When it comes to chatting up chicks, some guys just don’t get it. No, I’ll take that back. MOST guys don’t get it. Talking to women doesn’t need to be edgy, pressuring, or slick in order to gain or hold a girl’s attention, despite what the expensive pick-up artists claim.

Girl, if your man recently dumped you, I know you’re baffled, frustrated, disappointed, depressed, angry or even heartbroken. All these feelings are perfectly normal. Trust me when I tell you in time this will pass and you will get your groove back. If you believe me, you can stop reading here and go make plans for some Godiva and Ben & Jerry’s therapy with your best girlfriend. But if you’re thinking “Uh-uh, Mimi, I need to do anything and everything I can right now to show my man how much I still love him and win him back”, well honey, then we need a powwow pronto. I understand we all handle grief and disappointment differently, but if you’re feeling frantic and compelled to hire a skywriter to display your undying love and devotion, it might be possible you’re becoming the…*gasp*…Psycho Ex.

(insert dramatic duh-duh-DUH here)

Okay, so you’re not boiling bunnies in his kitchen, not yet anyway, and for that I applaud you. However, if you’re more intent on proving to him he’s just lost the best thing he’s ever had and informing everyone you see what an idiot he is for dumping you, then you may have just taken a wrong turn onto Obsession Avenue. You should stop to ask yourself if you are sabotaging your ability to move on, and doing things which could be considered out of control to both him and those watching from the sidelines.

Every woman cringes at the idea of being called “psycho”, but if you’re doing any combination of these things, he and his buddies won’t be able to resist labeling you just that:

• Calling or texting repeatedly, especially after more than a few drinks
• Stalking his social networking pages (and every female he befriends or follows)
• Plastering messages, music, poems, links, and “likes” all over your pages intended to teach him something
• Composing lengthy emails or leaving messages reminding him how much you still care and arguing how fixable the relationship is
• Trying to turn all his friends into informants
• Driving by his/her home or work
• Turning his favorite bar into your new regular hangout
• Hooking up with his friends
• Harassing his new girlfriend
• Keying his car or uprooting his landscaping

As necessary as it all may seem in the scorned moment, frantic behavior will NOT get your ex back and accomplishes nothing good, unless your definition of “good” is pushing him farther away, embarrassing yourself, and creating crazy ex-girlfriend horror stories he can tell for years to come. Please tell me you don’t want to prove you are needy, obsessive, unstable, and a thousand other wholly undesirable things! They say you never really know someone until they become your ex. Is this the “real you” you want to reveal at the final curtain of your relationship? You certainly don’t want to make him regret ever offering the “let’s be friends” carrot. Additionally you don’t want to give him the opportunity to tell everyone you’re crazy, to have an excuse to play the victim, and to trash your reputation. Take a moment to consider all this, and then pose the kicker question: “Would I want to be treated like this?”

The best way to prevent becoming the Psycho Ex is to acknowledge that breakups hurt and can turn you inside out. You are supposed to be upset, not necessarily thinking clearly, and perhaps even feeling a little crazy on the inside, but the key is to resist showing it. Never let him see you sweat! The immediate aftermath of a breakup is time to chill, spend a little time healing yourself, and rediscover your dignity. This is a cooling off period, not the time to do anything rash you may regret, to drive yourself mad over-analyzing the situation, or to try to pressure your ex into reconsidering. (Yes, now he’s an “ex”. Embrace this truth because arguing it is futile.) Like I said, this will pass, but only if you allow it to flow through you, gracefully and honorably. There is no need to slam shut a door someone else has already closed. He may decide to knock later, but not if he feels pressured or even terrorized.

How are you ever going to see Mr. Right if your vision is clouded by images and frustrations of Mr. This Isn’t Working for Me? If your ex doesn’t think you are the one for him, have faith you’ll soon find the man who believes you are and focus your attention on that potential! Everyone deserves to be The One for someone, and no one needs to be the girl who gives guys permission to keep the cursed label “Psycho Ex” in popular use. Do it for the dignity, and for women everywhere.

Heartbreak – it’s a fact of life, and a part of being human. Throughout the centuries countless songs, stories, and poems have been written about broken hearts. As REM reminds us in their 1992 song “Everybody Hurts”, at some point in your life you will experience a broken heart and feel you can’t go on. However I’m willing to bet, if you’re heartbroken at the moment, you aren’t listening to the radio because every song you hear reminds you of your ex.

