...to point out the obvious thing here:

It's relatively common for men to be friends--real, honest-to-gosh friends--with women they were attracted to. Note I use the past tense!

If a woman makes it clear that she's not interested, a mature guy will back off and settle down for friendship (if she's an interesting person, and worth getting to know as a friend), right?

It sounds like the young lady wants a magic wand, so that she can quickly and easily sort through men and their intentions. But men aren't that simple in one sense: their intentions may be mixed, or might even change with time. So might LW's!

So how hard is it to just assume they're only interested in friendship, and simply state that in a non-pointed way at your earliest convenience? Not very. And most guys will take the hint. They'll either run off (in which case who needs 'em as a friend anyway? They've made their intentions clear) or stick around. If they're so madly in love that they'd feign friendship just for LW's company, well, her bad hair days are probably not as bad as she thinks. And besides, at that point does it matter?

Friends are easy to make, provided both parties are honest.

...that there are only two comments for this article.

To the previous commenter:

Say what you will about whether the runners get preferential treatment from the government (I'm not sure how that's even relevant--are you insinuating that they therefore deserve harm because some of them got no-show military commissions? Then let's send Dubya to the head of that line).

But isn't it fascinating that this article garners such a lukewarm response? I wonder how concerned people might be if this were anywhere but Africa.

...which Ms. Allen conveniently ignores, is that Americans are stupid (and getting stupider).

It's no surprise that Allen considers women who swoon for Obama to be idiotic, since she's a conservative. You'd think she'd also take issue with all the men who think Ann Coulter is brilliant, too. But no--it's just women who cheer and scream for a Democrat. They're the "Grey's Anatomy"-watching drooling idiots.

The weird, emotional, whiny, neurotic, obsessive behaviors that she attributes to women are also prevalent in men, too. They're exhibited in other ways, so the outward symptoms are different, but the underlying emotional motivations are the same. See, this is what you get when you have a generation of self-absorbed Baby Boomers raise a generation of down-and-out, nowhere-to-go, don't-give-a-shit Gen-X & Y kids who've been taught to kowtow to authority and never question anything, especially if it has God, the Flag, or the President in it. You get women who scream loudly about empowerment, but then whine about not being able to find a man to their friends. And you get men who act out in exaggeratedly hyper-aggressive alpha male ways to prove their own masculinity to themselves and others, but seem unable to demonstrate it to women (or worse, the super-sensitive guy who feels the need to demonstrate his emotional intelligence to every woman around him in the hopes that he'll finally find one who'll worship him without question like his mommy did).

You also get a culture that's obsessed with appearance, and values attractiveness and emotional appeal over analytical thought or reason. Any culture that pushes "American Idol" to the top of the steaming pile that is television programming has some pretty serious issues, and the gender-related ones are just the tip of the iceberg. That should be fairly obvious.

A few questions:

1. What federal laws did Spitzer break that would mandate the involvement of the FBI?

2. Public opinion is clearly very much in favor of hanging him for the sin of hypocrisy. Is that warranted?

3. HRC has run on a ticket with Spitzer; what sort of statement do you think she'll issue about this at all? She's already sidestepped it this morning.

All this leads up to the biggest question: Who stands to benefit from Spitzer's public humiliation / resignation?

There is nothing in the least tragic about Gov. Spitzer's fall. With the exception of the effect on his family.

This is nothing less than divine retribution, or at the very least poetic justice of the most delicious kind

...

May you after a long life of humiliation, come to reside in that special room in hell for hypocrites who victimize others for their own advancement. [one big sic]

In what way is this DIVINE RETRIBUTION? More religious wingnuttery. Anything you love is the Will of God. Anything you hate is unfathomable. There are only ultimate causes and effects. You do not realize how you both advocate the dismissal of--yet force some kind of bizarre hyper-awareness of--personal responsibility and free will when you try to score points like this.

God had nothing to do with this. Spitzer decideded to do this on his own, and no further explanations are needed. Take the religious claptrap somewhere else, please.