Category: Q & A

A wise man once said, "You can ask the salad to toss itself, but you still wind up with breath that reeks of more than desperation."

Why not simply either:

• Express your interest directly on its own merits, and let her decide what's right for her, or
• Be awesome – in a way that makes her helpless but to dump her man and fall for you

(It… kinda… is… that easy. Courtesy of http://afterlifemints.wordpress….)
Unfortunately, rule #1 of being awesome is not being needy, so you'll basically have to give up any expectations and hopes with this girl in order to be the guy who could easily snag her. Funny how that works.

On the bright side, being awesome is its own reward – though one that often comes with bonus gifts like meeting newer, more interesting girls who are actually single and into you.

Can you ask a girl to break up with her boyfriend to be with you?

The best solution to deal with negative emotional states is to fill up your time with activities that require high levels of concentration and/or effort.

Doing so will not eliminate the pain, but keep it constrained to your more "thoughtful" free time. And, if you do a good job at picking activities, like exercising and cooking for yourself, you may find that diet and fitness ride in with a wave of positive-emotive-state-inducing brain chemicals that will help you even out a bit. Surrounding yourself with friends, and focusing on the positive (rather than having a pity party) also does wonders.

Another great method that takes the sting from heartbreak is to fail utterly, completely, and seemingly-life-endingly at something besides love[*].

Forgetting is not an option, but eventually, the immediacy of the pain and the feeling of helplessness in an "active heartbreak" give way to more nostalgic, "nichevo-ey[†]" thoughts that can, in time, even be used to help surface the better memories around your various past loves.

[* This works in reverse, too: When I lost my job, I was devastated. When my dog died a few days later, the job didn't even return to my thoughts for weeks, and when it did it wasn't the cataclysm I had initially thought it to be.]

[† Nichevo is Russian for… Hell, I just can't explain it. What does the Russian word "nichevo" mean? to the rescue…? ]

What's the best way to deal with heartbreak?

Simple math: You can fit more of them in your trunk.

Why do men tend to prefer skinny girls?

The main thing to remember is this:

It's not so much about the number of fish in the sea, as enjoying the fishing trip.

You can choose have fun on your little outboard skiff with nothing more than a sun-ripened bologna and mayo sandwich and a few cans of 'store brand' grape soda cooling in the water – still slotted in their plastic six-pack rings, and moored to the boat with a length of polyester marine rope… Even if you never catch anything, there's so much to enjoy: the silence of the early morning run before the other fisherpeople wake up, the sun beating down overhead at noontime, the call of the distant loon advocating "hooks up, head home". It can be exciting, and meditative. It can make you feel more human, and more connected to the natural world.

There are a lot of variations, of course, including –

• The Reluctant Reel, who throws back everything that makes it in the boat then immediately casts again (sometimes with the same worm)…
• The Gadget Freak, who spends time and effort tracking down the best spot on the lake, sure to have the best, most beautiful, and biggest fish…
• The Goal Catcher, who lands their fair share, but refuses to keep anything that isn't on their particular list of acceptable species, no matter if that means going home with an empty belly a lot of the time.

Then there's the rest of you, who just bring a spork and a salt packet with you wherever you go, in the hopes someone will just magically leave a plate of Lobster Thermidor out on the sidewalk. Believe me, that's a meal you probably won't be as happy about the next day.

You can worry endlessly about how many fish are out there, if you'll get the right one, or even wind up with one at all… But all that obsessing really does is keep you from noticing your own smiling reflection on the shimmering water, the cool breeze running through your hair… And, in a few cases, even the person sitting across the boat from you, rod in hand, wondering when you'll remember that they're there…

Are there plenty of fish in the sea?

The simple answer is that it's a jurisdictional issue. Where you reside in marriage will determine the "ground rules" for any divorce proceeding. It's likely that any prenup such as you describe would be fairly easy to invalidate in California, for example.

It may also be that the place in which you are married may influence the outcome – this is much rarer, but especially for marriages that take place internationally, the validity of the marriage itself may be called into question, which could then affect the validity of the prenuptial agreement (if the nuptials are not recognized, the contract may be invalid, and common law could then be applied).

For what it's worth, I think you may benefit more from using a "Relationship LLC" model[*] for your 'marriage'. This would mean, effectively, that you would be "business partners" in your relationship, and subject to customized agreements that are made between the partners – rather than being subject to all the various aspects of existing marriage laws (which again, vary significantly based on where you live).

As an example, you could draw up an agreement that provided "shares" to each participant, that vested over time – if your fiancée wants half your assets, she would have to stick with the relationship for a specified period. This would also enable you to have a "buy out" clause – you could simply pay for her vested shares based on the length of the relationship and current value of mutual holdings. Alternately, you could even keep all your "incoming assets" separate, and only share those things that are truly shared – things like cars, houses, investments, etc that happen during or as a key component to the relationship. That way, even if you do a 50/50 split, it's only splitting those things that were actually shared between you, and not all prior and ongoing income/assets/etc.

It's not really simple (neither is regular marriage law), but it seems almost ideal for a situation in which you are pre-planning your divorce before being married.

And while I won't pass judgment, I will definitely advise extreme caution in proceeding either way. Even really "ironclad" contracts are dependent on the good faith of all involved parties to some degree… If you cannot trust your fiancée, then it may be that you will eventually lose everything, regardless of how much pre-planning you do.

Good luck!

[try here for a more detailed overview: relationshipllc.com]

Is a prenuptial agreement possible for anyone?