Someone Going Somewhere

We've had a rocky relationship for about 2 1/2 years now. Problems always centered around alcohol and he can be a mean drunk, and when he had to do testing weekly after a DUI, I thought it would be over. One time, I made a scene that he had been drinking, but since then I've decided that he's his own person and I'm not going to make rules for him.

So now instead of not drinking, he goes out but doesn't invite me out. Actually he hasn't invited me to his 10 year reunion, a wedding, and a baseball game with friends. When I asked him about it, he said he didn't think I'd be interested, but I can't shake the feeling that he thinks I'm a buzzkill (which I understand) but I feel like not inviting me is not solving the issue. Its eating at me a lot. What do I do?

So, I've known this guy for a little over a year now. I met him through mutual friends and I could tell from the beginning that he was interested. At the time, he came across as pushy (and I'm pretty shy when it comes to anything past flirting) so I kind of just let the interest wither out over time. I'd seen him at a few parties here and there and we chit chatted and I decided against my first impression and ended up kind of liking him.

My guy friend had been trying to set us up for a while and two days ago we had all hung out at my guy friend's. It was pretty laid back, I wasn't that drunk but I was definitely buzzing. Eventually, my guy friend and his girlfriend and that left me and this other guy downstairs to head to bed ourselves.

He had the couch, and offered to let me up with him.. which I didn't turn down.

Anyway. One thing lead to another and it didn't go that far but it went far enough. Throughout the night, he ended up being kind of a couch hog so I moved somewhere else because I was really uncomfortable and almost falling off.

When we woke up, the morning wasn't really awkward at all. We put on another movie and and talked some more. He made a point to still make physical contact. UNTIL my guy friend and his girlfriend came downstairs. And that's when it got awkward, and he didn't really seem like he wanted them to know. (I'm a horrible liar anyway, so it looked obvious from my end).

He drove me home, and we talked some more but it just seemed still awkward. I was trying to joke with him and be conversational and flirty and it just didn't seem reciprocated. I didn't hear from him after he dropped me off and I still haven't heard anything.

What happened?

All of us are supposed to go to the midnight showing of The Hobbit, and before all that jazz that night, he had invited me over before the movie and I was definitely excited about it, but I'm kind of worried now that he's not really all that interested.

Should I wait for a couple more days to hear from him? Or should I just take it as a one-night deal and leave it at that?

I love my cat, Mel Mel, to pieces. She is roughly 5 years old, we think. We had taken her off the streets at a very young age, literally right off the side of the road, and she has been very needy since day one. Even going so far as to try and suckle off my dog (who didn't particularly mind, other than there was no milk there. They have a very strong bond).

I cannot have my lap to myself. If I am sitting down, she has to be attached to me in some way. If she's not on my lap, she's curled around my neck or trying to get inside my sweater. If I'm up and walking around, she follows me everywhere and meows at me all the time. I'm not sure why, though, she has food/water/clean litter box (not that she's very finicky about it anyway).

Even at night, she is sleeping on top of or curled around my head OR she's cuddling in my arms under the covers like a teddy bear.

I don't necessarily mind all the time, but I am a digital artist and often she tries to get between my tablet and my hands and it makes it sort of difficult. If I don't trim her claws too, I get lots of scratches because she tries to dig into my sweater or in my hair. She'll also leap long distances off counters and couches to be on my shoulders while I'm up and around, which you can imagine can be very painful if I'm wearing something that doesn't have sleeves.

What are some ways that I can make her more independent, and why is she so needy?

I have an 11 year old border-collie/ lab mix. As of a few years ago, I had realized my mistakes in training her as she would bark and be very anxious in social situations, even with meeting new people. (Thank you, Caesar Milan) But I am still working on being a good pack leader.

I've made a lot of progress, and she can now comfortably meet new people (after a short barking introduction, which I decided not to train out of her because I'm a young woman living alone and would like to deter ill-meaning guests) and she no longer barks at people who pass us on the sidewalk.

For the most part, she can coexist with other dogs, which is a huge improvement. Upon introduction, though, she still barks and is very uncomfortable and avoids getting her privates sniffed. After a few minutes, she is fine and calms down and just lays around.

BUT with higher energy, more aggressive dogs, she's prone to getting bit because she is still so uncomfortable.

I took her with me to house sit two very small dogs. One was very old and very low energy. The other was a young high-energy thing that very obviously had claimed the house. Neither were very well trained and did their business all around the house and the younger dog was constantly trying to dominate and jumped all over.

