Love is not shown by giving your toddler a car. It's better demonstrated by clapping as she bangs on pots or singing to her while she plays with her cheap little bath toys in the tub.

Each week I am forced to revise my original opinion that Facebook is a great innovation for keeping people in touch, to believing that it is merely a canvas for members to act out strange, unresolved conflicts and desires.

I understand polyamory is different from polygamy, and doesn't share the latter's rigid and noxious views that men run the show and are the only ones allowed multiple partners.

The sadness from reading letters that you know you can't help because it's a person who's in extremis and their problems are not soluble by an advice column.

I think the definition of someone who's still a swinger is a person who remains signed up on swinger websites because they're "humorous." If you'd been married to an alcoholic and found yourself dating someone whose couch cushions were stuffed with empty bottles, you might conclude you're part of the problem and are attracted to men who are going to keep making you miserable in the same oh-so-familiar way. I think you should look to date someone for whom the idea of a swinger website makes him want to slather himself in sanitizing gel.

Insecurity is a toxin and confidence is a tonic, so make the choice not to dwell on the worst possible case.

I try to direct people in distress to the right resources, where they can get comprehensive help. I've heard from many people that simply putting down in a letter what is going on in their lives is therapeutic in and of itself.