At the Daily Beast, Hannah Seligson, author of A Little Bit Married: How to Know When It’s Time to Walk Down the Aisle or Out the Door, blogs about the resistance to matrimony among GenX and GenY couples. Among the reasons she cites:

It’s an interesting topic. Among my own friends–many of whom have been married and divorced at least once–the major obstacle to marriage seems to be disenchantment with the institution itself, although I’ve also noticed that even the vehement nay-sayers seem to soften around the issue when their partners want to get hitched. It seems that, even if individuals are ambivalent about making it legal, our society as a whole is still pretty fixated on the idea–or else books like Ms Seligson’s would not exist.

I turn to you, reader: Is there a real difference between living together (or dating someone long-term without cohabitating) and getting married? If so, what do you think it is? And has that made you more, or less, interested in marriage?

Gotta give it to Google for reflecting various facets of our society. Remember the whole “did you mean he invented” revelation?

Now Dan Ariely of Predictably Irrational, expert and author on the subject of human irrationality, posts the results of he/she Google hints that concern the stuff we all wish we could know. Remember, Google uses algorithms to formulate these search suggestions or “hints” based on what other users have searched for countless times.

Thanks to Jen Bekman for the post.

YourTango’s Best Relationship Books of the ’00s list — while not a complete disaster — strikes me as funny for two reasons:

• The coveted top two spots are occupied by books written by…comedians.  Hey, if I want to be lectured by some smart-aleck goofball about my love-life, I’ve got my bathroom mirror, thank you. The credentials of the other authors are a little shady, too: reporters, secrets-revealing “playas,” and Harvard MBAs, but only two actual relationship counselors.
• Only a few of these “relationship books” are about, well, relationships. The bulk are basically how-to books (for straight women) to snag a mate, please a man, or foil those slippery guy-tactics that, allegedly, all men employ, at all times.

A decade is a long time, and surely there have been more subtle, less condescending, and more realistic books written about love that don’t nakedly play into women’s fears and insecurities, nor into the myth of male weakness that says all straight guys, harboring endless secrets, are afraid of women. So! What are your favorite relationship books of the past ten years? (Aside from THE OBVIOUS, of course.) Alternate perspectives (LGBT, non-marriage-oriented, bridge-lovin‘) encouraged! My list would include:

• Love in the Present Tense: How to Have a High Intimacy, Low Maintenance Marriage by Morrie & Arleah Schechtman. This slim volume contains some of the most useful relationship advice I’ve ever read, and much of it is counter-intuitive bordering on heretical. The Schechtmans — marriage counselors with backgrounds in business — argue convincingly against ideas like “couples need to love each other unconditionally,” “relationships are hard work,” and “conflict is always a sign of trouble.”
• How to Be an Adult in Relationships: The Five Keys to Mindful Loving by David Richo. It’s easy to fall into unconscious childhood patterns when we are in the vulnerable position of loving someone. Psychotherapist David Richo — an uncommonly poetic writer — emphasizes mindfulness and a spiritual approach to partnership, avoiding the manipulative strategies that we almost all fall into when we aren’t careful.
• And Tango Makes Three. This important book based on a real gay penguin couple who “adopt” a baby both raises the profile of New York’s Central Park Zoo and teaches kids (and reminds adults) that a family is based on love, not a template. Sure, they conveniently omit mention of Gus, the depressed polar bear, but that story’s been covered elsewhere.

So what else, bookworms?

Ashley Dupré, the “other woman” in the Spitzergate scandal (arguably engineered to punish the governor for trying to clean up the banking industry) has extended her brief stay in the public eye by dispensing homespun relationship advice in that classy journal, the NY Post.

We look forward to learning from the 24-year-old’s hard-won wisdom, and suggest that the Post doesn’t stop there. Why not hire Balloon Dad to write a parenting column? South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson can tackle etiquette questions, and Rod Blagojevich would be a natural for a sales technique blog. Or haircare tips.

According to former FBI agent and flashy author Joe Navarro –“the nonverbal expert”– two major body-language indicators can hint at whether your mate is “still into you” (Navarro’s words, not mine — can we please retire this expression? Also, “cougar”? Thanks) or whether your relationship is headed south.

