I kept waiting for the joke, and then I realized this was you being genuine and sweet. I don't know what to do with myself now.

Sorry, I thought it was clear I was just addressing the years when the child is still in infancy! (Since that's what Tracie was discussing.)

She's bitching at the unfairness of nature here, not at specific male actions. I think you misread.

I'd imagine that the hardest part of fathering a child is feeling like you're not the primary parent. Your child needs its mother, and you're just the dude who's mopping up shit. Your wife is going through physical/emotional changes and crises every second, and you know you can't understand any of it. People assume…

But it's still there. When a white kid with Asperger's gets bullied at the school I work at, it's categorized as "bullying." When it's a black kid, we have a long conversation about whether it's gang-related. Both kids are victims. One still has privilege.

Warning — huge sweeping gender generalizations ahead:

Depends on how entertaining they are, I think. I have a friend who is a totally selfish conversationalist, but she always has some crazy risqué hilarious adventure that just happened. She also does awesome impressions of mutual friends. I don't mind that she talks 90% of the time when we interact.

The repeating story is the thing that gets me. Seriously, I invested the time in hearing and empathizing and providing advice/consoling words when necessary—and you don't even fucking remember it? I've talked a coworker through the same breakup like three times now.

I don't get hit up for Kickstarter projects, but about half of my friends list are teachers, and someone's always got a Donors Choose project. At some point, I think I've donated enough to my friends' classrooms that I wouldn't need to set up a Donor's Choose account for myself, were it not for the fact that I'm…

I hate that! And then you start becoming more facile and weird and uninteresting because you just can't find the rhythm of the conversation, and before you know it, you're telling the most dry story about the time you thought your car broke down (but it didn't) or saying shit that just isn't true because you can't…

Really? I feel like "Sounds good!" is a conversation-killer. Interrogating what I say and having good-natured debates about little things (like a new iPhone, or whether there's any good Chinese in the Southwest, or what's the stupidest show on the CW) is how fun conversations are born.

Can I say how much I appreciate banter/verbal sparring as a form of flirtation? I spent high school and half of college doing everything Seventeen and CosmoGirl told you to! (Basically: flattery, fake laughter, and nonstop questioning about his life/goals/aspirations.) Conversations would peter out, and I was bored…

Yeah, I think he was a wonderful figure to be at the forefront of discussions of this tragedy. I felt like he was saying exactly the appropriate things at every step of the way. Now I'm keeping my fingers crossed he takes the right actions, too.

I'd quiet right down, too. The rumbling melodious voice and the confident way he's holding her? Those are baby skills.

I don't know if that negative cast you're putting on it is really deserved. The publishing house isn't saying that they think the book is any good; they're just giving the author the means to get it in print. If the would-be author has such faith in his own work that he wants to shell out the money and put it on…

Is it rare for most publishing houses to have a vanity press imprint? I mean, they clearly regulate use of the Penguin name—note that where it says "Publisher," it says "AuthorHouse" instead of Penguin—and I assume that they don't give them any editorial services, because they didn't have to make it through the slush…

Yeah, I sure wanted to pick up a copy after reading this excerpt. I hear Jezebel readers were his target market!

I think it's one of those stupid romantic comedy things. I know a lot of people who distinguish between former boyfriends by saying, "I loved this guy and this guy, but I wasn't IN LOVE until I met this guy." The idea being that she's loved all her boyfriends, but it wasn't a special kind of love until she met Her…

"These are the reasons why most women find themselves heartbroken, frustrated, and losing sleep. They don't know the difference and are unaware."

I don't know if we should write off the idea of a one-night stand as a great way to experience your first time. I know that I was already so anxious and uncertain about losing my virginity that I don't know if I could have been able to go through with it if I'd had the additional pressure associated with having a…