You’re never too old to have a cool roommate! Dig the shared digs of these hip “spinsters”*.

* Hey, that’s what the younger one calls herself. Reclaim on!

The missing piece, from January 19, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,
Here’s an easy one for you that baffles the male species: what do women want? I’m a 25-year-old white male, average height and looks, good upbringing, working on a double masters’ program, and seeking someone else … but a 2nd, 3rd, or 4th date is a major accomplishment in my life. What’s up with that? What special bit is missing?
— Smart Ash

Dear Ash,
Easy. To borrow from Regina Barreca, Ph.D. (one of Breakup Girl’s gurus): We want you to give us “emotional, physical, and financial support without making demands that will interfere with our careers/child-raising/bridge game.”
Love,
Breakup Girl

P.S. Barreca continues: “And then we wonder why men are skittish.”

Actual source: Perfect Husbands (& Other Fairy Tales): Demystifying Marriage, Men, and Romance

Last week was a bad one for certain Japanese women and the men who love to buy them drinks. Two stories described the downmarket vibe in Tokyo’s Roppongi Hills* (it’s always the “Hills“) section, a new-money, work/play development where local gals could heretofore count on snagging a Western banker for the night, if not a lifetime. But thanks to the death/ailing of Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs, two firms that kept offices there, the Roppongi meat market has become a bear market.

“The well-rehearsed choreography of girls coming in from the suburbs in their finery, tasting the good life, then snagging an investment banker to prolong the party is yesterday’s dance,” death-knells the London Times, which narrowed in on one particular bar whose website copy serves up such irony-tinis as “I will not chase after the fickleness of time” and “I will not be captured by the sense of values that bind my thoughts.”

(more…)

Everyone’s talking about how Vogue said that Jen said what Angie said was “uncool.” (And BG can’t disagree.)

But here’s Aniston’s real (and truly cool) money quote:

“This whole ‘Poor lonely Jen’ thing, this idea that I’m so unlucky in love? I actually feel I’ve been unbelievably lucky in love. I don’t feel like I’m supposed to be any further along or somewhere that I’m not. I’m right where I’m supposed to be.”

Alternet: Single women helped Obama win.

Let’s say I, all 34 unwed years of me, was Bristol Palin’s older sister. I wonder how our mom (first name: Hockey) would introduce us to constituents and rallygoers. Would she moon over Bristol’s courage and convictions for surrendering to a for-show, shotgun wedding to a gutter-mouthed hunk of man-child, then mention me with a half-joking, “And here’s our choosy one.” Or worse: “And she’s single, guys!”

Signs point to yes, if (if!) the McCain-Palin ticket falls into lockstep with the Bush adminstration’s marriage propaganda programs. And if this analysis of the pro-family photo ops that ran throughout both conventions holds water. Not only would I be shunted to the kids’ table come Thanksgiving (the sort of holiday embarrassment I’ve fretted about before), but I bet Bristol — half my age! — would be promoted to the adult table by virtue of her less-than-virtuous insemination.

If marriage must be mandatory for an invite to A White House Family Christmas, at least let it defy the Republican party’s seeming “do as I say, not as I do” pedagogy and stiff-limbed public appearances. Whether you’re single, married or somewhere in between, there’s little denying that the Barack-Michelle union’s got zum zizzle, baby — evidently enough to carry them through awkward spouse-gaffes with humor and aplomb. And that many think their mere presence together on a world stage could do more in defense of marriage than any “fatherhood grant.”

And so is next week, and the week after …

In other words: sorry we missed it! (Again!) But now that folks who are “anything but married” (actually, it’s now called the National Unmarried and Single Americans Week) comprise the majority of households, hey, it’s your year.

(Now somebody tell the folks in charge.  From the San Francisco Chronicle:

“There’s a very heavy focus on marriage as a public-policy matter,”  said Nancy Polikoff, a professor of law at American University’s Washington College of Law in Washington, D.C. “You have it in the Bush administration’s policies that spend three-quarters of a billion dollars to promote marriage, and a really widespread campaign to convince the country that the decline of lifelong heterosexual marriage is responsible for all our social problems.”

She says  there’s a need to define family in a more expansive way, so that close family-like relationships are also defined by affinity or blood, not just by marriage. Such a change would allow people to take family or medical leave or paid sick days to care for family members “however they define them,” she says.

Nicky Grist, executive director of the decade-old New York nonprofit Alternatives to Marriage, says a broader definition of family than “the floor” currently used by the federal Family and Medical Leave Act “would make for a more just system, not a more abused system.”

Unmarried.org, as her group appears on the Web, is most concerned with health insurance access. The United States is “the only country that relies on marital status for access to health care,” says Grist.)

An all-nighter from January 12, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I had been going out with a recently divorced lady with three kids under the age of 12. Long story short, kids love me, she said she did, but never really gave me the attention, and recently told me adios. I am broken totally. I had hoped for the future. I’m 43, work 2 AM – 9:30 AM Monday-Friday. My prospects are nil. I feel totally lost. I just don’t know how to get going again. I am not a bar guy, and am not real aggressive in “hitting on” women. I like myself, think I’m a great catch. I like having a partner; ’tis what helps make life more fun. Give me a road map, if you can. Just some advice that I can really use.

— Peter
Dear Peter,

Okay, here’s some. Start a social group in your community called “People with Weird Schedules and The People Who Love Them.” Breakup Girl is quite serious. There have to be people out there in the same predicament who are dying to attend an event like an “‘E.R.’ Pancake Breakfast.” Advertise in the paper, at the grocery store, on the Web. And keep at it: I just read something about a social group for tall people in NYC whose first meeting had about six people — now they have to rent convention halls. Good luck!

Love,
Breakup Girl

Single gals! Vote early and often. 

Listen up, single New Yorkers.  Think it’s impossible to find a good worm in the biggest of apples?  Meet Sandra Schwartz-Pingrey, Founder and President of Cause & Affection Dating (formerly Cause and Effect), a matchmaking service that — like others before, but with a more individualized touch — brings together this perfect couple: dating and volunteering.

As Time Out New York reports, “a 2007 study conducted by the Corporation for National & Community Service revealed that New York’s volunteering rates ranked in the bottom three of 50 U.S. cities.”  Oof! Cause & Affection is doing its part to help improve this ranking by offering clients (screened via face-to-face interviews!  no online profiles!) a date structured around a charitable cause, such as taking shelter pooches out — together — for those proverbial “long walks.”

Soup kitchens can’t guarantee soul mates, of course, but hey: as Cause & Affection says, “Even if it goes bad…you did good.”