When a guy says, “Don’t worry about it, it’s nothing,” a woman can’t leave it be.  If he says, “Everything’s going to be okay,” she doesn’t believe him.   Because in her mind, it IS something.  It’s NEVER nothing.  And seriously, if we don’t come up with every possible route that our current situation could take in the future, we have no idea if everything will be okay in the end.  We want to play out all the possibilities in our minds and feel like we’re prepared for the worst, no matter what form it may take.

Part of this comes from the differences in male and female brains in the way that we build intimacy.  Psychologists have realized that men build intimacy with others through shared activities – thus, they feel closest to the people who they do things with.  Women build intimacy with others through sharing of important issues and problems in their lives – thus, they feel closest to the people with whom they share the most emotionally.

Put a man and a woman in a relationship.  As long as they’re doing things together and getting on fairly well, the man will assume that all is well, everything’s going to be okay.  Trouble brewing?  It’s okay, we’ll figure it out, the man thinks.  The woman, however, immediately wants to talk it over with her man.  She wants to go through the details, she wants to share with him and have him share with her.  When he refuses to listen or share his thoughts on the matter, she begins to get anxious and feel less intimately connected with him.

Weird, huh?

Our worrying is our way of trying to connect with you and build intimacy.  Sure, it’s annoying.  Sure, it’s a bit neurotic.  Sure, sometimes it’s borderline crazy.  But in the end, we do it because we care about you and we want to feel close to you.

What can you do to help us?

Listen.  I know this article is taking a kind of serious tone, but this is important, dangit!  The one thing you can do right now to make your woman worry less is to listen more.  Take time to sit down with no distractions and really hear her out when she talks about the things that worry her.  Don’t try to tell her that her fears are unfounded – if she feels them, they’re real.  Share with her any worries you’ve felt on the same subject so she knows you’re with her.  You “get it.”  Then come up with a few options together that will soothe her back into a sense of security and intimacy again.

Get your intimacy meter full and you’ll find that you get more of that OTHER intimacy, too!  Funny how that works, isn’t it?

I’m sure you’re pretty familiar with this scenario.   It’s bedtime and you and your sweetie hop beneath the sheets to snuggle.  Everything’s fine and good until you are attacked by her ice-cold feet.  “Ooooh,” she says, rubbing those frozen piggies all over you. “You’re so WARMMM! Why are you so warm?  I’m cold!”  Meanwhile you’re torn between wanting to get laid and wanting to kick her frozen ass right out of bed.

Ever wanted to know why women are so darn cold when you’re burning up in the exact same room, wearing similar clothing?  Well, there’s no definite answer, but there are several theories floating around that may interest you:

Women lose heat faster due to a higher ratio of skin surface area to body volume.

The bigger you are, the more heat you produce, but it disappears through your skin.  Since women are on the whole smaller than men, they lose heat faster.

Men have more muscle mass.

Muscles have blood vessels, blood vessels flow with delicious warm blood, thus, the more muscle, the more blood.  The more blood, the more warmth.

Women are built to keep buns warm in the oven.

There’s a neat process called vasoconstriction, by which our bodies cut off blood flow to the skin to keep internal organs and core temperature stable.  Women’s bodies do this at higher temperatures than men, probably as an evolutionary protection mechanism for unborn babies.

Menstruation causes a loss of body heat.

This one hasn’t really been proven, but there are people out there that claim that bleeding for a week (with the ensuing anemia) plus hormonal changes, makes us shivering bitches once a month.

Men have a higher metabolism.

You’ve heard the analogy – your metabolism is the fire burning in your body, fueling your cells.  Well, if you have a bigger engine, it’s going to put out more heat, right?

Women wear less clothing.

