You’ve probably heard of the book He’s just not that into you by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo. The worst is when you break up with a guy who is not that into you and then you see him happily hooked up with someone he is that into.

Then you start wondering what it is she has that you don’t have. And then you go out and buy a lot of ice cream. Occasionally though, girls run into a guy who’s just not that into anybody. The first thing you might think is, this guy is a player. A lot of times you would be right, but every once in a while, what you have on your hands is a serial dater.

Serial Dater?

The difference between a player and a serial dater is one of intent. Players plan to stick around for a good time, not a long time. Serial daters don’t plan on making a speedy exit. They just do. Unlike players, serial daters only date one girl at a time and there is a good stretch of time in between each relationship. And every relationship they jump into usually follows the same pattern …

1. Meet
2. Date for a while
4. Breakup
5. Guilt

Serial daters hit a wall that stops the relationship in it’s tracks. Sometimes they feel insecure about themselves or where they are in their lives. Sometimes they’re perfectionists and have a checklist of impossible characteristics they’re looking for in a lifelong mate. Either way, they are usually the ones who end a relationship, although sometimes they might force you to end it by making themselves increasingly distant and inaccessible.

How To Spot A Serial Dater

In many ways he seems a lot like a player but there are some key differences. Players never have much time for you, don’t have much respect for you, and they have one goal that involves boots and knocking. Serial Daters are great boyfriends - if only for a little while. They like doing new and interesting things. They like spending time actually talking to you.

To spot a serial dater you’re going to have to get him to tell you about his past girlfriends or talk to his friends and see if he has a history filled with lots of short sporadic relationships.

What Do You Do With A Guy Who Is Just Not That Into Anybody?

The easy answer is, move on. The hard answer is, be impossibly perfect and convince him that he is too. There really isn’t too much you can do because guys who are not that into you or anybody else tend to be really good at sabotaging their relationships to get out of them.

Yikes! This is one of those scary areas in life that sparks off a million other questions. Should it be a big gift? Small? How much to spend? What do you think you’re going to recieve back? What message does the gift send - does it say this is a serious relationship? Too serious?

Finding a great gift for someone is hard enough, but trying to buy one for that certain someone that you haven’t known that long can be almost impossible. Maybe that’s why May-December romances end in December! The first thing to do is de-stress yourself. Whatever you like to do to turn down the stress level, do that first. The next thing to do is look at this fledgling relationship from an objective point of view to figure out where it’s at.

Here are some things you want to consider and they’re all yes or no questions:

1. Are you spending the holidays together?
2. Are you spending them with their family or yours?
3. Any talk of future plans?
4. Do you spend a lot of time together now?
5. Did you know each other as friends before you got together?
6. Is this person thoughtful or romantic in general?
7. Do you buy little things for each other sometimes for no reason?
8. Is this the time to take the relationship another step forward?

After you have an answer to all the questions, you have a pretty good barometer on how serious, intimate and involved the relationship is. On a scale from one to eight, you can add a point for every question where the answer is yes. The higher the score, the bigger the gift. Or the more intimate - however you want to look at it.

If you get a score of three or less, it’s time to de-stress again!

Spending the holidays with your family is something most people look forward to. And then there are a few who dread the very thought of it. Have you ever asked “your parents are coming here this year?” with a tone that made it sound like “there’s a meteor headed towards Earth and we’re all going to die?”.

There are inlaws whose sole purpose in life is to take you to the edge of insanity. There are the parents who never felt you were good enough to marry their baby. There is the brother-in-law whose life was the inspiration for You, Me and Dupree. There is the little sister-in-law whose personal mission is digging up dirt about you. Or making it up if necessary.

As much as you might like to spend the entire holiday liquored up, there are some better options that don’t involve building a protective shield out of martini olives. You can bulletproof yourself from all the crazy inlaw antics easily with just a little planning. Here’s how:

Plan Some Away Time

Try to get away for a few hours each day or even most of the day once in awhile. Put together an event schedule for yourself that includes visiting friends, getting out to do some charity work, shopping and whatever else you can think of. The key is to enjoy these little breaks and not spend them fuming over the fact that you’re least favorite in-law berated everything you prepared for dinner or put the cat in the dishwasher.

