Last night, Gawker threw up the red flags on a dating disaster. Since the hot topic features the timeless men versus women debacle, I thought it would only be polite to share our feminine two cents.

If I’ve piqued your interest, bring your nose a little bit closer to the screen. Before you read the article (or if you’re too lazy to), here’s the gist of what’s going on: in a long, elaborate e-mail (where this guy searched his distressed lady friend, “Lauren”, to find out her personal info), he accuses “Lauren” of sending deeply mixed and confusing signals on their first date. He then goes on to exemplify all of the reasons that they should be together and how he will be patiently waiting underneath his Christmas tree for her forced, uh.. sincere apology.

Because I find this both totally outrageous and completely understandable (its the classic I’m just not that into you vs. how come he didn’t return my calls?), I wanted to break down just what, exactly, he is so bitter about and whether or not he’s got an honest point.

He Says: On their date, “Lauren” played with her hair a lot and any woman playing with her hair for more than .13345 seconds when in the presence of a man is obviously flirting. To make matters worse, “Lauren” held eye contact on her date with him. She kept looking at him when he was talking. On a “per-minute basis”, He has never shared that much eye contact with another girl. Another obvious giveaway that she has feelings for him. Between scarfing down an appetizer, entree and dessert, they shared a nice, steady flow of conversation. At the conclusion of their whirlwind first date, “Lauren” committed the ultimate date-hate by telling he, ‘it was nice to meet you.’ Because in 2011, any walking and talking human with manners is obviously the worst kind of individual. The awful icing in the cake is that ”Lauren” never returned any of his calls or texts following what he felt was the most incredible date of 2k11.

We Say: We’re girls. We touch our hair. When we’re nervous, when we’re bored, when we’re not sure where to place our hands. Maybe we do it when we’re flirting but it is NOT a dead giveaway that we’re head-over-heels for you. And why are you watching my hair so closely anyway? Eye contact is something that usually makes us comfortable. We’re talking TO you so it obviously makes sense to look at you, right? One + one makes two. It would also be really rude of us to share an entire meal with someone from start to finish and not make any attempt to talk to you (even if we’re not interested in you, not all females are heartless). If we don’t return your calls, your texts, or respond to your creepy emails…. take the hint: we’re just not that into you, guy. And you don’t want to be with someone who doesn’t want to be with you, right? Right.

Women of the world (okay, fine… men of the world, too), what do you think? Is this letter over the top or does he kind of have a point? Make sure you tell us in the comments and then head over to the Frisky for their take (spoiler alert: it’s different than ours).

Kvetchtion?! Answer: Ask TuffyLuv@collegecandy.com.

Dear Tuffy Luv,

Question?! Answer: Ask TuffyLuv@collegecandy.com.

Note To The Kids: I get several emails a week asking me to respond personally on email. I won’t do it. Stop asking.

Now back to your regularly scheduled column.

Dear Tuffy Luv,

I have a confession. A confession that disturbs me deeply and needs to be addressed.

I am a complete technology addict.

Receiving a text message gives me a blissful, momentary high.  A day without access to the internet is a sad day.  If a couple of days go by and I haven’t signed onto Facebook (like that ever happens), I get antsy and feel out of the loop. This loathsome habit isn’t exactly an insightful revelation that came from deep soul searching or a problem unique to myself. Because, let’s be honest – you, dear reader, are probably just as addicted as I am.

I mean sure, anyone who’s seen a few episodes of Intervention knows there are far worse things to be addicted to and I’m not harming other people by logging onto Facebook five times every day.  I’m not even sure I am hurting myself.

What I do know is that our addiction can interfere with the quality of interpersonal interactions, focus in class, and other activities deserving of one’s undivided attention.

This is a day in my life:
I go to class and at least half of the people in attendance are not paying attention to the lecture.  They are either a) texting, b) shopping online, or c) on Facebook.
I go on a date and my date begins randomly texting somebody while pretending to listen to me at the same time. Annoying!
Even this past Thanksgiving my fourteen-year-old cousin was playing videogames on her iPhone at the dinner table.

It’s like everyone is perpetually bored and needs to use technology to alleviate themselves from their sorry state of boredom. Read More »

It’s the start of a new school year and to honor that, we at CollegeCandy are bringing back a fan-favorite series, “We’ve All Been There.”  (We tried to get another national holiday/long weekend for you guys but it’s way harder than we thought so this will have to do.) Every week, Lauren – University of Michigan will comment on the common experiences all college women share – like the first day of classes or trying to figure out if that boy is crushin’ too. Read, relate, cringe and enjoy.

The boy you love just broke your heart, so your girlfriends decide that drinking is in order. Because nothing numbs the pain quite like a few shots of SoCo. Together with your roommates, you pick out a super hot outfit (consisting of some combination of low cut top/push up bra), take a few pre-gaming shots and head out the door to either “show him what he’s missing,” or “forget about that jerk.”

The night is perfect: you dance, you drink (a lot), and you even find a cute boy to flirt with in the corner.

Then, obvi, the relentless craving for breadsticks and marinara takes over and you and the girls head home for the Late Night Special from your favorite pizza place.