Ah, here’s Captain Obvious to the rescue.  Let’s take John and Sue, typical office monkeys.  It’s August and it’s pretty hot.  John’s business casual outfit involves khaki pants, and undershirt, and a short-sleeved polo shirt.  He wears socks and shoes.  Sue’s business casual outfit involves khaki pants, a sleeveless blouse, and an adorable pair of open-toed heels.  John’s got three extra layers of protection against the A/C blasting at AcmeCo:  an undershirt, socks, and closed-toed shoes.  Not to mention that his cotton blend polo is probably much warmer than her polyester blend blouse.

Eating habits can bring on the chill.

Think about how many times you have heard a woman in your office say, “I haven’t had a bite to eat all day.”  An under-fueled body is a cold body!

Caffeine and alcohol, the silent freezers.

You might think, “But I feel so warm when I drink coffee!”  or “There’s nothing like a shot of Captain to warm you up!”  But in fact, while alcohol and caffeine rush blood to the skin and make you feel warm initially, they actually suck the heat right out of you.  If your Ice Princess is a coffee hound (or a tequila guzzling floozy), this might be the cause of her frozen toesies.

Whatever the reason, it’s a problem that all men (and lesbians) have to deal with – cold feet, cold hands, cold noses, and cold asses.  But hey, you’re sharing a bed with a woman!!  Why are you complaining?

Flip-flops: We can get away with just basic black, but really, they’re so cheap, we might as well get them in every single color to coordinate with our outfits.

Dress sandals: These are necessary for summer weddings and other dress-up occasions in warm climates.  We can’t wear flip-flops, but we want to show off our adorable painted toenails.

Athletic sneakers: These are the sneakers we wear to the gym.  We may or may not have them in multiple colors to coordinate with our gym outfits.

Crappy sneakers: These are the sneakers we use for yard work or volunteering down at the local middle school doing landscaping.  Often they are old pairs of athletic sneakers.

Dressy sneakers: Totally not appropriate for athletic activities, but for those times we want to look sneaker-casual without wearing actual sneakers.

Classic flats: We have to have flats for occasions where we date men who are too short for us to be able to wear our heels.  (Short men everywhere are grateful that we provide this service!)

Mary Janes:  They’re adorable with their little cross strap and buckle.  A must-have for the school-girl look.

Kitten heels: These are those shoes with tiny heels.  Sometimes in style, sometimes not.  Need to keep them around to be ready for when they are in fashion.

Peep-toe heels:  Peep toe heels are great for Spring, when it’s not quite warm enough for open-toe shoes or dress sandals, but you still want to show off one toenail worth of polish.

Pointy-toed shoes:  Again, sometimes in style, sometimes not.  Gotta be prepared!

Square-toed shoes:  Ditto.  Did I mention that 75% of the shoes we own aren’t worn on a regular basis?

Short Boots:  Best in colors like black or brown, short boots are all the awesome of a boot without the full-calf commitment.

Tall Boots:  Tall can mean anywhere from knee to thigh.  Stripper boots, anyone?

Big goofy slippers: For those times we’re hanging around the house and want giant fluffy bunnies on our feet to cheer us up.

Bridesmaid shoes:  Every girl who has been a bridesmaid has at least one pair of ugly dyed shoes that she had to buy for the wedding and will never wear again.  You guys have it lucky – you can RENT your wedding outfits.

Now, if you take into consideration that most of the shoes listed above need to be had in several different colors.  After all, you can’t wear black shoes with a brown outfit or brown shoes with a black outfit.  White shoes are only appropriate at certain times of the year.  It’s a really messy system, if you take all of these factors into account.  It’s no wonder that some women own ten times as many shoes as their man!

Bottom line, guys.  If you find a woman who has less than twice the amount of shoes that you do, marry that girl.  You’ve found yourself one of the few sensible women (like me!) who have avoided the monster of shoe obsession.

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It started when you acquired copies of Playboy or Penthouse from your father, or your friend’s father.  You snuck them into your treehouse and you drooled all over the pages.

Then came the internet.  Oh, the glorious, glorious internet.  There were naked women everywhere, doing everything you could ever imagine them doing (and some things you wish you could forget having seen them do).

