Writes Elizabeth Bernstein,

We need new rules now. How about these? You can look, but don't make contact. Strike an agreement with your current partner that you will each disclose any Facebook friends you have slept with. Or, like Katie Robinson, limit your online "friends" to people of the same sex. "It is hard enough to have a relationship without the intrusion of people from your past," says Ms. Robinson, a 33-year-old artist in Memphis, Tenn. Some couples share their passwords. "If your bank accounts are common, why not your Twitter and Facebook accounts?" asks Clemson Smith Muñiz, a Spanish-language sports announcer in New York. Sound scary? Mr. Smith Muñiz discovered one of the drawbacks when he checked his Twitter following-which he spent months trying to build-and discovered an alarming trend: It kept shrinking.
At first, he worried that people found him boring and were dropping out. He tried harder to be clever, "tweeting" about Cuban baseball players and his dental problems. He even pleaded for readers: "Follow me and I'll follow you." Then he discovered his problem: his wife."She told me she was going on my account and taking off women she thought were coming on to me," says Mr. Smith Muñiz, 51. She didn't care if they were old girlfriends or porn stars. "She said she doesn't want temptation to be there," he says. (His wife declined to be interviewed.)

Wait, what? This is weird, right? Look, I admit to being somewhat lax in these matters (the one concession I've ever demanded was that a boyfriend not friend a one-night stand with whom he'd cheated on me) but I can't help but wonder: when do rules start to rule you? (Yes, that took a few minutes' thought.) All-female friends? Secret un-following? Hell's no. That's sacred. Trivial and pointless, perhaps, but sacred in some sort of modern irreligious way. Granted, this piece deals exclusively with Boomers who all seem overly involved with the newly-discovered gadgetry and don't share our tacit reluctance to appearing cyber-desperate ("Follow me and I'll follow you?") But seriously, is this a thing? And not just amongst those weird couples who seem to get off on the delusion that their partners are wildly desirable and everyone's constantly hitting on them? I'd always understood these sites to be more-or-less public information; as such, hasn't enough personal editing gone on that more isn't required? And as for those threatened by the presence of exes - well, better the evil you know, surely? As one more cynically-minded friend put it, "it's not like you'll be able to friend them yourself!"

That said, I know reading about cracked fillings in 140 or fewer has me hitting "Direct Messages" every time, so maybe she has a point.

When Old Flames Beckon Online [Wall Street Journal]

Let me start by saying this: I am not a wedding person. While I understand that for many people, a wedding day is a huge deal and a big celebration that they are willing to spend a lot of time and money on, and if that's your thing, good on you, I have never, in my life, dreamed about my wedding day. I may have dreamed about a giant Carvel Fudgie the Whale cake with "A Whale of a Wedding" scrawled on it, but that's about it.

Popular culture is currently filled with Wedding Mania: on any given Saturday, you can probably find at least 800 wedding shows dealing with everything from finding the perfect dress to throwing the perfect reception. Weddings have become a serious business: the average American couple spends at least $28,082 on a single day of celebrating, though one wonders if the economy tanking will finally put an end to such spending. But perhaps the worst part of Wedding Mania is that the true meaning of getting married gets lost.

For example: as soon as I started telling people I was engaged, they had two reactions: 1. "Let me see the ring!" and 2. "Have you set a date yet?!" I understand that these are the standard responses, though my boyfriend, er, fiance, was greeted by "Oh hey, awesome. Congrats," by comparison. For being an Officially Engaged Person of female variety, apparently, means that you're suddenly a walking date book and advertisement for a jewelry store. No longer are you Hortense, girl on the go! No! You're "bride-to-be, who has a big party to plan!" To which I say this: Fuck. That. Noise.

You heard me! Fuck that noise! For one thing, my engagement ring was a Cherry Ring Pop, which, btw, was what I said I wanted nine years ago in a random conversation with my now fiance, who remembered. No, he didn't go to Jared, ok? He went to the candy store. And for that, he rules your face.

Secondly, we DON'T have a date. Because we are busy, and we have lives, and we have only been engaged for a month and we don't feel like planning anything yet. And if we don't end up eloping, which we may, due to this insane pressure to plan plan plan that has suddenly been placed upon us by previously sane friends and family, we're going to throw a wedding/party our way. There will not be fancy invitations. There won't be Save the Date magnets. We're not posing for a couple's portrait at Sears, Mom, because we would NEVER pose for a couple's portrait, EVER, so please stop asking.

