You don't want someone who can't tell the difference between having a different opinion and dismissing your opinion.

Relationships are complicated, but happiness in a relationship isn't: It's just wanting exactly what you have. Wanting something else is dispiriting.

You don't want to be with someone who is already not getting from you what he needs emotionally.

I think a person who arranges the event and orders the food also picks up the check - even the birthday person, even when people at the table insist on paying for the birthday person.

We all make deals with ourselves when it comes to the difficult people in our lives.

Awkwardness is when there's a risk of a perception gap between what you mean and what you appear to mean.

There has been, for some reason (or more likely an unfortunate accumulation of reasons) a trend over the past several decades for parents to do the work of parenting in the isolation of their own homes - and not only that, this trend has overlapped with the other trend of much deeper parent involvement in raising kids. That you also represent trend No. 3, more people raising kids solo, has only exacerbated a close-to-no-win situation.