But the bottom line is this: you’ve been at the porn game for a while.

We ladies on the other hand, haven’t really felt the need to delve into porn.  For one, we were raised to think that someday our prince would come.  He’d sweep us off our feet, there’d be this romantic kiss, and then we’d cut to a scene with all of our little royal children scurrying around our mansion happily.  We grow up fantasizing about the storybook romance.  You grow up fantasizing about getting your hands on giant breasts.

So it makes perfect sense that while you grew up with porn, starting with just sneaking glances at softcore mags and slowly ramping up to utter debauchery on the internet, we ladies are still in the baby stages of erotic entertainment.

In other words, we’re not ready for what you consider to be “good porn.”  We pretty much think that your “good porn” is utter filth.

There is no good reason for that girl to be naked while wearing 7 inch glittery stripper heels.  There’s no good reason for her to be blindfolded and leaning over a couch.  And there’s certainly no good reason for her to be crying out in rapturous joy while being taken by a man she’s never met before.  It just doesn’t make sense.

Secondly, there’s absolutely no connection between the people on the screen. (Beyond the obvious bumping of uglies, of course.)

They don’t know each other, they barely talk to one another, and when things are done, there’s no happily ever after.  (No sir, a facial is NOT a happily ever after.)

Want your girl to watch porn with you?

Then you have to put yourself in the wayback machine and dial your tastes back to the stuff you enjoyed in middle school.  You know, before you knew the really raunchy stuff existed. If she’s still balking at the idea of porn videos, why not start with reading some erotica to each other?  There are plenty of websites where you can find erotica and if you look for the ones labeled “Romantic” you’ll get the type of stories that have the plot and connection that she craves along with the naughty bits to rev your engines.

If you want your woman to enjoy the same kind of porn you enjoy, you’ll have to hold her hand and take her on the journey that you made all those years ago.  Develop her tastes in the way yours were developed – except this time, you’ll know which websites you should avoid at all costs.  Happy surfing!

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Liz believes that its time for them to break up and go their separate ways.  However, she is debating if she should bring up the fact that she cheated on Steve about a month ago.  She thinks it could help explain why they have been fighting so much, but is unsure if it’s too much information at this point.

Should Liz tell Steve that she cheated or just keep it to her self?

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When I first saw the International Relationship Institutes compatibility test, my first thought was “Why do I need this?”

You see I have been in a great relationship for the past two years and it seems to me we are very compatible.  We enjoying sports (both playing and watching), both work in technology  - even both love jalapenos!  How much more compatible can you be?  Why would I need some “test” to tell me if we’re good for each other?

Plus, I figured it was probably one of those lame Cosmo-style 100 point tests.  You’ve seen the ones: Where if you match up on 95 of the 100 questions you are “star crossed lovers destined to love each other for eternity like Ashton and Demi!“  I didn’t want any part of some cheese-ball test of my relationship.

However after deciding to give the test a chance I am quite glad that I spent the time and small fee to check it out!  While the test did an excellent job of reinforcing my belief that Ashley and I are very compatible (whew!), the real value in the test was that it clearly highlighted areas in which we were not aligned.

The test enabled us to talk through these areas and come to a clearer understanding of the other persons’ perspective.  After taking the test, we felt confident that our compatibility was not just based on culinary similarities but on deeper, relevant topics that ranged from sex to religion, from vacation habits to leadership (seems like a crazy topic I know, but it makes sense once you take the test).

How We Took the Test

After deciding to bite the bullet and put the basis of our two years together in the hands of a PDF, we set aside an hour or two on a Saturday afternoon to review the questions in the test.  The instructions recommend printing it out and filling out the questions individually, but we decided to simply review them together on my laptop.

We looked at each question in the document and gave our responses out loud to each other.  When our answers differed, we would talk about why we felt a certain way about that topic.  We also talked about how important it was that the person we were dating share a similar perspective to our own.

