I know a couple from high school that stayed together for 19 years before they got married… the marriage lasted eleven months. Two of my oldest and closest friends have been a legitimately happy, married couple for almost 25 years… They knew each other a grand total of nine weeks before they tied the knot. My point is that there are no rules or guarantees when it comes to men and women and love and commitment. It’s a good thing too, because I can count on one hand the couples I know in a committed relationship that’s worth admiring… I’d hate to think that what I’ve seen of marriage and its ilk actually has some sort of rulebook behind its resounding lack of success.

On the other hand, there’s a reason why we have rules, even those that are fundamentally flawed. You managed to break one of the more important of these – the “timing is everything” rule. Good timing can offset a multitude of sins… bad timing can destroy a love affair worth remembering. You probably fall somewhere between the two, but simply put you packed up and moved before you were ready.

I remember thinking to myself, “So soon?” I also remember thinking to myself, “They have an engagement. They have a rough game plan. They have a moving day. Who am I to cast doubt on something so good because the timing doesn’t feel right?” Now we have the benefit of hindsight, and you know what they say about hindsight – it’s crystal clear. You weren’t ready. You weren’t ready logistically, and you weren’t ready emotionally. It’s almost as if you panicked… NOT because you were afraid to lose him and NOT because you haven’t gotten damn good at flying solo. You panicked because the female gene deep inside you, the one that took hold of you before you ever had a chance was all of a sudden doing your thinking for you. You lost sight of the fact that you LOVE living alone and you lost sight of the fact that you LOVE your freedom. You became the sweet little girl they always told you to be, the one who willingly put her own needs and desires on the back burner to accommodate those of the man she loves. We only know this through the power of hindsight, but know it now, we do. Hey, men panic too… but when we panic, we run in the other direction.

So now what do you do? Like you said… you are home. You could go back home again, but it will never be the same, and you know it. From the cheap seats, allow me to offer a few suggestions:

Stop being so polite. Stop asking, ever so sweetly if that third drawer on the right with the broken handle might be available to you. You gave up your life for this. You uprooted everything you knew and owned to be with him on his terms, and his timetable. If you’re going to have big enough balls to do this at all, don’t give them up once you get there.

Stop being bummed at him for being who he is. If I can think of the single most hypocritical point of view when it comes to commitment, it is this: we fall in love with, and sometimes even choose to marry someone because of who they are – and we then spend the rest of our time together bemoaning the other for the exact same characteristics and habits. If you knew his makeup going in, don’t expect him to be any different because you’re there. If you didn’t know his makeup going in, timing might not have been your only problem with this move.

Stop stressing over boxes and drawers, and start fucking – a lot. Stop caring about furniture. It’s… furniture. When he hangs in the hot tub with a beer in his hand, stop being jealous. Instead, grab a beer and join him. That’s the girl he thought was moving in with him. That’s the guy you fell in love with.

If you’re going to go down, don’t do it with a whimper (and a bucket of tears)… do it with everything you have.

Do you know what’s sexy? Well, a lot of things, but definitely one thing in particular is a group of otherwise responsible and committed women, beyond velvet rope age, at the bar or lounge of a respectable establishment with a twinkle in each eye and a martini in each hand. You know me. You know I don’t approach women when I’m out at night (due to a healthy combination of respect and cowardice) when even Ray Charles can see that I should make a move. However, when I’m out at night with a friend or two and I see a group like yours, I don’t even think twice about if I’m going to go over and say hello – I just have to make sure I’m on my “A” game when I do.

When it comes to hanging out with other dudes, you’ll never catch me in a group of more than three guys at a time. There’s just no way. Every time I see a group of four or more men out at night, I’m almost embarrassed to call myself a guy. They’ve either come from the office, sporting their Brooks Brothers suits and graduate degrees, or they’ve just finished lifting weights together and it’s time to reward the ladies of the world by showing off the results of all that grunting and chortling. I don’t belong at either table. Whenever I’m with four or more dudes, I usually end up discovering that I don’t even like any of the guys I’m with. How counterproductive is that? I’m convinced that when it comes to guys hanging out in a group, size does matter… only this time it’s the smaller, the better.

It’s different for women. First of all, the more women in the room, the more good-looking women in the room. It’s simple math. There are plenty of times you’ll see a pair or a trio of women and none of them are particularly special to look at. When you add a fourth woman, and then a fifth, the odds start tilting towards a major upgrade. The fourth shows up and the whole table gets better looking. The fifth shows up and music starts playing (the hot ones are always late, aren’t they?). When a fourth or fifth guy shows up, the only thing that changes in the room is the noise level.