As Navarro explains in a recent article in Psychology Today, the first clue that a true connection exists between you and a loved one lies in the hands — when your snookums places a full, flat palm on your body (“palmer touching,” which kind of lacks frisson), this is a sign of real bonding and trust. The longer they leave it there, the warmer the relationship.

If, on the other, uh, hand, your partner tends only to touch briefly or with the fingertips (“distal touching”), the passion may be fading.

Now I’m smacking myself on the forehead. (“Duh touching.”)

The other nonverbal clue is what body-language professionals call “ventral fronting” — when your mate approaches you, does he or she face you head-on with no obstruction to the belly area? This is a subconscious behavior that signifies trust and affection. (Think “happy puppy getting her belly rubbed.”) Couples whose trust and affection are waning tend to face their abdominal regions away from each other (“ventral denial”), or hide behind crossed arms, purses, the Sunday Times, etc. Or Spanx?

Navarro uses obvious examples from pop culture (Jon & Kate, Chuck & Di) to illustrate his point, and concludes by saying:

… when it comes to interpersonal relationships, how we touch and how we present our ventral side says so much about the health and longevity of our relationship…

No argument there — body language is visceral and immediate and can help us understand what people are thinking and feeling in the moment.

However! A couple of things are bugging me, which you might be able to tell by the way I am currently placing a large cheese sandwich between my belly and the keyboard.

For one thing, articles like this, in seemingly respectable (albeit pop-psych, not scientific) magazines, seem to play right into that women’s-magazine-of-yore myth that the only way to understand your partner is to desperately seek for clues.

If you are reduced to reading body language to determine whether someone really loves you, doesn’t that in itself indicate some basic disconnect? (I’m asking, not telling, so weigh in if you disagree!)

Secondly, while I understand and support the value of observing nonverbal behavior, I also know that individuals behave differently under different circumstances — a distal touch here and a ventral denial there may simply indicate that a person is not feeling present, is distracted or nervous. Or just got their nails done. I don’t think that Navarro does a good enough job explaining that the occasional pair of crossed arms does not a relationship fiasco make.

David Brooks, writing in today’s Times, is right: the game has changed.

Once upon a time — in what we might think of as the “Happy Days” era — courtship was governed by a set of guardrails. Potential partners generally met within the context of larger social institutions: neighborhoods, schools, workplaces and families. There were certain accepted social scripts. The purpose of these scripts — dating, going steady, delaying sex — was to guide young people on the path from short-term desire to long-term commitment.

Over the past few decades, these social scripts became obsolete. They didn’t fit the post-feminist era. So the search was on for more enlightened courtship rules. You would expect a dynamic society to come up with appropriate scripts. But technology has made this extremely difficult. Etiquette is all about obstacles and restraint. But technology, especially cellphone and texting technology, dissolves obstacles. Suitors now contact each other in an instantaneous, frictionless sphere separated from larger social institutions and commitments.

But then he goes on, as he is wont to do:

But texting and the utilitarian mind-set are naturally corrosive toward poetry and imagination. A coat of ironic detachment is required for anyone who hopes to withstand the brutal feedback of the marketplace. In today’s world, the choice of a Prius can be a more sanctified act that the choice of an erotic partner.

This does not mean that young people today are worse or shallower than young people in the past. It does mean they get less help. People once lived within a pattern of being, which educated the emotions, guided the temporary toward the permanent and linked everyday urges to higher things. The accumulated wisdom of the community steered couples as they tried to earn each other’s commitment.

Today there are fewer norms that guide in that way. Today’s technology seems to threaten the sort of recurring and stable reciprocity that is the building block of trust.

Yoiks! The dudgeon’s as high as an elephant’s eye. Who says everyone really followed those “scripts,” or that they were the best or most effective ones in the first place? Aren’t new scripts, if imperfect ones, evolving right now? And who says we — even typing with our thumbs — aren’t creating different kinds of poetry? Speaking of poetry, where’s the copy editor on that weird sentence about a “pattern of being?” Also, what about a Prius what?

This is very interesting territory. Territory already covered — very interestingly — in the New York magazine cover story that Brooks, in this column, puts through the Brooksinator, with predictably tut-tut results that add little to the conversation. Territory that might be better re-explored by someone, dare I say, less corrosive toward poetry and imagination.

