They could have chosen to either keep the sunniness and ditch the "shadowy forces haunting Michael" or keep the shadowy forces and ditch the sunniness. I think a lot of us would've preferred the first approach.

I guess you could expect him to cover the backing beat, but that strikes me as a bit unreasonable.

With online dating, someone's lack of interest could be due to innumerable factors.  There are probably things you could improve about your profile or conversation.  But those women who stopped talking to you may have just found you unattractive/not their type and talked to you only as long as they had because you…

Dated because it was written in a way that was popular at the time but is now considered substandard/lazy/hackish?  Or just that you listened to it a lot back then and haven't for a long time, so it was what music sounded like to you back then?

To be totally clear, my argument is not that the kid should tell anyone outside of a romantic partner.  My argument is that hearing his parent say something like that, which is kind of obvious advice, would unnecessarily shame him.  The countervailing risk is that it might not be obvious advice to a teenager.

I can't tell if I think this is great advice or unnecessary shame.  On the one hand, it's not the sort of thing that you want to get out, although you could just deny it and say that it's a vindictive ex and people will probably believe you.  On the other, he's probably ashamed/mortified enough that he wouldn't share…

Is it possible that he meant "Emperor's New Groove"?

Again, are you talking about the military couple?  They *already have* an open marriage.  Why are you so judgmental about their relationship?  

Which letter is this in reference to?  The military couple with an open relationship?

I think there's some chance that they stole two of their jokes from "Ironically" by the Doubleclicks, which discusses the same phenomenon.