Ah, the conundrum that is holiday office parties. More often than not, the liquor is plentiful and free, everyone’s in a good mood, and the hors d’oevres spread out all around you is some of the best food you’ve eaten in months.

Free liquor and all-you-can-eat miniature crab cakes?! What’s not to go crazy about?

But aye, there’s the rub. Getting liquored up and stuffing your face with scallops wrapped in bacon in front of your boss? Not the best idea. Screaming and running to the dance floor when the generic DJ starts up “Living on a Prayer” isn’t going to win you any mature points. Oh, and hitting on people you’re undoubtedly going to see the next morning bright and early?

Mistake.

So how is a person supposed to enjoy themselves but stay out of trouble this holiday office party season? Simple. Just follow a few straightforward rules. Read More »

A few years ago, Match Point was on HBO. Having nothing better to do, I began watching it, and noticed a pretty hot guy I’d never seen before.

That hot guy turned out to be Jonathan Rhys Meyers, and although I ended up falling asleep before the movie ended (something about self-absorbed people and Woody Allen dialogue works better than Lunesta for me), I couldn’t forget that Irish accent and those awesome lips.

Flash forward to one odd magazine cover and a few movies later, and you’ve got someone who’s not only no longer attracted to JRM, but has developed a strange fear of seeing his face anywhere.

I don’t know what happened. I’m not sure if he lost weight, got plastic surgery, or if my taste in men has just changed drastically, but seeing the recent pictures of JRM makes me want to stay away from his new movie August Rush (even though the adorable Keri Rusell co-stars) purely because his face makes me so damn uncomfortable. Read More »

Days as a Freshman: 69

Mood: nervous

“We’ve got a few minutes before class is over, if anyone has any questions about anything…” Professor Mullen looked around the room, taking her glasses off her face and leaning against the board.

English 205 was one of the harder Freshman English classes, but word of mouth had made it one of the most popular, especially with guys. Professor Mullen was around 35, tall, blond, and aggressively smart. She had a good sense of humor but wasn’t afraid to put people in her place, and most guys had a thing for being “reprimanded by Ms. Mullen”.

“What about the soccer scandal?” A girl in the front of the class raised her hand, a bunch of pink bracelets clanking together on her arm. “Don’t you think the school should be doing more to find out what really happened?”

People who had been dozing during the lecture suddenly perked up, and my notebook doodling grinded to a halt. Next to me, Rebecca stiffened, and I could feel her eyes slide over to my face. Read More »

While explaining my weekend to a friend of mine, I mentioned that I had met a boy who was basically awesome in every way, but seemed “a little too attractive for me”.

“What?!” she yelled. “What are you saying?! Don’t say that! Nobody’s too attractive for you! You’ve got a complex, I swear…”

After getting her to calm down, I brought it up to another friend of mine. “He was totally amazing” I told her, “but I just think…you know how you can be talking to someone, and the whole while you’re thinking, ‘this guy is just too cute’?”

“Oh, totally” my friend chimed in, her eyes going large with recognition. “I totally know what it’s like to talk to someone who you think is too good-looking.”

So, there it was; two different people with two completely different opinions when it came to who’s in our league or out of it.

It’s pretty common knowledge that women aren’t all about looks when it comes to picking a partner. While I don’t think any of us would say no to an amazing body or smile, a lot of us look for humor, drive, and personality before perfect features. Men, on the other hand, have been known to be all about the hotness (at least initially). Read More »

See the picture to the left? Is this porn to you? Can you see yourself getting all hot and bothered at the sight of this guy?

Apparently, when some women think pornography, they think “hot guy with his shirt off taking out the trash.”

Photographer Susan Anderson and The Cambridge Women’s Pornography Cooperative (which sounds cool but doesn’t have a lot of media attached to it, at least according to Google and Wikipedia) asked women, young, old, rich, and poor, “What really, really gets you hot?” and then proceeded to write a book about it.

According to the authors of Porn For Women, the sorts of things that get us breathing heavy are “beautiful PG photos of hunky men cooking, listening, [and] asking for directions, accompanied by steamy captions: “I love a clean house!” or “As long as I have two legs to walk on, you’ll never take out the trash.””

Uh.

I mean, my grandma would approve.

When I think of porn for women, I think of naked guys doing a lot more than listening, and there sure isn’t a need for any captions.

While it’s pretty obvious this book is a joke, you have to wonder why the photographer and authors thought it necessary to keep it “PG”. Why not have guys vacuuming and dusting in the buff? Read More »

“The first step to meeting men is eye contact. Just one little lingering look can start an entire adventure…”

Yes, well, sure. Eye contact is always the perfect way to let a guy know that you’re interested.

If you can do it.

Now, maybe this seemingly simple task is almost impossible for me because I don’t wear my glasses when I’m out, therefore making it sort of hard to tell if a guy over three feet away is actually looking back—but I think there’s more too it. I think eye contact is actually much scarier than those dating websites would have us believe.

Writing about doing it is easy. I can type about it till I’m blue in the face, advising everyone to totally lock eyes with a boy on the subway, in a bar, walking down the street…it let’s them know you’re interested! It’s a good way to flirt!

But for some reason, putting it into practice is hard. I’m not the shiest person you’ve ever met, but if I think a guy’s cute, it’s really difficult to look him square in the face and smile. I’d much rather look at whatever’s directly above and to the left of him; that way, I can take little peeks without him knowing. Read More »

Recently, Appalachian State University was in the news for winning a big football victory over Michigan. You may not have heard about it. It was also in the news because super smart Miss South Carolina talked about going there to continue her studies in “looking pretty, acting dumb”. You may not have heard about that, either.

But after today, you’ll never be in the dark about ASU ever again.

It’s not the biggest University in America, and it doesn’t have the biggest profile, but there’s something about Appalachian State that’s just…I don’t know…hot.

If you’re anything like me, you own one air conditioner that’s only strong enough to cool a tiny pocket of air, and you’re afraid to turn it on anyway because of that pesky electricity bill.

So basically, you’re spending these summer days dripping in sweat. And not that pretty, girlish glisten. Sweat. Sticking to your clothes, running down your back, mattering your hair down until you feel as attractive and energetic as a cat that’s been hosed with dirty water.

What’s a girl stuck in the middle of summer without AC to do? She improvises.

#1 Make a Towel-sicle: If you’re certain it’s going to be 90 degrees with a 100% chance of stuffiness tonight, wet a small washcloth or towel and put it in freezer for up to an hour. When you’re ready to go to bed, take that baby out and use it to cool yourself for a few blissful minutes. The one downside to this endeavor is the obvious melting issue, but hey, a little wetness never hurt anyone.

#2 Freeze your Head: Much like the towel-sicle, all this improvisation needs is a cloth bandana and a freezer. Moisten the bandana and stick it in the freezer up to an hour before going outside. Sure, you can buy something made specifically for this purpose, but most of them make you look like a giant tool. Read More »

My dad is not hot.

My best friend’s dad… well, that’s another story. Any of these dads… definitely doable.

But my dad… not at all.

Sucks for me because, according to a recent study, I’m more likely to date guys who are daddy look-a-likes.

The study found that women who had good childhood relationships with their fathers were often attracted to men who resembled their dear old daddies. The same did not go for women with bad father-daughter relationships.

And of course, I am the ultimate daddy’s girl. Grrreat. Read More »