All I'm saying is, world, for some Officially Engaged People, the world does not revolve around our upcoming nuptials. Yes, we're excited. And we're happy that you're excited too. But some of us just want to do things our way. We go to your weddings and enjoy the open bar and celebrate your love in the way you've planned it out, so just let us do our own thing, okay? I know that weddings are mass-marketed, and there are expectations placed upon us that society thinks we need to meet, and I am not dumping on people who are really in love and celebrate it in the traditional way, like my older sister did and my younger sister plans to do because that's your thing and it's awesome, and your weddings were and will be fun and beautiful, but for fuck's sake, universe, some of us just don't feel like picking out table settings or touring country clubs or meeting with florists. What is an exciting time of planning and sharing for some couples is a total drag for others, dig?

I am still a go for that Fudgie the Whale cake though. Because that's just classy.

With This Dress I Thee Wed And Wed And Wed [NYTimes]

On MSNBC, Chris Matthews, who can go from curmudgeon to emo in 2.4 seconds when he's excited about something, couldn't stop gushing about our new First Couple, discussing their romance with Jezebel Girl Crush, Rachel Maddow:

MATTHEWS: It’s what my wife calls…She has a term for it. I can’t think of what it is now. It’s different than that. But I must say something, James Carville said politics is Hollywood for ugly people. These people, the actors they hired to play them couldn’t be better looking. I can say that of both families today. This is an incredibly glamourous bunch of people we watched in the reviewing stand today. Extraordinarily so. This picture would be hard to beat if Hollywood replicated it…

RACHEL MADDOW: They are modeling a married romance, that is moving…

MATTHEWS: Looks like two people on top of a wedding cake. Look at this stuff…

MADDOW: They are teasing each other. They are tender — beautiful.

MATTHEWS: This is not a political marriage, per se. No comment further…

At first, I laughed, as it seemed like a very Matthews-in-gushy-mode thing to say. But Rachel's comment about "modeling a married romance" really stuck with me, and when I tried to think of another famous couple in recent years that has really presented a believable and natural sense of true love and romance, it was hard to come up with any.

I always feel weird commenting on the President and First Lady in this way: there is a public interest in this presidency that hasn't been there in some time: we have a rock star leader, a celebrity, a glamorous pair whose every fashion choice seems to be documented. There's a disconnect between the President and his wife and the rest of the celebrity couples out there: celebrity couples often give off a sense of desperation, calculation, and it's hard to believe that any of them will last. The Obamas have already been together for 16 years, before the campaigns and the fancy balls and the international celebrity. And unlike Brangelina or some such, where the speculation and the gossip drowns out any sense of reality, one gets the sense that the Obamas truly are in love.

So the notion that the Obamas are, in fact, modeling a "married romance" doesn't seem too far off the mark. Which is a bit sad if you think about it: in this insanely wedding-obsessed culture we live in, the focus seems to be on the ceremony, and not the marriage itself. We hear all about wedding plans and sappy honeymoons, but rarely do we see an example of a couple who has stood the test of time and still appears to be madly in love with one another, at least not on an extremely public scale.

It's strange to read comments about the Obamas, in that people seem genuinely moved and excited at the prospect of a couple who are still, quite clearly, in love with one another, who still blush when they are dancing, who still smile as if they just met, who still hold hands in public and hold each other's attention, even when the entire world is screaming their names. Perhaps it speaks to a generation such as mine, which was filled with the divorces of many of our parents, that hey! married people can actually make it, that love doesn't necessarily die out or fade away. And while the Obamas certainly never asked to be the symbol of "married romance" perhaps, without even trying, and just by being themselves, they are once again giving off tiny rays of hope.

Matthews: Not A Political Marriage [Columbia Journalism Review]

Take the tale of one poor sap who slipped a ring into a creme brulee:

Smash went the crust. In went the spoon. And before Lopes could say, “Um, I have something to ask you,” his brilliant-cut one-carat surprise went sliding down his intended’s throat. “Our first hug was the Heimlich maneuver,” he recalls. “My advice to a man about to propose is: Use creativity only up to a point. You don’t want your girlfriend to end up in the hospital on her engagement night.”

