relationships

I don't know about you, but I'm rather partial to a nice smell. Somehow, some people just offer a better odor than others, and one reacts to them more positively because of that.

I am heartened, therefore, to get a sniff of research performed at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

According to National Geographic, the Academy was very interested to see just how animal-like we really are. The academy wondered whether we really are sophisticated in our choice of sex partners, or whether we are, indeed, just like the others on Orwell's farm.

Naturally, if they had … Read more

For those at CNET who tug on my leash, I am sometimes a guinea pig.

However, when they ordered me to get a new girlfriend, I was a little disturbed by the personal nature of the request.

Weren't there laws against this kind of thing? Politely, they explained to me that I needed a girlfriend who didn't actually exist, but who would satisfy me at a virtual--and therefore more profound--level than any terrestrial being.

Feeling deeply relieved--as anything other than a virtual woman would most certainly cause intractable problems--I set about testing Cloud Girlfriend.

This was launched in a flurry of hype-nosis … Read more

Of course you love Facebook. You love the way it makes you feel to have so many friends. Yes, thousands of them. You love the fact that you can have open, personal interactions with all of those who mean something to you.

And then there's what you really think about them. Which, should you be human, can be something a little more critical, a little more personal.

A new site called AboutEveryone.com understands your feelings. It purports to offer you the opportunity to vent your real feelings about your Facebook friends, with a security that Facebook cannot possibly … Read more

Relationships are complex. And I'm not sure that Facebook, for all its cleverness, is ever the right environment for complexity.

Which is why some might feel a certain twitch of brotherhood with Richard Leon Barton Jr. According to the Grand Rapids Press, Barton Jr. got married last July. It was, by all accounts a happy event.

These days, people do feel a terrible urge to display a record of happy events on Facebook. And, well, these records might not make everyone else so happy. So it appears in this case. For pictures of Barton Jr.'s wedding reportedly materialized on the Facebook pages of some of his family members.

Regretfully, one family member reportedly saw these pictures. And she happened to be a woman in New England to whom he was still legally wed. She reportedly went to the police and told them she suspected something might be amiss when her husband had defriended on Facebook. (That is always a warning sign in any marriage, one imagines.)

Apparently, hell hath no fury like a woman bigamized. So you will be stunned into a permanently single life when I tell you that Barton Jr. has been charged with polygamy.

Michigan, unlike certain areas of Utah, tends to look down on polygamy. The maximum sentence is four years (and/or a $5,000 fine). In Barton's case, things are made even more complex by the fact that he reportedly has something of a criminal record already.

Police told the Grand Rapids Press that they were told the first wife (whom he had met online) had discussed divorcing Barton Jr., but that somehow this happy event had failed to occur.

Oh, what a complex web the Web can weave.

So please, should you be considering leaving your spouse over the next week or two, don't forget to go through with the proceedings before getting married again--and most certainly before defriending him or her on Facebook.… Read more

For some at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival (SXSW), the goal is funding. For others, it is networking. But some seek some other lasting and uplifting joys.

While there will, no doubt, be many fine presentations that will stimulate tech minds to reach for higher goals, one of the first wanted to stimulate tech minds about something important for many attendees--stimulating tech bodies.

Violet Blue, who seems to be something of an expert on all things sexual, yesterday offered a practical guide to geek sex.

I wasn't aware there was anything different about technologically obsessed carnality. However, Blue … Read more

I want you to focus on Kim Kardashian. Do you think she uses her looks to compete for attention?

OK. Now I want you to focus on Facebook. Do you think that women post lots of pictures of themselves to compete for the attention of others--men, for example?

I worry that your answer to both these questions will be "yes." I worry even more, because your views might be confirmed by research from a couple of academics at universities in New York, Texas, and Hawaii.

For their work, published in a journal called "Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social … Read more

Hey, if you dump your boyfriend, you'll be happier. How do I know? Because you could be with me.

How do you know you could be with me? Because I'm in your waiting room. No, not in the waiting room at your dental surgery. I'm in your Facebook WaitingRoom.

You might have thought that the Breakup Notifier was enough to make love's course run smoother than your own sometimes coarse behavior has managed to effect. Breakup Notifier is a Facebook app (since blocked by Facebook) that notifies you the minute one of your many crushes became … Read more

Has Christine dumped him yet? He looked like a freak. But, then again, there always Lucretia. Or Marianna. Or Jeffrey. Are they free yet?

It's very hard to keep up with the relationship status of those whom you'd like to get to know better, as in a whole lot better. This is made even more difficult if you happen to have thousands of Facebook friends and at least 20 people of your target sex (or sexes) whose smell you would like to become familiar with.

Developer Dan Loewenherz knows exactly how you feel. That's why he has … Read more

It's almost a week since Valentine's Day and there will be many men who still haven't gotten over what happened on Monday.

Somehow, their date didn't go as planned. Somehow, their date went home, as wasn't planned. Somehow, they are beneath the dumps and desperate for help.

Perhaps, then, they should fire up Skype and talk to Marni Kinrys.

Kinrys is every man's wing girl. She's a wing girl with a method. She calls it the Wing Girl Method. And a highly technological method it is.

The Wing Girl's purpose in life … Read more