Many times a girl has dated me after ending a serious relationship and then dived back into the arms of the ex-boyfriend when I put on the brakes. I have nothing to worry about as long as these girls don’t turn gay, but I think I know what this could mean. The getting-back-with-the-ex phenomenon is common American behavior and keeps repeating itself in my dating life. Modern dating dynamics are widely discussed in relationship advice columns

They can’t cut it in the dating scene. It’s brutal out there. Telephone calls that aren’t being returned, lonely men sitting at the bar waiting for a date that will never show up, statements being wildly misinterpreted, and testicles exploding from too much internal pressure. The death blow is that last rejection that prompts the sad but inevitable “Is there something wrong with me” pity party.

They don’t like being ultra-dominated in bed. I think a little bit of pain mixes quite well with pleasure because it makes that pleasure even better. I’m talking about contact with the cervix, bright-red hand imprints on asses, and neck-jerking hair pulling. Every girl is born to like this, but some take a few extra years to break away from feminist programming to fully enjoy being handled like a real woman.

A break-up is not the break-up but which break-up, just one of several that drags on a relationship past its shelf date. I look at it like this: if Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith couldn’t make it work a second time, then no one can. Unless something intrinsic about the environment or the personalities involved changes, the second and third and fourth break-ups will be low-budget sequels destined for the bottom shelf at the video store.