This is always a little risky, but you could try planning some away time for your in-laws. Or try taking them shopping with you. Hey, it’s a big mall. You got separated, forgot they were with you and left them there. It happens … wink wink

Kill Them With Kindness

Adversarial people love poking at others to get a reaction. If you give them a different reaction than what they’re looking for you can shut down their tactics. Get yourself into the playing stupid zone. No matter what they say or do, be nice and pour it on thick. Do extra little things to be helpful like washing and drying their favorite wool sweater. It looked a little big on them anyway.

Get The Goods On Them

Guaranteed, your inlaws have secrets they don’t want anyone to know about. Especially you.

Pay attention. Look fo little clues. Dig deep into the things they don’t like talking about. Once the find the ammunition you need you can hold them hostage with it or start firing back.

Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff

Okay, everything here is all meant to be in good fun. The truth is, most of the time people don’t get along because they don’t understand one another. Don’t sweat it. Be yourself. Keep an open mind and give your crazy inlaws some time to get comfortable with the idea that you’re part of the family now.

If you’ve been working like a dog all year and haven’t had time to stop and smell the roses, now’s the time to get away. A lot of businesses other than retail are slow around the holidays so it’s a great time for many people to take a few days and get out of town. A romantic getaway during the holidays will recharge your batteries and your relationship before you head into the new year.

The best places to go

Think ski resorts. Whistler and Aspen have evrything you could ever want for a romantic holiday. Or you can check out any one of hundreds of other resorts at ifyouski.com.

Whether you want to lock yourselves away in the hotel for some serious downtime or hit the slopes all day and the clubs all night, resort towns have it all. A lot of them have world class accomodations, dining, and shopping too. With so many options it’s easy to find just the right mix of relaxation and fun.

The best time to go

The best time to get away for a few days over the holidays is between Christmas and New Years. That way you can take care of all the family festivities and then be on your way. It also leaves you the option of extending your holiday away past New Years. This is a great idea if you’re going to a resort town because they always an assortment of New Years celebrations from parties and nightclubs to fireworks.

What you need for a romantic getaway

• Reservations. December is a little late to be making reservations but don’t be deterred. There are hotels, chalets, condos, and bed & breakfast spots and they all have last minute cancellations. Hunt around and you might even find a good deal.
• Snow. You absolutely have to have it. It makes that roaring fireplace, the steamy hottub, and those midnight walks that much sweeter.
• Great food. Find all the great restaurants that you want to check out where you’re going. And find the quality take-out and delivery joints. You  can kick back with a couple bottles of wine and get some food delivered if you feel like spending a romantic evening at your chalet instead of going out. If you do a quick grocery run once you get to your destination, you van grab an armload of indulgent snacks and some bubbly.
• Gifts. Save an extra little after-Christmas gift to give to your partner on the trip. It makes a nice surprise.

Most offices have all the ingredients needed to spark a romance. In fact, you’ll find a lot of the same elements in an office that make high school and college the fertile dating grounds that they are. Every office romance has the potential to end badly. They can destroy careers or make a once great working environment intolerable. Finding your perfect soulmate at work is also possible - just ask Bill and Melinda Gates.

Although many companies and employers have rules against dating in the office, they usually only manage to protect the company against litigation and dissuade people from inappropriate flirting. Rarely will they stop two people from starting a romance once the chemistry between them takes charge. The best thing that you can do is be aware of the risks and the benefits of romantic relationships at work and figure out how it will affect your work, your career, and how those things will affect the relationship itself. Then you can decide whether it’s the right thing to do.

How office romances happen

When men and women spend forty or more hours a week together they get to know each other pretty well after working together every day for several months. You get to see each others strengths, weaknesses and everything in between. After awhile we all tend to gravitate towards people who share similar interests, a similar outlook on life, or a sense of humor that never fails to make us smile. All this time we spend with the people we work with is the first part of the equation.

