Globetrotting on January 26, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I have been with my boyfriend or more than four years. He is from Boston and I am from Malaysia. We met in Hong Kong four years ago. Four months ago, he got transferred to Singapore. Though we see each other a lot, I feel frustrated because I have to fly down three to four times a month. I am a flight attendant, so it’s pretty cheap for me to travel, and he makes the effort to see me as well. But recently we’ve fought a lot. We fight over the issue of who’s not doing their share of the relationship. Whenever a problem arises, he pushes me away. He said he cannot deal with this, especially when he’s so stressed at work. I love this guy with all my heart. Please help.

— JT

  (more…)

Another day, another survey showing many teens blame Rihanna for this mess.

From the Boston Herald:

“Experts say teens may be inclined to be sympathetic to Brown because of his popularity and the ‘normalization of violence’ in pop culture. ‘(Chris Brown) is or had been promoted as the kid next door, he was familiar and likeable,’ said [Deborah] Collins-Gousby, who works for Casa Myrna-Vazquez, a Boston-based anti-violence organization that operates a 24-hour teen violence hotline and a citywide outreach program. ‘Among teens, I think their first reaction was, well, what did she do to deserve a beating that significant?'”

The right question to ask, of course, is, “Who says anyone ‘deserves’ a beating?” The attitude captured in these surveys speaks to a disturbing misunderstanding of and desensitization to violence, “dating” and otherwise. That said, I also think there’s some interesting, if misguided, feminism at work underneath: the sense that today’s young women are now too strong to be mere “victims.” It’s utterly wrong-headed in this context, yes, and the “silver lining,” such as it is, is tarnished  by the incident that brought it all up. But: no one in this conversation is about to call women “the weaker sex.” And that, in its own twisted way, is progress.

Young singles searching for love in Boston, say, have it hard enough. Now — societal age preferences and demographic clusters being what they are — try being a 50-year-old single mom in a Granite State “bedroom community,” where much of the nightlife likely consists of driving two hours from Boston and going to … bed. With that, we bring you this week’s installment — now on Mondays!* — of Ask Lynn, the advice column penned by BG’s alter ego at MSN.com (powered by Match.com). This week we meet “Searching in New Hampshire,” who, well, there you go.

She’s got two grown kids plus a 9-year-old — and room in her heart for a fella. Her hope both wanes — “I’m starting to feel that I need to move…as everyone around here is either married or in a relationship with women my age who don’t have younger kids” — and waxes: “I still feel that there must be men out there who like kids or have never had children and would like to experience them without the baby/toddler phase or miss having children around the house now.”

Yes, there must. And they are not made of wood. Or granite.

What suggestions — and reassurance — does Lynn have for Searching? Read the whole exchange, and then come back here to add your own!

* Our latest season of all-new adventures wrapped up a few Mondays ago >sniff< ! Stay tuned for more!