You make your way to your room to change before the food arrives and are suddenly reminded of just how depressed you are. Why doesn’t he love me? you ask yourself. What is wrong with me? Maybe if I just send him an email and tell him how I feel he will change his mind and want to be with me.

You sit down at your desk. Read More »

Here at CollegeCandy, we get a lot of interesting email. If it isn’t some African Prince offering us oodles of money (which, as it turns out, is a scam….I hate you, Prince Abnalla, if that’s even your real name!), or girls professing their undying love for us (thanks!), it’s weird companies trying to hawk their goods.

No joke, every morning when I wake up and check my email, I’m inundated with hundreds of messages that I quickly scan and purge. No sir, the CollegeCandy readers do not want to increase their penis size by 72 inches. DELETE.

But sometimes, like today, an email is too good to go to the virtual trash can. It is too good to be ignored. It is so good, it must be shared. Like this email I received this afternoon for a great new video game that is “just perfect for your readers”: Read More »

"Dear Prof: I'm totes writing you in my undies."

Texting and chatting online has surely affected the way we communicate. If a friend doesn’t respond to a text within 10 minutes of me sending it, I immediately assume he/she has gone Amish. What did people do when there were no cellphones or AOL chat? Communicating must have been exhausting. You mean you had to wait at home to receive a phone call from your boyfriend in hopes your father wouldn’t answer?

Beyond waiting for the phone call, texting and chatting online has surely affected what we say. The term OMG wasn’t created from sending letters through the Pony Express; it was most likely created in the depths of an AOL chat room BSBLuvr who found it exceedingly difficult to express her love for ‘Shape of My Heart’ over and over again. Since then, abbreviating words (AKA ‘chatspeak’) has made communication easier for all of us. But apparently some people can’t seem to understand when this language is approp (in a drunk text to a friend) and it’s inapprop (in an email to a professor).

Yeah, it may seem totes obvi to you, but it seems that many students are taking their AIM lingo to class and their professors aren’t LOLing. In fact, they’re getting pretty pissed. And who wouldn’t when students are starting their emails off with, “Yo, teach”? (For realz.)

OMG. WTF? Didn’t college learn you better than that? Read More »

I always knew I had an addictive personality. To be fair, though, for awhile I thought that meant that other people were addicted to my personality: my sense of humor, my charming ways, my gift giving skills… But then I got to college, smoked my first cigarette outside of a frat party and quickly learned that:

A) There are some people who don’t find me charming
B) Cigarettes are delightful when you’re drinking

But despite all the bad things about cigarettes and the fact that I now have to stand in the rain to smoke them because they’re illegal indoors, that addiction might actually be the least of my problems. So let me share my 10 worst addictions that might be worthy of an A&E Intervention. Read More »

The iPad.  Steve Jobs’ newest brainchild, and a super….whatever it is.  Despite the fact that we’re not always sure what point Apple’s devices serve, we always seem to get them, love them, and become suddenly unable to live without them.

But this thing?  Meh, not so much. The iPad’s got a hefty price tag that will set any college student back and I’m just not sure it’s worth it. Based on what I’ve seen, I’m pretty sure I could take that $600 elsewhere (like, I don’t know, the bar?) and be a whole lot happier.

Here’s why:

Apple Says: OMG EMAIL IS SO EASY TO CHECK!
Reality: Yeah, email is easy to check everywhere. Like on my laptop, my phone, or the 3,000 computers scattered around my campus. In fact, sometimes I wish my email were less accessible. If my profs knew they could contact me on yet another device, I’d never have the “I didn’t realize the assignment had been revised” excuse.

Apple Says: AHHH! YOU CAN READ MAGAZINES/NEWSPAPERS/BOOKS ON IT!!!
Reality: Or – and here’s a crazy thought – you could read actual newspapers/magazines/books.  Some of them are more portable than this thing and a hell of a lot cheaper. And if you really want an e-reader, the Kindle costs way less and won’t kill your eyes.

Apple Says: WOW YOU CAN LISTEN TO MUSIC ON IT SO EASILY!!!
Reality: You know what else you can listen to music on?  An iPod.  Which is also Apple. And much smaller and easier to use.  Plus, in the immortal words of Phyllis from The Office, “If you don’t have an iPod by now, you really don’t want one.” Read More »

[There are over 100 million sites on the Internet. 100 million! You might think you know about all the important ones (CollegeCandy, Gmail, Google, Zappos, The Weather Stylist…), but there are thousands of other sweet sites out there. And more showing up every day! We get it – it’s not easy or fun sifting through the crap and porn to find those gems, so we’re gonna bring the gems to you. Just sit back, kick up those feet and allow us to introduce you to the diamonds in the internet rough.]

I’ve always been a pretty avid reader, but ever since I started my freshman year of college I’ve found that I don’t get to read (non-school-related books) as often as I’d like to.  Between going to class, working, studying, and still trying to have a social life, there just doesn’t seem to be enough time.

However, thanks to the nifty website DailyLit, I’ve recently found the time to finally read literary classics that I’d always wanted to read but never seemed to have the time for, like Anna Karenina and The Count of Monte Cristo.

DailyLit has made it easy to make reading part of your daily routine, by taking over 1,000 classic and contemporary books (almost all of which are FREE) and breaking them up into easily digestible installments, which users can sign up to receive on a daily basis by e-mail. Read More »