The intro, as I figured, was a little rocky but it quickly quieted down and I felt comfortable enough to leave them alone together while I got my things from the car, which went very well. Later that night, though, my dog was sniffing the smaller dog while it laid next to me on the couch, and the small dog bit her, which busted out my dog's anxiety again and she whined after the initial shock but I quickly diffused it. Except it happened a second time, and I think that it was due to my dog's anxious behavior.

What are some ways that I can become a more confident leader so that my dog is less anxious? I'm concerned that I'll lose all of my progress if she continues to be attacked because she's scared around other dogs. Help?

I'm 19 and weigh about 135lbs. I'm not ridiculously skinny and I'm not overweight, but for some reason I still have stretch marks! All over my rear and my thighs. And its not just a few marks here and there, its like a webbing of them. Why did I get them? Are there really any treatments for them that actually work?

I've been seeing this guy for a couple weeks now, and whenever we make out, he'll have his tongue in my mouth for a solid 30 seconds. Now, I'm not super experienced but whenever I've made out with more experienced guys, the tongue is in for a few seconds in short bursts.

Is he kissing wrong or am I the one that's kissing wrong?

Also, how do I tell him he's got his tongue in too far? I mean, it initiates my gag reflex. Do I tell him or is there some way to keep him from doing it?

This guy roommate is about 8 years older than me. He's told me he likes me and I shot him down, and when he asked if I would drink with him after-bar, I said no because it was just going to be him.

Now, I firmly believe that a guy's friends are mirrors of who he is. And ALL of his friends have come onto me when I drank with the group. Even the married ones. I learned not to drink alone with ANY of them within the first two weeks living here.

Not to mention my roommate had a restraining order against him from his ex (had I known this prior I wouldn't have let him live with us).

Am I overreacting or am I right to avoid drinking alone with him?

Should I not have said it so bluntly?

So, I'm 19 and I just moved out of the house a little under two months ago. I moved into a place that I'm renting with my sister and two of her friends. My sister is 8 1/2 years older than me and now that I've moved out of my mom's house, she thinks that its her responsibility to parent me. We're sisters, she's not my parent.

I don't really know what to do about it. Every time we try to talk to each other about anything of the sort, it gets blown into a huge argument and never gets resolved. It feels like I'm always mad at her and we always have an attitude towards each other and its really starting to tear apart our relationship.

No, I haven't made the smartest choices within the last month but I don't feel like its her place to yell at me for it and tell me what to do. In fact, she even tattled to my mother. I'm an adult and I'll make my own mistakes.

I just don't know what to do anymore. She feels like I don't have her back on anything and I don't feel like I can trust her with anything anymore. What can we do to resolve it?

I've been living with three other roommates for a little over a month now. One of them is my sister, another is her best friend, and the last is a guy. They all went to class together and are 8 years older than me.

About a week ago, my guy roommate expressed that he had feelings for me and I immediately shut him down (for a number of reasons). I had just left for vacation and I told him that I didn't want it to be awkward when I got home, then he promised that he'd never make a move on me and that everything would be normal.

I knew that was going to go down the drain as soon as he got drunk, and I was right. He texted me while he was out and made some comments that made me a little uncomfortable since I don't return his feelings at all, and I know he has at least one restraining order on him, if not two, from girls he was after or had dated. (If I had known any of this prior to moving in, I wouldn't have been okay with living with him). I was curt and to the point, but I doubt he'll remember it when he gets drunk again.

I know I have to shut him down harder if I really want him to leave it alone. BUT I'm living with him for the rest of the year, so I can't do anything that will really make this whole situation worse. If all else fails, I can get him kicked out but I'd like to hold off on that as long as possible. How should I go about it? How can I REALLY shut him down so he stops making advances?

I'm 19 and freshly moved out of the house, living with three roommates that had all been in the same class and have known each other for quite some time. One of them is my older sister.

One of my roommates has people over pretty frequently, and I tend to be invited to join and hang out with him and his friends. Everyone in the house (excluding myself, but including visitors) averages at 8-9 years older than myself. A couple of his friends have been interested in me, so I decided to ask myself the question of whether or not I would date someone almost ten years older than me.

I was talking to a friend about it, and she gave me a bizarre look and stated that they were far too old! But I tend to appreciate their stability and maturity. What do you guys think?

So, my ex and I broke up a looong time ago.We were on and off for a while but at the time he didn't think I was "interested" anymore and he started dating another girl to make me jealous. I hadn't talked to him since. About six months ago, we had just gotten back into touch and after some confusion, I told him I didn't want to get together. He insisted that we still be friends.

Now, I hadn't hung out with him since that. He showed up at a party I was going to and we talked and it was fine.