This method suited us well as it was easier to have a discussion and it eliminated too much over thinking.  Sometimes when you write down your answers you can think too much and it can make answering the questions more difficult than it should be.  By answering the questions in real-time we felt that a truer response could be given because we would be giving our first reaction not an over-analyzed answer.

I recognize that this may not work for all couples and that some may have the problem of wanting to seem more compatible and would change their answer accordingly.  If you think this would happen in your case, go with the written method.  Otherwise, simply reading it off a computer screen works just fine.

What We Discovered

As I mentioned, since we have been together for some time, we felt similarly about many of the questions.  This was a nice confidence boost about our relationship.  To discover that we saw eye-to-eye on important topics gave us both a sense of assurance that our relationship has a strong foundation.

However it wasn’t all sunshine and roses.  In fact there were several areas in which we didn’t share the same viewpoints.

What was great about this compatibility test was that in those cases,  we discussed why we each felt the way we did about the subject.  These discussions were enlightening and exciting, almost like that experience early on in dating when you first start getting to know someone.

At the end of our discussion, I felt as though I understood my girlfriend on a deeper level about serious topics that would affect our long term happiness.  It answered the question “Are you dating the right person?” with a resounding “oh yea!”

Why this Compatibility Test will be Great for You

As you can tell, I was very happy with my experience with INI’s compatibility test and I feel strongly that it’s something that every couple should also experience.  As we have stated here at U Say, I Say, our goal is to help you have a happier, fuller relationship.  Understanding whether or not you and the person you’re dating are on the same page on key elements is critical to that goal.

Don’t get me wrong: This test isn’t for everybody.  Ladies:  Please don’t go sending this test off to the guy you met at the club last night.  Guys:  Restrain yourselves and don’t bring 2 copies of the compatibility test with you for that happy hour with the girl you just met on Match.com.

But if you have been dating someone for at least 6 months and are thinking it could be going somewhere, I highly recommend picking up this test and discovering how compatible you really are.  It could save you lots of wasted time down the road, and for $15 it’s very little risk.

On this panel we are joined by:

• Panama, 29, Single
• Jay, 32, living with Carla, 30
• Misty, 26, dating a guy for a couple months
• Maxwell, 28, dating a girl for a couple months

Role of Text Messaging in Dating

Dan, a Boston-born patent attorney in his late 20’s and Susan, a fashion designer in her mid-30’s who owns her own company, have decided to get married after a passionate 6 months of dating. When they subject of Susan taking Dan’s last name came up, Dan insisted on it.  Susan refused, but Dan has stated that it is something really important to him and it has become a deal breaker in the relationship.

Should Susan take his last name to save the relationship?

Long distance relationships can be rough.  You’re totally into this person, but they live miles and miles away so you barely see each other.  There’s a limit to how comforting it is to talk on the phone or via Skype or to type *hugs* in an IM.  It’s just not the same when you want real hugs and can’t get them except from your cats, which is semi-pathetic since most cats don’t hug back (damn I stand corrected).

What’s awesome about a long distance relationship:

When you do see each other, it’s ON.  You cram in as much fun as possible into the time you have with each other.  The weekends you have together are amazing and the best sex you’ve had in your whole life.

You have a ton of freedom.  When deciding how to spend your evening / weekend / month, you don’t have to worry about the other person.  After all, you can call them from anywhere.

You don’t fight much, since you don’t really see each other a lot.

It’s a good way to test the trust and commitment level in your relationship.  If you don’t get jealous when your partner announces he’s going out to a party with a bunch of people, then you’re probably going to do pretty well in the long term.

What’s awesome about a short distance relationship:

You can build your level of intimacy since you’re together more often.  You have more time to experiment in the bedroom and find the best ways to please each other.

You’ll always have an activity partner who wants to be with you.

You will quickly find out the “little things” that annoy you about the person.  Does he always pee on the toilet seat? Is he annoyed when you use his razor to shave your legs, leaving it all dull and clogged with hair?  Can you survive living the rest of your life with this guy?

