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 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.

As finals and the holiday season are upon us, why not put in the effort to disengage and take a vacation from technology.  You might do better on your exams and can reconnect with yourself, your family and friends.  It would be hard to imagine going completely cold-turkey on technology (it was hard enough for one CollegeCandy writer to go cold-turkey on Facebook!), and after all, technology does have its merits, but with a few simple modifications, you might find the holiday season to be that much richer. Here are a few suggestions:

1. Host tech free gatherings. Invite the girls over for a movie night or old-school sleepover, but inform them ahead of time that cell phones are persona non grata. You can even offer a “tech check” where your BFFs can check their phones at the door and claim them once the night is over. Talk about bonding time!

2. Make exercise a time to connect with yourself and leave the distractions and stress of your every day behind. Create motivating playlists with your favorite music to keep you focused and pumped during your workouts, but leave gadgets that connect you to the outside world inside your locker. You’ll focus more on your workout and even give yourself some much needed time with your thoughts.

3. Implement a “tech curfew.” Let your friends and family know that at a certain time, you will not be available. Establish that time and turn off your technology. Without chimes and reminders that you have mail, a text message and constant Facebook updates that pull for a response, you will claim a lot of extra time for yourself and perhaps reconnect with something called relaxation.

4. Tech charge time. Leave the house willingly without any form of technology. At first you may be uncomfortable with how naked you feel as you re-experience everyday activities without your phone, but after the initial shock you will be surprised at how liberating it is to NOT be accessible.

With the holiday season approaching, it is the perfect time to reconnect with family and enjoy some time to ourselves. Our Digital Self needs a break too, so why don’t you and I turn off our BlackBerrys, Droids, and iPhones and tune into opportunities to be tech free-not all the time, but enough to feel a nice change.

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.

You turn on John Hiatt’s, “Have a Little Faith in Me,” or the “love songs” channel on Pandora.

You open your email, hoping deep down inside that he has already sent you one, that he realizes he made a big mistake, that he too is sitting at home crying to the soothing sounds of The Fray. That he still loves you.

He hasn’t.
Your heart sinks.

As the mascara stained tears streak your face and form a puddle on your desk, you start writing your own:

hi. i got drinks and i lovre you. i dont know why you hate meeeee. i lobve yoiu. i want to eat breadsticlks but im too sad czu i love you.

At this point the pizza has arrived and your roommates storm into your room, pizza box in hand, to find you weeping silently over your laptop as you type away. Snot is dripping from your nose and you wipe it with your bare arm just before it hits your upper lip. You don’t care. You just keep typing and crying and really connecting with the sad lyrics blaring out of your laptop speakers.

If you are lucky, your roommates get to you before you hit the send button. If you are not quite as lucky (or a really fast typer), it is only a matter of time until the email is opened and any shred of post break-up dignity is lost. But until then, there is pizza. And breadsticks. And unyielding drunken hope that he’s thinking the same things you just wrote, he was just too distraught to put them in an email yet.

A hope which inevitably dies the minute you wake up in the morning and realize what you’ve done.

Yeah, you’re not alone; we’ve all been there before. Many times.
Just be grateful at least you didn’t wake up with a full slice of pizza smashed between your keys and your screen.

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”:

Crazy sex with beautiful women? Taking all kinds of drugs? Being a violent jerk?
Yup, sounds just perfect. In fact, I was hoping this wasn’t a description of a game at all, but rather a potential boyfriend.

]]> http://collegecandy.com/2010/07/12/from-the-collegecandy-inbox-the-hottest-new-video-game/feed/ 7 ccandystaff Monitor screen showing email in the inbox email 2 http://collegecandy.com/2010/04/12/professors-dont-dig-chatspeak/ http://collegecandy.com/2010/04/12/professors-dont-dig-chatspeak/#comments Mon, 12 Apr 2010 19:00:44 +0000 Brittany - University of Saint Thomas http://collegecandy.com/?p=58503 ]]>

"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?

It’s time for a chatspeak intervention, people. Below is a handy little guide to help you determine what is appropriate and inappropriate when it comes to professional correspondence. Professors, thank us later….with an A.

Inappropriate: Yo, teach
Appropriate: Dear Professor __________

Inappropriate: My comp. crashed and I lost my whole pape. FML.
Appropriate: Due to technological issues, I lost the entire rough draft of my essay. Would it be possible to get an extension?

Inappropriate: OMG my alarm didn’t go off this morning Can you fwd me the notes?
Appropriate: I was unable to make it to lecture this morning; is there any way I can get the class notes so I can catch up on what I missed?

Inappropriate: I will BRB from vaca nxt wk.
Appropriate: Although I understand the importance of attending lecture, I will be out of town next week with my family. I don’t want this obstacle to hinder me in this class and I was hoping you might be able to share the lecture slides with me in advance so I can stay on top of everything while I am away.