It’s also different with women because you dress up when you go out. The larger the group of women, the better and sexier you dress. Add to that the fact that women often go to great lengths NOT to dress alike, and the guys in the room are rewarded with a little something for everyone. When guys go out, we usually opt for a quick shower and the nearest clean shirt. We could just as easily be a beer commercial or an ad for The Gap – it’s all been seen before.

Mostly it’s different for women because there’s nothing more boring than walking into a bar, restaurant or lounge and entering to a room full of guys. Ladies brighten up a room. When you girls grab a table or occupy a space, the room looks, sounds and even smells better. I can’t speak for the knucklehead brigade, but when real guys go out at night we all secretly hope to run into a cool, fun group of good-looking women with enough brains and style to keep our eyes focused on your face instead of your cleavage. Otherwise, there’s a reason why ESPN Sportscenter is on seven nights a week.

I’m only disappointed in two things… 1) that I wasn’t invited and 2) that you didn’t do anything to be even remotely ashamed of. Where’s the fun in that?

So when you book the room for next year, let me know which hotel.

Much of the time our blog consists of an event, large or small from your life, followed by my slightly-off-center male point of view in reply. For a man, I think I’m pretty respectful of your gender. For a man, as brutally honest as I can be, I think I also cut your gender a lot of slack. For a man, I think I’m pretty honest about my gender having our own laundry list of quirks and question marks. But you guys still make me wonder, sometimes…

There are general behaviors to which virtually all women fall prey. Your visit with the dark side of falling in love (that whole, “when we marry, we marry his/her family” thing) seems to have dusted off some classics:

Woman vs. woman: You guys actually compete with each other… for what, I’ve never been able to figure out, but when women meet women, the sizing up and the phony smiles can be downright comical. “Not an overwhelmingly warm hug?” Who sizes up a hug? Women do, that’s who. Maybe you guys should dust off the high five or learn to adopt the fist bump to avoid future discomfort.

Wardrobe wars: this is simply one more area where it is SO MUCH BETTER to be a man. You’d find our standard quite liberating. “Don’t dress like a douchebag.” That’s it. That’s where most of us draw the line. Oh, and if a guy does dress like a douchebag, we rip him for it… only we do it to his face. And one more thing: No father in American history would ever call his daughter’s boyfriend and offer a poolside wardrobe guideline. How did you manage not to drink a bottle of vodka after that touching, future-family moment?

Mothers-in-law: They don’t write songs about fathers in-law. They don’t make movies starring J Lo and Jane Fonda at nuclear war with each other called, “Monster in-law.” You may have only seen the tip of the iceberg on this trip. It doesn’t have to be all bad. The good news is, you’ll probably have a new best friend. The bad news is, you probably don’t need a new best friend. The good news is, she lives 1,000 miles away. The good/ bad news is, this means that you will see her less often, but in very close quarters for more concentrated periods of time, like Thanksgiving… as in less than two months from now… as in for a five day weekend… five long days. If I ever have a mother in-law again, I hope she lives right around the corner. We don’t need to be seeing each other in our jammies.

BTW, I get the awkward moment feeling when she showed you to your room? Still, I have a newsflash for you, Peggy Sue… you’re no spring chicken. Besides, think how much more awkward you would have felt that very moment if it had come after the one-piece bathing suit comment?

There’s a great line in sports broadcasting that references the inevitability of growing older as an athlete by stating, “The only sure thing in sports is that Father Time will always be undefeated.” My rendition of that line regarding the world of serious relationships is to acknowledge and surrender to the fact that everyone, and I mean everyone brings some amount of serious baggage into a relationship. TNG seems to be pretty damn comfortable accepting your baggage into his life. If you’re being asked to gracefully accept a four year-old boy growing a four year-old boner in front of his mom, also known as your sister in-law, that is simply part of the package.

You can always write a screenplay about it.

For what it’s worth (and if you’re smart, that will be “not much”) I am extremely impressed. You’re in love. You’re engaged. You’re willfully getting married. This is all good stuff, the best stuff to most of us. Still, you’re not dead… you’re not even dormant. You know what you are? You’re a dude. You’re one of us, and I am proud to have you in the family.

