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Tuesday, March 7, 2006 12:00 AM

Singles going steady

To avoid marrying a jerk, singles educators say you should stay out of bed on the first date and cross-examine your partner. Critics say their advice is hokum.

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  • Tuesday, March 7, 2006 01:12 PM

    Healthy marriages come after healthy single adulthood.

    Looks like they're finding endless ways to recycle the same bad advice for singles: delay sex because, well, just because. You're ready for sex when, well, not yet but some day. The truth is, if you advise high-school kids to abstain, you're encouraging them to marry young, and everybody knows youthful marriages fail in astronomically high numbers. Better they should learn to use birth control, handle sexual relationships first, and marry later in life.

    I suppose it's hard to give up the delusion that girls have no interest in sex; that their real interest is "true love". I suppose we are not ready to give up the bias that the most devastating thing on earth for a young girl is to wake up next to a "jerk" and realize she had sex with him the night before and now she doesn't love (or even like) him.

    But. I suspect there's one thing even more devastating: realizing you had to marry the guy first to learn this.

    I'll counsel anybody for free: delay marriage -- indefinitely if you like -- but delay marriage until you're older.

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