Inappropriate: Sup homie. Wut was the homework for 2day?
Appropriate: Good Evening. I was distracted at the end of class today and somehow missed the reading assignment for Wednesday. Can you please remind me what it is so I make sure not to fall behind?

Innappropriate: Where’s your office @?
Appropriate: I’d like to set up a time to speak with you during office hours. Please let me know where and when works best for you.

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.

10. The Real Housewives
It’s bad enough that I DVR every episode of every season and know more about these catty women than I do about foreign policy. But the real problem is that I hate them – every single one of them – and watching them makes me so angry I want to reach through my TV and throttle them. But since I can’t choke Ramona, I end up indulging in a row of Oreos to ease my anxiety. But do I stop watching? No. I can’t. And I also can’t curb my excitement for the newest cast in D.C.

9. Coffee
It’s gotten to the point that I can’t even go to the gym without having at least one Grande Americano first. I’ll even make a Starbucks run at 9 p.m. on a Thursday just to make it through my weekly dose of #10. And then I’ll pass out at 10 p.m.

8. Driving Fast
Three speeding tickets in 3 months, plus one situation where I got pulled over and flirted my way out of another? Yes, that’s me!

7. Email
The first thing I do when my alarm goes off in the morning is turn on my iPhone and check my email. And then I continue to check it obsessively throughout the day. It’s not like there’s anything really important coming through that requires me to check every 11 minutes (well, after I’ve read my RueLala specials), but I can’t stop. Not even when I’m doin’ a little #8 (don’t tell Oprah!) or a little #2 (in the bathroom…not the one on this list.)

6. Eyebrow waxing
Based on the way my eyebrows grow in, I’m pretty sure I’m a distant cousin of Chewbacca. I swear, if I think about it hard enough I can make my brows grow back in a minute. I’ve become addicted to keeping them perfect and my weekly appointments give me a high similar to the one I get after a really good workout.

5. Kashi Go Lean Crunch
It’s healthy and tasty and I’ll eat it with anything from cereal to ice cream. But it also has some foul smelling side effects. Needless to say, it’s my friends that have the biggest issue with this particular addiction.

4. Late night food
No matter how hard I try, I can’t come home from a night out without eating something greasy, disgusting and totally unhealthy. And trust me, I’ve tried. I once forced myself to go to bed without food, passed out for an hour, then got up and ordered a pizza.

3. Judging People
Not all people – just the ones that deserve it. Like men with mullets, girls who wear stripper shoes, the women who go on The Bachelor, the annoying kid who always asks a million questions in class and makes class run over every. single. week, frat boys who still pop their collars, girls who wear Bump Its…. OK, maybe everyone.

2. Making Lists
I’ve got a list for everything: homework, my sexual history, packing, phone calls to make, emails to send, things I want to buy, people I hate, this very article….

1. Making Out
Everyone loves a great makeout session, but I can’t seem to live without them. Good or bad. Or, in the case of last weekend, so bad I had to stop in the middle and chug another beer before I could even consider sucking face with that mustachioed creepy guy again.

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.”

Apple Says: YOUTUBE IS ON THIS THING?!
Reality: Yeah, it is.  Along with every other device known to man.  YouTube can literally be accessed by you on any electronic device anywhere.  Fear not, the fat kid singing “A:F6″ can be found even at 2 in the morning in the far reaches of space at this point. If, you know, you really couldn’t wait to get near a computer and needed to watch that right. this. second.

Apple Says: IT’S SO PORTABLE!!!!  LIKE A LAPTOP, ONLY BETTER!!
Reality: So a smaller version of a laptop that does all of these things?  You mean like the iPhone that they invented three years ago?  And that thing makes calls and texts, too.  This product does…none of those things.  Plus, it’s pretty unrealistic that those interested in buying it are also interested in bringing back the man-satchel just to tote this useless tablet around.

So yeah, I will not be dropping my hard earned money on Apple’s latest. At least not until the way better, way cheaper 2nd generation comes out.

[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.

How brilliant is that, really?  We all spend hours a day reading e-mail, so now you can incorporate reading books into something that you already do, and you can stop worrying about trying to find time to sit down and open a book.

And it couldn’t be easier: you simply find a book you like, type in your e-mail address, hit “subscribe”, and you’ll start receiving your daily installments.  You can choose the length and frequency of the installment e-mails, so how long it takes you to finish a book is up to you. You can even choose what time a day the email comes, so you can coordinate reading around your schedule! Plus, if you want to finish the book even faster and you have a little extra time, at the end of each e-mail, you can click the “Get the next installment right now” link to have the next installment sent to you immediately.

So while they definitely don’t have everything I’d like to read and there’s still no substitute for curling up on the sofa with a good book (because it won’t burn your legs like a laptop), DailyLit is a great way to get some reading done every day, no matter how busy you are.

[Know of any cool websites? Pass 'em along!]