I think this in danger of being a racist sentiment even though she's aiming at cosmetic surgery.

Naturally-full lips look about as much like collagen-enhanced lips as real breasts look like implants.

I have rarely seen people who've work hard to manage their own affairs spurned in times of legitimate need, much less from their own flesh and blood. Have you?

I can't speak for AKA Smith, but I can answer "yes" here. It happens. And witnessing something like that can really make you think less of your fellow humans.

I will add that people who do this are often whiny, needy, entitled little twats themselves. It's ugly to see, but you CAN get nearly entire families of those.

Stop it with that stupid "natural inclinations" defense. Most people also have (or have had, if they've managed to transmute the emotional energy enough as they've matured) overwhelming "natural inclinations" to beat the bejesus out of other people from time to time. Would you defend some violent meathead who ran around beating people up on the grounds that s/he has these natural impulses to defend his/her territory and gain power/status/mastery in the world (all nice things to have). No? Of course not.

You have to do to lot more work than that to convincingly get an "ought" from an "is" (jury's still out on whether you can really do it at all. All this argument really amounts to is that you just really, really, WANT to go screw around (just like I might really really WANT to throw down on that moron I talked to at the phone company yesterday).

Grow up and take some responsibility for how you respond to your precious inclinations instead of looking to nature to excuse you.

No, don't tell her. That would be a self-indulgent apology. It's done with. Move on. This revelation is not in any way news she can use, and it would only hurty her to know about it. Besides, can you imagine if she decided she wasn't going to believe you only made out with this woman? I know I'd have my doubts in her position.

Just shut your trap and be very grateful that you aren't keeping a bigger secret than this.

The study seems to be arguing AGAINST the idea that breast implants raise self-esteem, NOT FOR the idea that they cause suicide. Many plastic surgeons, etc., promote breast enhancement and other surgeries on the grounds that there is some significant positive impact on self-esteem for surgery patients, and it looks like that particular causal link has been debunked.

My the time kids are in junior high, the socialization ahs already settled in pretty fierce. Kids that age will cling more tightly to whatever they have learned of gender norms that just about any other age group.

Girls do need to learn math. When you want to teach ANYONE, you have to meet them where they are, right then. Girls who like fashion and baking, etc. are not going to be receptive to learning math if they have the impression that it is irrelevant to anything they already like doing.

And aren't there a few boys here and there who love fashion that could stand to brush up on their math too?

If you had ever BEEN a twenty-something-year-old woman, you would know damned well that it's nothing that most women would wish themselves back to. And twenty-three with a seven-year-old child and some misty-eyed romantic fool 18 years her senior pining after her? No thanks.

I don't have a moral problem with the scenario, but for practical reasons, dating men in their early 20s doesn't really appeal to me. All the men I know in their early 20s think they KNOW so much. They've got it all figured out, and are so certain of precisely where their lives are going to take them. It's annoying. I'd rather see them 10 years alter, when they've proven whether or not they can weather life's storms with some grace and dignity.

Yep, not only is the commercial airport named after Will Rogers, there is also a municipal airport named after Wiley Post, who died in the same crash that killed W.R. But if you ever do spend anytime in OKC, you will likely notice that the natives do tend to have an odd sense of humor.

But watch your back, LW. This person knows you know his secrets. This means you may be perceived as a potential threat. Be very, very careful when negotiating office politics involving him. He may look for a way to throw you under the proverbial bus in order to neutralize you.

And if you yourself are devious and manipulative enough, you may be able to invent a way to throw HIM under the bus instead. That would solve everyone's problem.

Well, my dear, a man has certain things, certain considerations, certain processes he has to go through, certain cycles of reconciliation and getting used to ideas.

Poor fragile little darling. Perhaps he ought to run home to mummy until he's feeling a touch more secure?

She sounds like she's "mummy" for this guy, actually. Unconditional acceptance of everything he does, willing to emotionally coddle his scared-little-boyness until he feels "ready" (which means "I'm still hoping some 25-year-old mentally-challenged hottie will overlook my ordinariness and I don't want to be tied down when that happens).

Nah, ditch him. The fiancee he was still with when he started seeing you, the ex-wife, the supposed "fragility" of his whole situation, all this makes him sound like a big whiny boy.

Yuck.