Beyond the health hazards (and one restaurant has devised "a special plate with a trapdoor and a secret compartment" to avoid these scenarios) there are the less dramatic drawbacks: someone not finishing a dish, so that a ring has to be anticlimactically fished out of the food, or the cases when a woman doesn't feel like ordering her "favorite" dessert, so that an unfortunate waiter is in the position of pressuring her.

Gourmet offers a series of tips to avoid proposal mishaps, several of which are kind of depressing: sit in the center of the room (since presumably anyone making such a public proposal "wants to be seen") and tell your mother-in-law in advance so she'll pick up the tab. Romantic! Oh, and in case you were getting too sentimental, apparently restaurants are just as used to seeing "divorce dinners" as proposals. Fun fact: February 13th is when guys take their mistresses out; they have to save the real thing for their wives. Happy Valentine's Day! Remind me to eat in. [Lovin’ Spoonfuls]

• A new study claims that women who gain too much weight during pregnancy
may have their children grow up to be obese teenagers. • Rice Krispies
celebrated its 80th British anniversary on November 10th, marking the 80th year since the cereal was brought from the U.S. to Britain. • Why are movie trailer narrators overwhelmingly male? • Forensics trainees from
Park Point University in Pittsburgh will re-examine the cold case of accused 19th century parent-killer, Lizzie Borden. • U.S. researchers have found stronger brain activity in women who are ovulating and viewing masculinized male faces. • A 26-year-old woman from Florida who was suspected of abusing her daughter will be given custody of her twin children after a three-judge panel on Wednesday determined that she had made sufficient progress as a parent since her daughter was abused in 2002. • A Dallas-area pastor of a mega-church urged his married congregants on Sunday to have sex with their spouses for 7 days straight. • A urologist from Florida has invented a stealth urinal for men called the UroClub which is designed to look like a 7-iron and fit in a golf bag. • Twin panda cubs who were born at the Adventure World amusement park in Wakayama, Japan in September were named Meihin and Eihin today.• A British couple who met online and played Second Life together are getting divorced after the wife found out her husband's avatar was seeing another (virtual) woman. • Is the spider fear a learned behavior? • Malaysia police say that protests from Katagender and Food Not Bombs regarding the recent Muslim edict against women wearing trousers is a security threat. •

First, here's where Suze is spot on: she says that credit card debt is the worst kind of debt, because it will destroy your credit rating. If you have savings, use them to pay off credit card debt, but you should never, ever raid your 401K. Even if you have to declare bankruptcy, do not take the money out of your 401K, since that money is protected. "That money is going to be there no matter what happens to you in life," Suze says. Also intriguing, Suze advises, "This is a great time to buy a home if, and only if, you get a deal of a lifetime — meaning someone is selling a home for $200,000 and you offer $140,000 and they say yes." Of course, you should only buy a house, even if it is a fantastic deal, if you can put down 20% or more and if you can get a fixed-rate mortgage.

But here's where I think Suze is giving bum advice, or at least advice I believe doesn't work in every circumstance. She doesn't really believe that couples should put all their money in joint checking accounts. Of herself and her partner, Suze says, "K.T. and I have been together for quite a while now, we don't have one joint account. Does it keep us from loving each other totally? No. Would it keep us from stepping in and helping each other? No." I don't think it keeps you from loving each other totally, but I do think not having a shared pot of money can cause a lot of unnecessary strife and haggling over expenses. According to Ms., "Splitting bills down the middle is unfair to the lower earner, says Orman, so she advocates that each person in the relationship pay the same percentage of their individual incomes — say, 25 percent — toward the common bills." I understand the reasoning behind this: half of marriages end in divorce, so even if you think you're going to last forever, there's a good chance you won't. But I picture scenarios like vacations in Cabo where you're wondering who paid for the proper percentage of margaritas, and that's certainly not any way to live.

Fall 2008 [Ms.]