You probably spend more hours each week with your coworkers than you do with your friends or going out to socialize and meet new people. That’s the second part of the equation. It’s pretty simple - you’re most likely to find a romantic spark in amongst the group of people that you spend the most time with. Especially if it’s a large office with a diverse collection of people.

The single biggest advantage to love that starts in the workplace is all the time you’ve spent getting to know each other. You already know what it’s like to spend a lot of time with them - maybe even in high pressure or competitive situations. You both know all the same inside jokes. You might even share your individual strengths to manage the work load more easily.

Bad ideas for office romance

There are a lot of things that can go wrong when you’re sleeping and working with someone. Here’s a list of things to be aware of, and to try to avoid.

• One of you might have to fire or demote the other, or you might both be competing for the same promotion.
• A personal relationship can create favoritism for your partner that leaves others you work with disillusioned. On the other hand, you’ll both expect a certain sense of loyalty and inner circle treatment and disrespecting that will hurt the relationship. This is a difficult thing to balance and can force you into having to make very difficult choices.
• Spending all day and all night with each other can get on anyone’s nerves after awhile. Every couple needs some down time to hang out with other friends or enjoy personal pursuits. And all the time spent together at work may not count as the real quality time that you need to spend with each other to really enjoy your relationship.
• Rumors and gossip will start to spread as soon as the office chatterbox spots those innocent smiles you throw at each other that aren’t so innocent. If you manage to keep your dating a secret then the flirtations of other people in the office towards one of you could spark jealousy or even confrontation.
• If you break up, and especially if it’s messy or sudden, your workday could turn into eight hours of absolute hell. Sometimes the best thing you can do is throw yourself into your work after a breakup to move on and get your mind onto more productive things. That’s not going to help you if you have to see this person every day.

Office romance etiquette

• Always be professional at work. Kissing, flirting or talking relationship stuff is only going to annoy or distract everyone else. And it will make the higher ups question your ability to focus on the job.
• Don’t put little hugs and kisses on memos or in your emails to each other and never talk about personal plans or intimate encounters. A lot of companies monitor email to monitor worker productivity. They also store copies of emails and instant messages in case they need a record of internal or external communications for a legal dispute.
• Never gossip with each other about anyone you work with or about the clients, suppliers or other companies your company does business with. If the relationship goes sour, this will come back to haunt you in a big way. It could destroy your career and your options for finding employment elsewhere if you can’t continue to work with each other.
• Sooner or later everyone will find out what’s going on. If the relationship is serious then it’s often best to demystify the speculation and let everyone know that you’re dating. Don’t make a big production out of it - just state the facts briefly and segway the conversation back to work related topics. Keep the private details private.

Office romances are like any other romance - some turn out great and some don’t. The best advice is to take it slow and get a feel for the good things and the bad things that might come with it, and how you’ll handle the road ahead no matter what happens. Hopefully, your next step will be to figure out how to make moving in together work.

If you’ve been married for a while or have a long term boyfriend, you might think about going on a blind date with them just to spice things up a bit and keep it interesting. One of the worst things for a relationship is falling into the grind. An everyday routine that after a while, just isn’t fun anymore. So every once in awhile it’s good to monkey around and do something a little off the wall to keep the journey interesting.

A fun thing you can do is schedule a blind date. Unless you’re really good at creating a character and your partner is keen enough to catch on to what’s going on this can’t really be a surprise. You’re going to have to talk about it and put a plan together. What you need basically is a time, a place, and if you want to make it really fun, throw together some role-playing ideas.

Scheduling the blind date

You could decide on a specific night to go on you blind date or you could leave it open and leave it up to one of you to initiate a chance meeting anytime during the day or evening of the following week. The chance meeting scenario is fun because it builds up some anticipation for one of you and lets the other exercise some creativity to plan out how this chance meeting is going to happen.

