If he falls in love with you but the relationship is ultimately fleeting, chances are he will find blondes more attractive than he once thought he did because of you.

Anyhow, it is too bad he confided his preferences to you because chances are, he didn't realize he could be attracted to more than one "look." Does he tell you he likes you ust as you are, or does he tell you he can get past the blonde hair and date you because of your other traits? It makes a difference. Not worth your time on a guy who makes it clear that he is settling.

If you enjoy him and can get over his prior statements, I like Cary's suggestion of donning a good wig. Or just do a temporary color wash and see how you like playing the brunette for a little while. My mom was a (dyed) reddish-brown brunette when she met my Dad and that his what he fell in love with, but then she started dying her hair blonde (she was a childhood blonde who went mousy brown in her teen years) and has been doing so for at least 30 years. He still loves her and thinks she is beautiful, but he still thinks of her as a redhead no matter what she says or does.

What I am trying to say is that looks are transient. If you are connecting on a deeper level, go with it, but if he is continuing to annoy you with brunette talk even after you have started dating, well, maybe reconsider whether you are into him or not.

my one year old boy loves to emulate his three year old sister-- he wants to wear her nightgowns, her barretts, her ladybug shoes. he wants us to tell him how nice he looks. he wants to try on my glasses and my necklaces.

he likes cars and can throw a ball and romp around boyishly, too, but I notice that my husband and mother and others cringe when he is fascinated by "girly" things.

It drives me nuts. It is natural baby curiosity to want to manipulate different fabrics and textures, and to be attracted to the shiny and colorful.

It drives me bonkers that we have made so many inroads for girls to wear jeans, play sports, be physical and tomboyish, but we have not made the same allowances for those boys who are fascinated by traditionally girlish things.

It is simply unfair that society was designed this way.

I plan to enroll my kids in a good martial arts school when they turn four. My daughter so she can hold her own if she is ever physically harassed, and same for my son. I don't believe in looking for a fight but we must teach our children-- especially our gentlest children, how to hold their own when attacked.

Do you want to have kids? With him?

An acquaintance of mine is in her early forties. Her husband is a drunk who thinks no one else knows. I.e., he is always drunk. At family gatherings, he goes out for "smoke breaks" and replenishes the hard liquor that he sips from an emptied diet coke can, or helps himself to a another beer stored in his trunk. He cannot make conversation and just is in a kind of benign and oblivious stupor most of the time.

His fourteen year old daughter is meek, quiet, shy, mousy, obese, and has difficulty forming friendships.

I don't think he started out this way and am sure ten or fifteen years ago there was much that was kind and lovable about him.

But nevertheless, he has spent the last two weeks hospitalized with liver failure.

Has he hit rock bottom yet?

I guess only he can answer that. Some drunks, rock bottom is six feet under.

Why are you wasting your youth? Be the catalyst that makes him improve his life. You have to leave him to do it, though, and move on. Three or five years from now, maybe he will be the sober man you loved and love and you can see about getting back together then if you haven't met a more ideal person in the meantime.

Aubrey Reuben is an old slut. I am not impressed with his slutty reminisces.

My Mother would like a big declaration from me, now that I have stopped practicing Catholicism and have married outside my faith of origin and am raising my children Jewish. She has asked me to "renouce Jesus."

Nah. My falling away from the faith was gradual and personal. Any public "renouncing" is far too dramatic and at the age of 36, seems awfully like jumping the gun, as I expect my "faith," or sometime lack thereof, to come and go and ebb and flow as the rest of my days are lived out.

Don't live a lie. Just stop going to services with your wife, explain to her that the preacher is no longer speaking your language. Your relationship with God and/or Jesus is between you and God and/or Jesus. Continue to be a good person and use your freed-up Sunday time to make some good contribution to society or at least to your household.

Don't "come out" and renounce your faith, that is going to be too much of an affront and a challenge to the faithful people in your life. If they directly challenge you, deflect or be honest. I find it much easier to deflect. I feel that I would be far too persuasive if really pushed, and I don't want to go around shattering my loved one's sense of faith. I respect their beliefs, and ask that they respect mine, which I can't explain to them without offending them. Those family members whose faith can't be shattered, well, I don't want to start a feud. So I just do my thing and deflect and change the subject and avoid the confrontations as best I can.

is not persuasive.