Earlier: The Recession Is Bad For Almost Every Woman But Suze Orman

• The number of HIV infections in gay and bisexual men in China jumped from 0.4% in 2005 to 3.3% in 2007 and women with HIV in Yunnan increased by 27.9%. • A British nurse at a nursing conference has revealed that she gave a disabled teen boy an artificial vagina to ease his sexual frustration. • Indra Nooyi, the chairman and CEO of Pepsi Co. was ranked the most powerful woman of 2008 by Fortune. • A recent Australian study suggests that women who smoke have a greater chance of developing major depressive disorder over non-smoking women. • A Portuguese woman was arrested in England while still in her wedding dress after police spotted her with a man who wasn't her new husband immediately after the ceremony. • A Happiness Index study suggests that Australian men are the happiest while having sex or using the internet while Australian women enjoy eating a meal with family and playing with pets or children. • The London Zoo will seek $10 million to create a new big cat enclosure after it found that a male and female tiger were fighting rather than mating. • A German choir makes a splash at the Cologne Philharmonie with songs made up of grumblings and moans about everyday things. • A 27-year-old Florida woman punched a 17-year-old boy and threatened him with a baseball bat after he refused to hand over the TV remote. • A Washington state man was sentenced to 26 years in federal prison for forcing or manipulating young women into becoming prostitutes—charges that he denies. • A Michigan woman picked her 92-year-old grandma to be her matron of honor at her wedding because she is her "best friend." • Bankruptcy among senior citizens has increased due to the increased presence of debt, rising prices for ordinary consumer products and a lack of a safety net for fixed-income seniors when a medical emergency hits. • British women spend nearly $53 million a year on corrective surgery as a result of wearing high heels for too long and too often. • A 70-year-old woman from Kentucky who took up fencing less than 20 years ago is preparing to compete at the World Cup in Paris for the senior fencing champion title. •

Apparently we're not the only couple who squabble while on (or en route to) vacation, but the reasons discussed in this IHT article about vacations stressing relationships seem more problematic than "planes make me want to die."

"Periods of unstructured time - the break from routine - can play havoc with relationships," Roger Collis writes in the IHT. "If you are used to having time apart, being together all day, every day, for several days can send the best relationship into an acrimonious tailspin." Basically, some couples have structured their daily lives around spending time apart, and sometimes, when they are forced together for extended periods of time, they realize they have nothing in common. D'oh!

Collis gives some suggestions for keeping the peace while on holiday — Agree on things beforehand! Try something different! — but mostly you're just supposed to "expect the unexpected, and for things to go wrong." And when things do go wrong, at least it makes for a good anecdote. Like the time the dude and I went for a romantic weekend in Newport, Rhode Island…which was romantic until he got the flu and was delirious in bed and I was in the hallway yelling at the drunken sailors who were having a semi-formal in the hotel ballroom and decided to run through the hotel screaming at 2 am. Romantical!

Honey, Did You Pack The Divorce Papers? [IHT]
Earlier: How Do You Break The Poop Ice With A New Paramour?

The couple also admit to a hands-on physical relationship that they describe as intense but chaste. Mr. Roach compares it to the relationship his mother had with her doctor when she was dying of breast cancer. "The surgeon lay his hand on her breast, but there wasn't any carnal thought in his mind," he said. "He was doing some life-or-death thing. For us it is the same."

"He is a good guy and learned person, but the Bill Clinton question lingers over him," [prominent American Buddhist Lamya Surta Das] said of Mr. Roach. "He is with a much younger blond bombshell. What is a deep relationship that is not sexual? It is hard to understand."

Buddhist Teachers Make Their Own Limits In A Spiritual Partnership [NY Times]

Some of the major problems between co-sleepers include snoring, kicking, and wrestling for the covers — but on a more basic level, each person has a different body clock, and some people are morning people (called "larks" by sleep experts) and some are night people (called owls). All of this is clearly common sense, but the Times called in sleep expert Sammy Margo to give a couple called the Millards some advice on how to deal with an owly husband and a wife who is neither lark nor owl.

Mr. Millard sounds like a total neurotic who has trouble sleeping, in part, because he's always worrying about shit. Mr. Margo tells him to quit the caffeine after lunch, eat foods low on the glycemic index, gnaw on turkey, Marmite, spinach, or any other food with tryptophan in it, and take a warm bath right before bed,. Mr. Millard wanted to follow Margo's advice, but he ended up lying awake and worrying about the advice instead! (Though he did appreciate the warm bath and eating more veggies.)