You’ll have the other person on a short leash if you don’t trust them!  (But seriously, if you don’t trust them, you shouldn’t be in a relationship with them.)

How to cope when things change

When your long distance love moves to town, you may first find yourself excited.  Finally!  They’re here!  You can have sex every day!  It’ll be totally freakin’ awesome.  And it is… at least at the beginning.  It’ll feel like an extended version of those amazing weekends you used to have together.

But eventually, it’ll start to feel like a regular ol’ normal relationship.  You’ll start to take each other for granted.  You’ll find things that really annoy you about the other person.  You’ll wonder if things were better when you didn’t see each other so often.  Did you waste all that time dating the person long distance when you’re really not compatible?

Don’t let this happen to you!  One of the things I’d strongly suggest is discussing some of the hard topics related to you your relationship BEFORE your long distance relationship becomes a short distance relationship.  The best way I’ve found to do this is by taking Adam & Sital’s Compatibility Test.

This is hands down the best way out there to have a good, open, honest discussion about key relationship issues before making this big step.  This test isn’t some cheesy, scale of 1-10 test you’d find in Cosmo.  It exposes those important elements of a relationship and will help you and your guy have an open discussion.

Once you take the compatibility test and discover you guys are actually compatible, just take a deep breath and hang in there.  You’ll be fine and your relationship will probably be stronger in the long run since you know for a fact you don’t have trust, commitment or compatibility issues!

What do you guys think? How hard is it to go from a long distance to a short distance relationship? What are some of the pro’s and con’s of each? Share you thoughts with us!

How can you get this situation fixed without causing a fuss in your relationship?

1. Drop really obvious hints.

Ladies, I’m looking at you here.  Don’t just say, “Wow, it would be so cool to have a George Foreman grill.”  That will go right through our heads and we won’t even register it.  You need to be super obvious.  Talk about the George Foreman grill constantly.  When we’re cleaning the grill plates of our crappy imitation George, mention that the new George has removable plates that can go right into the dishwasher.  Print out pictures of the George Foreman grill that you want.  Take a naked picture of yourself hugged up on a George Foreman grill (not with George Foreman, that would be creepy).  Put them in places like on the refrigerator door or on the counter where you’d put the real thing.   Be a broken record.  Us guys can be really dense and you want to be sure that we get the point.

2. Agree not to exchange gifts.

Boo!  This is no fun!  But seriously, if you want to save money and not deal with crappy gifts anymore, not having gifts at all will seriously help in both of those.

3. Spend the money you’d spend on gifts on an activity.

Let’s say that you’d normally spend $100 on your guy and he’d spend $100 on you.  Why not take that $200 and go out for a super fancy dinner where you get to wear your best clothes and get to have a water waiter, a wine waiter, and a food waiter?  Or maybe Hotwire for a last-minute room at a really swanky 5-star hotel and have a vacation right downtown?

4. Do something for other people.

Why not agree to help the less fortunate?  Okay, it sounds like lame when your inner kid is like GIMME PRESENTS, but really, you’ll get the warm fuzzy feeling of helping others.  Decide as a couple what charity you’d like to help out.  Maybe you want to donate to the local animal rescue or adopt one of those starving kids from TV.  Whatever you decide, you’ll know together that you made a difference.  Plus it gets us off the hook for having to come up with something for you, which takes a LOT of pressure off our shoulders

5. Have “the talk.”

If you really want presents and the hinting doesn’t work, you may have to get down and dirty and duke it out with words.  Ask in your nicest voice possible why your guy chose this particular atrocity as your gift.  (Oh, and don’t use the word atrocity.)   You may find out a really sweet story behind the ugly sweater, or that they thought you were dropping hints about something when you really weren’t.

Get it all out in the open girls and you will find yourself getting better gifts in the future (or at least not stressing out your guy!).

So what do you guys think? Which of these strategies do you think would work best for dealing with a bad gift giver?