Through fetishizing the inequality embedded in the romance story, women have somehow become convinced that being in, or even vying for, a relationship is something we should want -- regardless of whether that relationship might hold equal power or doesn't serve us.

It is hard to feel safe and comfortable when the only measures for what is safe and comfortable are normative ideas you don't abide by.

The notion that women shouldn't care about personal success -- or the work that gets them there -- is disengenuous; it is impossible for women not to have jobs anymore, so it doesn't make sense to expect them to structure their lives around getting married. The real failure is our cultural incapacity to make room for women to live and thrive outside of traditional conceptions of femininity and relationships. After all, we can eat without marriage, but not without work.

Keep the first date brief, short, sweet and simple and they'll come back to you.

Keep the first date brief, short, sweet and simple and they'll come back to you.

Keep dating and you will become so sick, so badly crippled, so deformed, so emotionally warped and mentally defective that you will marry anybody.