This planet is littered with the shattered dreams and broken hearts of women who assume what men want is full scale attention and utmost devotion. This may be true with some guys, but chances are that those guys are also the first ones to sneak off and bang the nanny or personal assistant once real life takes hold of things. Real men don’t want our woman to pretend George Clooney isn’t sexier than we are any more than want to be hammered into guilt and submission with undying adulation. We will ALWAYS take notice of a good-looking woman. We will ALWAYS turn our head when she walks by. It doesn’t mean we don’t love and respect you. It doesn’t mean we’re going to run off with the lifeguard from the kiddie pool. What it means is that we’re human. What it also means is that you get to be human too.

BTW, “Come back if you want to measure anything?” Are you serious? Do you think he knew you found him attractive? Do you think his mind went to the same place that mine went to when he heard you say that? The next time you come face-to-face with a good-looking dude, try not to sound like an actress in a soft-core porn flick. Lucky for you, TNG would be too busy laughing at that line to ever get pissed off or jealous about it.

So, welcome to our world. Now you know what men go through EVERY DAY. I could use my day today as a prime example, but if you’re a man, EVERY day is a prime example. Take me, for example. I may not be looking, but it doesn’t make me blind. Maybe I need to get out more, but today I went clothes shopping. Yes, by myself. As my head turned from one female shopper’s mission to another, I found myself asking why I don’t go shopping for clothes every free moment I have. Is it me, or does every good-looking woman in every town in America shop for clothes on a Saturday afternoon? Even the check-out girls had potential, underneath their insecurities and limited options in life. Yet even as I was enjoying the view, I also found myself rack-to-rack with an array of visual vignettes that represented mine, and many other men’s greatest relationship fears; The couple shopping together, sniping and arguing with each other every step of the way… the homely woman, shopping in the men’s department for her significant other while he plays golf or watches football with his friends at some bar and flirts with the waitress… the lonely dude, shopping with no style compass, barely capable of choosing his own underwear, much less a pair of pants and matching shirt. After a cursory exploration of the men’s department and a couple of random purchases, I couldn’t get back to my car fast enough.

My point is this; every time we leave the house (or, in your case, without even leaving the house), we are guaranteed to see a member of the opposite gender that will turn our head, maybe even rock our foundation. We might even allow a thought or two to pollute our already polluted minds about what they might be like to spend some time with, or how they look naked. This only makes us human… or men. In your case, consider yourself both, and lucky to be so.

This transition you’re going through reminds me of a key moment that occurred within our friendship, many years ago. We were casually friendly at the time, working in the same building, but nowhere near as close as we are today. Your tales of the single life were entertaining as hell even then, especially to an unhappily married man. The stories of your single girlfriends and their misadventures in the land of love were better than late night cable. Even then I knew you were a good girl who was always good, even when you were being bad.

I’m talking about the time you signed up for a singles vacation. I forget the exact name of this excursion to debauchery, but I remember two of the words in the title were, “Hedonism” and “Jamaica.” At the time I said, “I’ll bet you all the money in my pocket (and I was rolling in it those days) that this will be the last time you’ll go near anything remotely resembling a singles vacation, for the rest of your life.” You came back from the trip a changed woman. You realized you’d outgrown that scene and had begun the process of outgrowing that life. It seems to me that you are simply taking the final step in this process these next few weeks. It’s been a long journey for you, as evidenced by the tear and puke stains on TNG’s favorite new piece of furniture.

Being a quality wingman (or wingwoman, in your case) is wildly overrated. If we’re not getting laid, it only serves to reinforce our feelings of being a loser. If we’re in a relationship, it makes us long for the single life. Where exactly is the joy in riding another’s wing? On the other hand, riding the wing is somewhat akin to phone sex… we get to enjoy the ride, without the pressure and responsibility of piloting the plane.

There’s a twisted nobility to covering for a married friend. Chances are you were the only one they could trust with a secret so deep and important. Chances are you were the only one with whom they could be certain they would not be judged. Chances are you were only ten minutes away in afternoon traffic. This may say bad things about them, but it says only good about the kind of friend you’ve always been. I have no match for your rumpled sheets, but I’ve certainly logged enough hours covering a married ass or three in my life. I never felt guilty about it. I never felt morally responsible. To me, true friendship trumps just about anything. I never felt like an accomplice, I only felt like a friend… a damn, good friend.

The trick isn’t worrying about your married friends and the world you’re leaving behind… the trick is making sure the flip side of that never becomes your world to begin with.