But enough about those boring old marrieds. The studies quoted by the Times also show that Lezebels have the best sleep among couples. "Sleep conflicts seem to be bound up with fundamental biological and behavioural differences between the sexes," says the Times. "For example, when Professor Jim Horne, the director of the Loughborough University Sleep Research Centre, attached movement monitors to men and women sleepers, he found that men moved much more than women and were far more likely to disturb women than the other way round." Ergo, two women sleeping together wouldn't cause each other much disturbance at all.

As for me and my old man, we made some compromises that helped us not kill each other at bedtime. We got two separate comforters so we weren't warring over one and I (theoretically) agreed to a lights off at midnight policy. There's something kind of lonely about the idea of a couple sleeping apart, though I know a lot of happy couples who do it. Does it work for any of you?

Sleeping Apart; The Key To A Happy Marriage [Times of London]
Twin Beds May Benefit Marriages [UPI]

Earlier: Can You Get A Decent Night's Sleep With A Loved One In Bed?

Having a large social network is also advantageous for a single person's health, but a contented single still does not have the blood pressure of a happily married person, the study showed.

You know what does elevate general health regardless of marital status? Sharing good news, says Science Daily. So don't be bashful about shouting the news of your promotion or that fancy new vibrator you discovered from the rooftop... or at least the bed-top.

Happy Marriage, Better Blood Pressure [CBS News]
Happily Marrieds Have Lower Blood Pressure Than Social Singles [Science Daily]

Unfortunately, the report also found that there is still a gender gap for "invisible" household work: Women still do the majority of the management stuff, like scheduling children's medical appointments, buying gifts for birthday parties, arranging holiday gatherings, etc. Still, the overall findings in the report suggest that couples are moving towards more equitable partnerships. "The younger set of dads have their own expectations about themselves as to being helpful and participatory," says Carol Evans, founder and CEO of Working Mother magazine. "They haven't quite gotten to equality in any sense that a women would say, 'Wow, that's equal,' but they've gotten so much farther down the road."

But is the media trying to convince men that dirty dishes = potential blow job? Do men who do housework get laid more? Is it because they're not selfish jerks? Do you think we'll ever get to place where all men and women share the housework (visible and invisible!) equally? Or are there some things that will always be "the woman's job"?

Men Who Do Housework May Get More Sex [Yahoo! News]
Honey, You're Out Of Date: Why Men No Longer Want A 1950s Wife [Daily Mail]
Today's Perfect Wife: A Good Cook Who Argues [Telegraph]

Related: A Fifties Wife? No Thanks, I've Got One [Daily Mail]

Earlier: Is A Hot Guy Hotter When He's Doing Your Laundry?
The Porn Ultimatum

Interestingly, yesterday morning, the Today Show was all over what they've dubbed the "thermostat wars", interviewing a number couples on the street about their sleep habits. ("I'm always hot, he's always cold," one woman declared. "He usually just does what I want, and that solves [the temperature problem] just fine.") Then Meredith Vieira interviewed psychologist Jeff Gardere, who threw out some stats, like that fact that 75% of women like their sleep environments warm, while only 25% of men do. He goes on to say that men are hotter because they have a higher body mass and a higher metabolism, so their "furnace burns" much more. Then Gardere added: "Women have higher body fat. Wink wink." (Wink wink? Is he verbally winking because body fat = boobs? Or because he's afraid Meredith is going to yell at him for talking about female fat? It was weird.)

Anyway, the Today Show's solution to a détente in the thermostat wars? "Spend your way out of this argument!" The show suggested number of products, some useful, like "Split the Sheets" bedding made of half flannel and half cotton, some outlandishly expensive, like Vera Wang's Serta natural foam bed, and some ridiculously obvious, like flannel PJ's. Short of purchasing new bedding or shooting up a flat screen TV, what's the answer to brokering peace in a shared bed?

Fight Over Heat Makes Wife Hot [CBS News]
Video: Hot and Cold in the Bedroom? [Today]
Tips On How To Rest In Temperature Peace [MSNBC]

"Looks are an issue," says Sarah, 42, an administrator who joined Kupple.com with her husband, Pete, a managing director, after children, long hours and relocations for work affected their social life. "Neither of us goes for very obviously good-looking people, anyway - and I can tell from the photo that the husband we are meeting next is not my type - so it is not a problem for us. But I suppose if there were already holes in your relationship, it could make you vulnerable."

Strictly Platonic Affairs [Telegraph]