If you do this then there should be some kind of signal where the person in charge of initiating the date is wearing something special that will signal that this is the chance meeting and the blind date is starting. It’s best to plan for the date to last a day or an evening, but if you want to  make a crazy weekend out of it then remember that you’re probably going to fall out of character at some point. This can be fun too if you put together some kind of penalty for falling out of character before the date is over.

Meeting your date

If you’re going to set a day and time for the date, it’s generally a great idea to meet somewhere that neither of you have been before. Some place out of the way a ways - you don’t want to run into some friends who’ll recognize you and spoil the whole fun of you both acting like you’ve just met. The easiest place to randomly meet might be a restaurant lounge or pub but it can be just about anywhere. It could be in the parking lot after work or a lonely stretch of beach.

One great idea is to meet somewhere and go on a spur of the moment road trip overnight or for the weekend. Don’t pack a suitcase, just go, and get what you need along the way.

Get into character

This is what makes the blind date so much fun and what holds the whole idea together. Each of you should create a character and don’t tell the other what your character’s name is or what their background is until you meet for the date. The better you can pull this off, the more fun you’re going to have.

Think of a theme. You could do a James Bond theme and create a whole “we’re being chased by spies” story. Whatever it is, create a little backstory for your character and have fun with it. Your character should be amazing and bigger than life. If you can put together some costumes or wear something completely different than what you normally would, you will really bring your character to life.

Go to a vintage store and get all swanked up like Bonnie and Clyde - just don’t get too wrapped up in your characters and go on a robbery spree!

You’ve heard the old fairytale … the princess kisses the frog and the frog turns into a handsome prince. Well sometimes, the frog is just a frog.

How do you figure this out? Easy. Give your frog, I mean guy, a chivalry test. Now you won’t find too many guys thowing their coats down over a mud puddle so you can walk over it without getting your shoes dirty. That sort of went out of style with dirt roads thanks to pavement. You will find lots of other things though. Hopefully.

The Questions

1. You get flowers for no reason. Or a CD you were talking about. Maybe he throws together a gourmet dinner out of the blue. Nothing big, just little surprises that always put a smile on your face.
2. He opens the door for you. Not that you can’t do it, but he always seems to be there first.
3. He carries stuff for you. If you have three big bags that you’re struggling with, he’ll grab two of them.
4. Words like please and thankyou are not foreign to him.
5. Understanding time is easy for him. If he says he will call or show up at a certain time, he does. If he’s late, it’s because he stopped along the way to rescue three kittens and an old lady from a burning building.
6. Even though the TV is blaring, he still listens to every word you say, and responds. If he turns it off because he would rather have a conversation, add two points.
7. The adventures he takes you on include things that are interesting to you too. Maybe he has some favorite things to do, but once in awhile, if not often, he likes to do something different.
8. He doesn’t just act chivalrous when other people are around or when he’s told or when he knows he’s in the doghouse. He does it just because that’s who he is.
9. Bonus question! He throws his coat down over mud puddles so you can walk over them without getting your shoes dirty.

Each question is worth 1 point if you answered yes. Question number six could be worth up to 2 points. Add up all the points and see whether you have a frog or a prince.

The Scoring

0 to 2 points - No prince here, just a regular frog
3 to 6 points - If you try really hard, you could turn this frog into a prince.
7 to 9 points - Yep, you found a prince!
10 points - This prince will be king one day

Are you a confident dater? If so, that’s too bad because being a little nervous always brings more excitement - and it’s perfectly natural. Of course, if you find yourself hyperventilating into a paper bag and forgetting your own name then it’s time to pull it together. It’s time to stop worrying about being too-much-this or not-enough-that because truthfully, your date is just as nervous as you are. They just might be better at not letting it show.

