I'll co-opt this for 2015.

Pretty excited about giving my family and friends gifts this year. For my mom, I've done a cartoon-y drawing of an old family photo:



Selfishly chosen because I am the best part of that picture.

I did POF too. I definitely preferred OKCupid, which is also free. OKC has essay boxes to fill out on your profile that direct your self-summary. For example, it asks you to list what you're really good at, what you're doing on a typical Friday night, etc. It also has match questions you answer that...

OKCupid is the best dating site that I used. That doesn't show you if people have read your messages or not, but it does show you if they visited your profile. You can actually turn that feature off, though, I think.

All of the toys that belong to the dog I'm petsitting have been well loved.

Aw yiss, one more student who missed a bunch of assignments pulled it together for a C. She had many personal issues too. Like a lot of my students, she's from a rough part of Chicago and her little brother, who is alive still, has been shot several times. The family realized he's being targeted, so...

Currently assigning my students their final grades. Some made stupid mistakes and are trying to push them off on me and bargain for a higher grade. I'm not having it, but it's still frustrating to have to deal with. I'm very happy with another student's outcome, though. As of two weeks ago she had t...

That's better! Here's an example of some edits that you could make, with explanations for the changes made below, along with additional questions and suggestions in red: Hello there. My pets are a big part of my life. I have a rabbit and 5 rats right now, and have had plenty of various pets over the...

I have ideas! Overall: 1. More detail! Try to give examples to avoid sounding too general. 2. Watch out for small grammatical errors. Add: 1. You say your pets are a hobby of yours. What kind of pets do you have? If you have an uncommon pet, like a chinchilla or snake, as opposed to a cat or a dog, ...

Sure, not everyone will be attracted to you, but some people will be. And of those people, you'll be attracted to some too. I have a "conventionally attractive" face and a thick figure, which plenty of people will tell you is unappealing. Since I've gotten more confident, though, I have no...

My advice for a good dating site initial message would be, firstly, to keep it short; don't write an essay, a few sentences will do. Second, the initial message shouldn't really be about you. People love to talk about themselves. A good strategy might be to pick out one interest that he or she menti...

I have told him I want to have sex with him several times and he said he wants to as well. But, like I said, he always stops before it happens. I also told him, I think verbatim, "I can't be around you and not want to be physically close to you." His response was something to the effect of...

Mhm. Plus, the way you present yourself on a dating site is all about rhetoric (visual rhetoric, verbal rhetoric, etc.). If you want to share quote or summaries of your messages, I, and probably others, would be happy to see if there's anything about them that could potentially be putting people off...

We definitely have a friendship, but I think I want to have sex with him too badly to be his friend.

Well, I don't agree, but it's your prerogative to believe what you want. In other news, I managed to avoid "boy troubles" of any description throughout my formative years and most of my adult life. However, earlier this year I made a friend, who has been friends with my best friend since c...

American standup comedian Paul F. Tompkins has a bit on therapy that I like. Specifically, I like how he notes that therapy can simply help you recognize what patterns of behavior are making you unhappy, why you keep acting them out, and how to do something different. Or, even barring that, it's jus...

Yeah, fork those people. Would it help to take a break from Twitter or, if you want to talk about something personal, do it using a different online forum where no one will harass you?

In the past, when my brother has gone through a rough patch he has been very negative and, at times, rude or downright mean to the people around him. I think there's a number of reasons for this. He feels like he has to test the people in the life, to see if they really love him. He also tends not t...

Aw, I didn't see your post until now. We should definitely do regular collaborative games like Telephone Pictionary. I mean, we're a nice bunch of creative and humorous individuals. I like just talking to people on here, but I think it's also a lot of fun to make new things together. I really loved ...

I had a bad class today. I have to make my students create online portfolios in a format that they won't be able to keep once they graduate. So, I consider it an unhelpful hoop my students have to jump through, and I've made that clear to them. Unsurprisingly, they weren't into discussing the examp...

"No, I think it was just your general death-by-coconut."

In response to the Baby Debate: On a case by case basis, I get very happy for couples or single women when they get pregnant if I know that they or she really want(s) a child and will be a good parent or good parents. But in general another couple adding more humans to our already excessive world po...

I had a bad class today. I have to make my students create online portfolios in a format that they won't be able to keep once they graduate. So, I consider it an unhelpful hoop my students have to jump through, and I've made that clear to them. Unsurprisingly, they weren't into discussing the exampl...

Talking to a doctor would be good.

And yeah, the Twitter person sounds like an objectionable person. Can you shut down your account for a bit or hold off from posting?

Life is a horrorshow, apparently. And nah, I've never had sex drunk, but not too long ago I had sex with two different guys I met online on the same day (not a threesome). The first guy was really, really bad in bed. He kept apologizing to me as I was trying to leave and as I was standing in the doo...

Yep. I heard twigs breaking, and I'm sure it was an animal but it definitely stopped me in my tracks for a moment. And by the way, if my friend doesn't like the gift I'll just return the gravestone. I really do think that it would be better appreciated by her than in its original location, though. I...