Here, your weekly installment of Ask Lynn, BG’s alter ego’s column at MSN.com (powered by Match.com). This week, we meet Hopelessly Heartbroken, who’s head over heels for his best friend. There’s just one thing they don’t have in common, and given his pen-name, you can guess it’s not a passion for film noir. To make matters worse, she has unceremoniously introduced HH to her swell new boyfriend. Should he stay friends with her? More to the point, can he … without, he asks, being “that jealous guy” in her life? Read Lynn’s advice to find out, and then come back here to comment!

Bonus: for more on the tricky — but often doable — friends-to-lovers upgrade, click here!

Wondering if you should take the plunge and move in together? Sounds daunting enough as it is. Now try this: you and your beloved are in a spiritual partnership rooted in a commitment to always stay within 15 feet of each other — and your love nest is a 22-foot-wide yurt in the middle of the Arizona desert.

Oh, and you’ve both taken a vow of celibacy.

According to a recent feature in the New York Times, the relationship between acclaimed Buddhist teachers Michael Roach (also a monk) and Christie McNally — which includes eating off the same plate (to allow for a smaller drying rack, I’m guessing) and non-sexual touching (some don’t buy it) — has aroused both praise from their followers and fury from the Tibetan Buddhist community (wherein monks are prohibited from having partners). Their “insistence that they share both purity and intimacy drives traditionalists to distraction,” according to the Times. The Dalai Lama himself: not a fan.

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I mean, we would be.

Break out the Barolo! According to Italy’s new minister for equal opportunities, gays in that country no longer suffer discrimination. Well then! What will she do for the rest of the day?

From yesterday’s International Herald Tribune:

Italy’s new minister for equal opportunities has angered rights groups by refusing to back a “gay pride” march because, she said, gays no longer suffer discrimination in Italy.

The appointment of Mara Carfagna, a 32-year-old former Miss Italy contestant and television showgirl, to the equal opportunities post was seen by some rights groups as a deliberate provocation by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Carfagna said in comments published Monday that she would not back the June gay pride event in Bologna because “gay prides are pointless.”

“Homosexuality is no longer a problem, at least not the way the organizers of these demonstrations would have us believe,” Carfagna said. “Gay pride’s only aim is official recognition for homosexual couples, on the same level with marriage. I cannot agree to that.”

In the naked city, two-timing ain’t always so black and white…

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Riddle: What’s the opposite of a breakup?

Answer: Frequently married — to each other! — porn star Annie Sprinkle and butch multi-media artist Elizabeth Stephens.

Yep, the super-committed couple is at it again — for the fourth time, and they’re counting. Yesterday marked the momentous occasion of Annie and Beth’s wedding — their fourth annual, this one with a green eco-love theme.

As part of a seven-year project of their collaboration the Love Art Lab, Sprinkles and Stevens get married once a year for seven years. Each wedding corresponds to the color and properties of one of the seven chakras.

Just a few of the reasons Annie and Beth’s relationship might inspire the pants off you:

They met when they were younger but fell in love “later in life;” they are a successful collaborative team; they turn love and sex into art; they aren’t afraid of love or commitment, or at least do a bang-up job of overcoming those fears; the hell — the first three times – with the ban on gay marriage; Annie beat breast cancer in their first year of marriage; they are openly sex-positive; they tried to have a baby but when it didn’t work opted for a black lab; they encourage others by sharing their story; they are just cute as pie.

And now that gay marriage has been legalized in California (finally!) their lastest nuptial might spread love into the world with more than costumes and performance art. After all, what says “Congratulations on your continued connubiality” more than shared health benefits and hospital visitation rights?

You know you want to see pictures from weddings one, two and three….

Now, thanks to the California Supreme Court, you can — as you’ve likely heard by now — get married somewhere other than Massachusetts. Yes, there may be icky political repercussions down the line, but for now let us just say: mazal tov!

“Mom! You’re totally embarrassing me! Next time you cheat on dad, get somebody cute, OK?”

According to a totally unscientific, self-selecting survey conducted by the prestigious research super-team Cookie Magazine and AOL Body, out of 30,000 respondents who self-identified as married women with children, 34% claim to be getting action between soccer practice and piano lessons, if you know what I’m saying. But this being the Internet, it’s also pretty likely that 33% of those 30,000 respondents are guys who really just like the idea of mom waiting for the UPS guy in lingerie while dad is…well, thinking about dad just ruins it.

While cheating is against the BG creed, thank God someone is at least paying attention to the sex lives of mothers, whether in actual practice or pure speculation. Though of course, actual practice would be much, much better. I mean a card on Mothers’ Day is nice, but after raising you, doesn’t she deserve a nice big, hard….hug?

An interesting piece ran in the New York Times about Shelia Weller’s new book, Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon–And the Journey of a Generation. These three musical pioneers — and true romantics — had the bold task of making sense of romance in the era of “free love.” While each cites traditional romantics as models for their work (Edith Piaf and Billie Holiday for Mitchell, the Gershwins for Simon, Rodgers and Hammerstein for King), there was nary a Cinderella story to be sought in that decade’s feminist movement as women turned away from traditional roles and began to openly explore their sexuality. The question remains, as the article mentions, whether romantic love and promiscuity (for lack of a better word) are compatible. (Ask any college student in America the same question and you’ll see we have yet to reach a conclusion.)

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Mind Hacks recently featured a highly amusing husband and wife rating chart from the 1930s, invented by marriage counselor George W. Crane, MD, Ph.D. How it works: your spouse earns merit or demerit points based on his or her behaviors and characteristics. Some (“Snores”) are things we can still relate to, while the rest offer a curious peek into the norms and expectations of that era (demerits for a husband who “talks of efficiency of his stenographer or other women” or a wife who “fails to sew on buttons or darn socks regularly”).

Crane aimed to be “scientific” in the development of this test; true to form, according to the American Psychological Association, he started the Scientific Marriage Foundation, which took a “scientific” approach to marriage and claimed to have set up more than 5,000 marriages.

I wonder what a modern version of this questionnaire would look like. Demerits for “brings laptop to bed”?