Here are the 5 rules for defeating dating anxiety:

1. Have an exit strategy. Especially on blind dates because, just like a box of chocolates … you never know what you’re going to get. Know the 5 Rules for getting out of a bad date.
2. Stop. Now breath. Anxiety is like the tide. Once it starts coming, the waves keep rolling in, and once it starts to recede, it keeps going out. The difference is, you can’t stop the tide from coming in. If you’re running around before your date arrives and everything is going wrong then don’t keep doing that. Just stop. Breath. Let the tide go out. Relax or meditate for ten minutes and you’ll find the fresh perspective you need.
3. The 2 second rule. If you’ve already met your date, then the hard part is already over. As Malcolm Gladwell wrote in his book Blink, people get their first impressions of each other in as little as 2 seconds. You’ve already made your first impression. So if you’ve got a date, it was a good one. Be yourself and there isn’t too much that can go wrong. If you’re meeting this person for the first time … well, that’s what your exit strategy is for.
4. Communicate. Tell your date that you’re a little nervous and they should expect you to act like a monkey-butt. A little truth and comedy goes a long way.
5. Laugh later. Very few things in life are so important that you can’t laugh about them later. In fact, a lot of happy marriages started with a dating disaster. And no matter how sour a date goes, you always learn something about dating, about people, and about yourself. Plus, you have a story to tell and your friends will be there to support you and laugh with you at all of it.

The test: Are all your friends saying the same thing?

What does someone do when everyone is telling them that their new crush is completely wrong for them? Usually … they ignore everyone. And then when the relationship goes bad, they kick themselves for not seeing it coming. There’s a reason this happens and it’s called chemistry.

Sometimes there’s no easy way to describe why we really like someone or fall in love except to call it chemistry. When it just just clicks and feels right, that’s the chemistry talking. And our brains do a little dance thanks to things like pheromones, oxytocin, vasopressin, and endorphins. Scientists are always striving to understand this more. As much as we do understand, it’s difficult to say how much of love is a conscious choice, and how much is chemistry that just happens and is somehow beyond our control.

So, there’s a good reason that you might not listen to friends and family when it comes to matters of the heart - because your heart (actually your brain) is saying everything is great, and it speaks louder than words. How do you trust that you’re making the right decisions? When should you listen to what other people are saying?

Ask your friends what they think of this new person you’re dating. Ask a lot of friends. Sometimes you’re friends won’t want to say anything bad because they don’t want to hurt your feelings, so ask some of them what they think others are thinking. If you find that a couple of people don’t really like this new person, ask them why. Maybe there’s a real concern there and maybe not. But if a lot of your friends are getting a bad vibe, then it’s time to question the chemistry. It’s time to listen to your friends and put a lot of thought into what you’re doing and whether or not this is a relationship that is going to be good for you.

What happens to Prince Charming and Cinderella AFTER they fall in love and get hitched? Fairytales don’t talk about that part because that’s when the hard work starts.

Every couple goes through the honeymoon period when they first move in together. This is the easy part. But it might also be the most important time to get things rolling in the right direction before the honeymoon wears off and everyday reality takes hold. With some simple goal-setting commitments and a little balance, you can keep keep the fun alive and make it work.

Here are some tips:

• Time. Spend time apart with your own group of friends at least a couple times a week, and, no matter how busy your schedules are, make the time to do something fun together at least as often. (Hint: the 8 hours when you’re sleeping doesn’t count as together time or time apart).
• Space. Everything you both have is now mixed together into some kind of potential decorating nightmare. Each of you should have your own space for your prized stuff that you refuse to throw out. It could be a room, or a wall, or a part of the main room that is yours and yours alone to set-up. “Her” living room and “his” rec-room usually works out well.
• Finances. To do separate or combined banking is something that every couple has to decide upon themselves, depending on their financial situation. The important thing is to sit down together and plan for certain things together or each of you could unknowingly spend above your combined means, thinking that you’ll be alright because of the other’s income. Plan together when you buy something big, take on a new monthly expense, and put savings away for the future. Keep track of what you’re both spending and saving every month.
• Change. Most women love change. Most men … not so much. Change happens. It will and it has to. Set goals that involve big changes, but move towards them step by step so that you both get there together, and both contribute something meaningful.