Struggling with the ultimate romantic choice? The one you’ve got vs. the one that got away? Familiar and stable vs. fizzy and exciting? Veronica vs. Betty?

Well, envy Archie.* Looks like our man in Riverdale may get to have it both ways.

As today’s Times reports: “That perennially teenage redhead…made headlines around the world when word leaked, back in May, that he would propose to his longtime love interest, Veronica Lodge, in issue No. 600 of the comic that bears his name. But that issue, published in August, was only Part 1 of a six-part story. Although Archie did marry Veronica, things will take a turn in November, when Archie proposes to the lady in waiting, Betty Cooper. That’s just the latest twist in the romantic triangle that has thrust this nearly 70-year-old character, and his parent company, into the media spotlight.”

How’s he gonna pull that off? Easy: alternate universe! “The wedding story was written by Michael E. Uslan and illustrated by Stan Goldberg, a longtime ‘Archie’ artist. The first half was called ‘Archie Marries Veronica,’ but issue No. 603, on sale next month, is called ‘Archie Marries Betty.’ The end of bachelorhood began in issue No. 600, in which Archie found himself on a road named Memory Lane, which he has often traveled. This time he walked a different direction and encountered a fork in the road. He chose the left path, which allowed him to see his future with Veronica and their twins, and himself working for her tycoon father. At the end of the October issue, No. 602, Archie goes for an evening stroll and encounters the fork again. In the November issue Archie will find himself back in Riverdale High, this time envisioning a future with Betty as his wife. (A set of twins factors into this destiny as well.)”

(Doctor Who fans will recall when this totally happened to Donna Noble, only instead of twins there was a giant bug. And — Halloween preview — let’s not forget Breakup Girl Friday in Ghost Ex!)

But the question remains: who do you think he should wind up with? (“Jughead” would of course be a revolutionary twist, but I don’t think we’re there yet.)

* And talk to The Guy At The End of the Bar.

From the AP :

Tim Gunn is taking his fight against fashion crimes from the workrooms of “Project Runway” to the pages of a comic book. And, wow, does he get to wear a power suit.

The “Loaded Gunn” story line — to save an exhibit of extraordinary superhero clothes from a cadre of villains — is part of a book that reintroduces a group of Marvel’s high-fashion “Models Inc.” comic characters from the 1960s.

“It’s a little `America’s Next Top Model’ — without Tyra (Banks) — and a little `Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,'” says Marvel editor Charlie Beckerman.

The Gunn project evolved on a whim, but it turned out Gunn was a childhood comic fan and a good sport, Beckerman says.

Gunn says the experience has been “the most bizarre thing.”

“It’s exciting and exhilarating, but bizarre. When they came to me, I said, `I’m about to turn 56 years old. Are they crazy?’ But it kept revealing itself in layers and next thing, I’m wearing the `Iron Man’ suit. I was dumbstruck.”

Personally, Gunn says he always fancied himself more of a Batman type, but he’s pleased with the result.

“Most superheroes are fighting the same thing — good vs. evil — but who’s taking on crimes against fashion? Me!”

The biggest offense, hands down: clothes that don’t fit properly, Gunn says. And, if he had the truly incredible power to remove one item from closets all around the world, no question it would be Crocs.

“It’s the No. 1 fashion crime item — and I see it a lot,” Gunn says.

…they give their kids lameass, doofy-dad, tax-dollar-funded sex talks. The best the Obama HHS can apparently do, via Feministe:

“Trying to impress that hottie at the bar? Money talks. Hand out your number on the back of one of our fake ATM receipts. They’re a players [sic] dream come true.”

Where to begin (other than with a warning against the risks of fake-identity theft)?

Let me just say this, and not for the first time: You know how people hesitate to meet people online, for fear that they’ll, you know, lie? And how I always say hey, people lie in bars?

Well.

One more thing: if there’s not a romantic comedy about a guy who uses one of these on a girl who (inexplicably) turns out to like him and then he has to maintain the lie through all sorts of highjinks that make him look like he’s rich, which totally works until it doesn’t and then she hates him but then comes back, and he learns something about life, love, and himself, then I have $782,012 in my bank account. Hey, wait.