and…

Pride & Prejudice. Very funny, and timeless.

I say next class you give her a nice smile when you see her and say "How's it going?" And maybe take your cue from there. If she doesn't seem interested then we know you're good at minding your own business and one attempt at starting a conversation is hardly harassment. Communal places are precisely where social…

When I started dating Mrs Rabbit she got me to watch a season of America's Next Top Model with her. Most of the time we were making fun of it. We had a bet about who would win that I won hands-down, accurately predicting the ultimate winner and two of the next three runners-up in the opening episode. It was a…

You sound like the best kind of PhD to me, if I may be so bold. The other kind are in my experience usually some combination of unpleasantly blind/intolerant/boring in areas outside their own subject.

I looked this up to see where exactly we are at on this in Canada. In a 1998 case called Cuerrier, the Supreme Court of Canada considered an HIV-fraudulently-obtained-consent situation and set aside the acquittal and ordered a new trial. It considered the possibility of arguments that lies about job status, wealth,…

I share your discomfort but I would like to correct a small mistake in your post. The prosecutors did a deal with Homolka to convict Bernardo who, aside from the murders, was also suspected to be the Scarborough Rapist, a serial rapist with over a dozen victims. They didn't think they could prove their case against…