But it all went to crap from there, quite a few drinks later, because he almost got into a fight with a guy that had kissed me at the party. The other guy insisted that they just talk it out, and my ex spilled his guts about how he was still in love with me and he f***ed up. He ended up pouting outside for a good hour or so.

Oh, and he even had the balls to ask me out to the movies the next night, which I said no to. Considering that he can't handle just being friends and I will be seeing other people. I can't be with him just one-on-one anymore because I don't want things to get mixed up in his head.

So, I still have absolutely no feelings for my ex anymore. I've expressed that on multiple occasions and I think its ridiculous that I should have to tiptoe around him, when he's the one that wanted to stay friends. If he's gonna pitch a fit every time I'm with another guy, should I end the friendship?

My sister and I are close despite an 8 1/2 year age difference. She's 27 and I'm 19. We run a business together and now we're getting a house together, but she never really takes me seriously. I'm an adult, and she still treats me like I'm in middle school. Yells at me when I swear, cuts me off when I disagree with her, and if I have a concern about something she says I'm overreacting and puts it off till the next day, and then puts it off again until the absolute last minute when I'm at my wits end.

Its starting to get to a point where I am constantly frustrated with her.

She goes over my head with business decisions and has done the same with our new place. We are renting, and I was concerned about having her guy friend live with us for the first few months, but her and her best friend (also living with us, with her two year old child) were so excited about having super-cheap rent that my concerns were completely overlooked. I'm not concerned about him personally, but he has a dog and neither of them know if its good with cats or other dogs, which I have both of. My pets have no other place to go and he refuses to leave his dog, which is understandable but we really should have made sure everyone got along before we added him.

I really just want to stop being treated like I'm not on equal ground. What do I do?

I'm finally moving out of the house and into a place I'm renting with my sister and her best friend (who has a 2yr old child). I have a 10 year old border-collie/lab mix. She's still got a lot of spunk for her age, but its become quite the family disagreement on where the dog should stay.

The new place I'm moving to is an entire house with a nice big yard. Plenty of places for her to run around and have a good time. However, my mom and grandma have been giving me a hard time, saying she's too old to move away from her home and that I should leave her with my mother.

Now, the dog is mine. My name is on her license papers and I pay for all the vet bills and dog food. (which I would continue to pay for even if I left her at home). I had always planned to take her with me when I leave home. Its always been something I've discussed but now that my move-out date approaches, my mom has been pushing me to my limits about leaving the dog here.

Her reasoning is that the dog will not be happy in the new place, even going so far to say that my dog will die under my care (which is entirely unfounded, mind you) and that she's just too old to move away. She also thinks the stress of a bigger city and living with a child will be too much.

BUT if I leave her here, my dog will never go on another walk. I haven't seen my mom get physical exercise in maybe 15 years. She will leave her best friend, my cat, and will probably rarely see her. The new place has plenty of room for everyone, and I have repeatedly stated that if my dog is unhappy in her new surroundings I will bring her back home.

Now they're calling me selfish for taking the dog with me, and I should keep her best interests in mind. So, am I really being selfish? Is it that hard on a dog to move to a new place?

Fair warning, this one is long.

She was my best friend for 10+ years, all through middle and high school, as was her on-off boyfriend. When we all graduated, they went to different colleges while I stayed around the area and ran a business. They tried to stay together, but were quickly torn apart by her cheating on him while they were "on a break" because he was getting "too possessive" over her new best guy-friend (who she cheated on him with, by the way). During this time, she had asked me to hang out with her boyfriend more often to keep him occupied and to get him to take his mind off of the situation, so I did. I was the emotional support for both of them through the break, break-up, and post-break-up.

After the breakup, she started dating the guy she cheated with. Since her and her ex were still trying to be friends, she tried to make them get along and hang out, which was like rubbing salt in the wound. Eventually she dumped this other guy and wanted to get back together with her ex, who wisely said "hell no!" (wise because this isn't the first time she's cheated).

So around St. Patrick's day, I went over to her place to have some drinks and have a good time. All was well until that laaaast drink and she started to text him, in despair that he wouldn't respond to her. After that she got into this "Poor me" sort of thing that I found really hard to stomach for more than an hour or so. She said she was "pressured" into cheating on him, which I could understand if she had just done once, but she cheated on him FOUR times in a week, and then ended up dating the guy she cheated with. Sounds like free-will to me. And then she decided to break the news that she's pregnant, and its her ex's baby(the one she cheated on, though considering timing its really hard to say)

Now, I know she was faking it because - A: She immediately decided she was going to abort it. and B: Convenient timing, no? and C: She REFUSED to see counseling about what to do with the baby. She also lied to me about telling her ex about it, saying that he had told her to deal with it when in reality she had never talked to him.

And here's where it gets messy.

I left her house while she was whining about it. Damn it, it was St.Patrick's day and I didn't go there to hear her pity herself about what she did. I told her I was going home, but in reality I went to his party and met his new girlfriend. When some pictures were posted of me being there later, she immediately freaked out and sent me a nice little message with the first sentence being "YOU TWO-FACED *****"

Which is hardly accurate, mind you, since I never picked a side in this whole ordeal. I reminded her that they were BOTH my friends and its not fair of her to make me pick a side. Oh, and her entire family got in on calling me out on it. It was the best. (sarcasm)

Even though I know she's full of it, she claims her biggest deal is that I lied about it. And of COURSE I lied about it, she's sitting there telling me how jealous she is that I can text him whenever I want. I can't be like "Oh, hey, I'm going to your ex's party and I'm meeting the girl he replaced you with. Have fun here by yourself!"

And so ends our 10+ year friendship.

I think she's overreacting. I can understand her being upset but completely throwing away ten years? Wow.

What are your guys' thoughts?

I'm moving out of my house in a little under two weeks. Got a new place and the dog and cat are coming with me. My name is on both of their license papers and I pay for ALL of the cat/dog food and vet bills.

My mom is very attached to my dog, and I just recently told her that she would be coming with me when I moved out. She immediately became irate and said that the dog would "die under my care" or would "never go for a walk again" if I were to take her with me. Neither of these statements have a grain of truth to them, but she feels they are factual because she has no food or water in her bowl for maybe an hour tops. There has never been a day that she has gone without, but she claims my dog will have kidney failure from this. I am also the only person to walk her considering I haven't seen my mother get physical exercise in maybe 15 years.

Aaaaall day long she makes her little comments. Or when she's in one of her moods(which happen increasingly as my move-out date approaches), she'll go on and on about how she doesn't think its a good idea that I take the dog with me. I know its because she knows she'll be lonely when the house is empty, but its my dog and my cat and they are both coming with me. She can't even afford the dog food I have to get, let alone her own bills that she struggles to pay.

So I know I'm taking the dog with me, but what can I do to make her stop with her little comments and tirades whenever she's thrown into a mood? What do I say to her?

For the purpose of the question, lets say a man was convicted of 1st degree murder. He is absolutely guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and has pleaded guilty.

Is he less of a human?

If you answered yes, I would like to pose a follow-up question.

Do you think a fetus is less than a human?

What boggles my mind is that we will waste millions of dollars to house criminals that should never be allowed back into society, and some say it is not our place to decide who lives and who dies. But didn't that criminal decide who lived and who died? Don't you decide who lives and who dies when you abort a fetus?

This is simply meant to be thought provoking, and I would like to hear some serious arguments.

Ok, so to really get the situation, there's a background paragraph that you can skip if you want.

I'm 18, and my parents have been divorced for 13 years. Two years after their divorce, he remarried to a woman who already had three kids. The youngest being Jenna, who's just a couple years younger than me. They divorced just last year and Jenna still sees him on the weekends.

I don't see my dad's side of the family much. It was my choice. They family excluded me because they didn't like my mom. They did the same thing to my half-sister (not my dad's daughter) and there just came a point in time where holidays and family events became painful and I decided not to go. I started seeing my dad less, too, and altogether stopped seeing him for about a year because I had a medical emergency and he refused to take me to the hospital, and then continued to belittle me and put me down instead of trying to make things right.

I decided to see him a few months ago, and start seeing him again every couple of weeks. After the first time, he started bringing Jenna instead of seeing me one on one and I ended up being the odd one out. Again. What I'm REALLY sore about is that I was replaced as his daughter by Jenna, who is not his child. He takes her to football games, concerts, camping, and I never once got an invite. Nor does he bother to plan anything other than a cheap meal with me. He did this a lot even before I decided to stop seeing him.

I want so badly to just let him know that it its a big problem with me, but my dad isn't exactly the kind of person that deals well with confrontation. In fact, he'll probably tell me that I'm imagining it and he doesn't really do it all that often. Is it even worth talking to him about it? If it is, how should I go about it?

^ Title is self explanatory

Ok, so I met this guy at a party, we spoke briefly and he asked for my number and we've been chatting ever since. He's about an hour away and we text and skype and I like this guy a lot. We're setting up the first date and he says to me "This might seem like a strange request, but can I ask that you not wear heels when we meet up? I feel like it would make the moment feel that much more real"

Now, his reasoning behind this is because he's 14 inches taller than me and he wants me to come just as I am, and not try to make up for the space. This kinda struck me as a little controlling though. What do you guys think?