It may not seem helpful while you’re in it, but everyone understands the loss of a relationship and knows it can be shattering. You feel self-conscious, like there is something wrong and wholly unlovable about you. Your heart feels like it has been ripped into a million little pieces. Nothing makes any sense or holds any enjoyment for you. Not only are you trying to deal with the shock and pain of losing someone important in your life, but you also must let go of the future you were building with this person. The hopes and dreams of your life together are no more. You are no longer allowed to look forward to that future, which leaves you feeling scared, lonely, and lost.

Well, Scared, Lonely & Lost, what do you do? Well, first you can let it out. A few days of crying on the couch or running the equivalent of a few marathons can purge some frustration and clear your head. Then once you’re ready to accept your plight, you can consider making a forward-focused healing plan. That’s right — even though it can be the hardest thing in the world to do, you have to let him/her go and set your sights on your own future.
They say “time heals all wounds”, and this applies to breakups too. Although it may feel like it, it is not the end of the world. When you’re trying to get over an illness, there are things you can do to heal faster. The same holds true here.

First and foremost, resist focusing negative emotions on the person who ended the relationship. Don’t let thoughts of making this person jealous or miserable drive you. Also, don’t focus any negativity on yourself. Give yourself a big fat break. The worst thing you can do when suffering through a breakup is to blame yourself. You are already going through so much! This is the time when you need to love yourself more than ever. You don’t need to blame or punish yourself because someone just left you hanging. This also means you should steer clear of self-destructive behaviors such as using alcohol, drugs, or “comfort” food to cope. When you’re in the middle of a breakup, you may feel tempted to do anything to relieve your feelings of pain and loneliness.

Resist being the “Psycho Ex”. As necessary as it may seem in the moment, frantic and obsessive behavior such as incessant calling/texting/emailing, showing up at your ex’s house/work/favorite bar, or pestering the new boy/girlfriend will NOT get your ex back, accomplishes nothing good, and prevents you from moving on. Ask yourself “would I want to be treated like this?”, and then refocus on healing yourself.

Make an effort to go out, be with your friends and family, and have fun. Don’t go through it alone. Spend time with people who support, love, and value you, and take some time to expand your social network. It’s going to seem ridiculous and phony at first to be forcing yourself to do these things while surviving a break up, but you need this time out and about to get over what has happened to you. As crazy as it seems, sometimes even a rebound relationship, although it won’t last, can be a great way to ease the pain and reinstate some self-esteem. The distraction is helpful, I promise. Once you’ve gained some distance from the breakup and taken some time for yourself, your head should be clearer.

There is no real timetable for how long it takes to mend a broken heart. Some people heal faster than others. However if you’re wondering if it’s taking you too long, ask yourself this: Are your once-supportive friends starting to ditch you? Are people rolling their eyes when you begin to recount a story about your ex? Dealing with a heartbroken friend can be exhausting, if it doesn’t seem like they’re making any true progress, but a true friend will stick with you through the worst of it. Just hang in there, and keep your goal of shaking it off in mind.

Breakups can be hard to handle, but in order to find a true loving companion it’s worth the risk of getting hurt now and again. Like I said, we all have to deal with a breakup from time to time, but that’s the price we pay while we search for true love. Our biggest hope is that we don’t have to endure it so often we become pros at it.

Have come to the conclusion the person you’re dating just isn’t the one for you? Are you dreading the dirty deed, knowing it will probably get ugly? A straightforward, face-to-face meeting is the most effective and respectful way to handle this sticky situation, but there are a lot of people who just can’t bear hurting the one they should, but don’t, love. It’s especially difficult if you have knowledge of a wrong-doing on their part, and just don’t have enough compassion left for the soon-to-be-ex to do it with decency.

My advice is always to take the high road. In the long run, it’s the most satisfying one to travel and creates fewer social landmines to stumble onto later in life. However, if you’re feeling particularly vindictive or cowardly, there exist a multitude of less admirable ways to let someone know the relationship is kaput.

Here are a few of the more popular and creative ways to punk out on a respectful and honest break-up:

Start a new relationship and then pull the dirty “I’ve found someone else” trick. It’s generally impossible for a boy-/girl-friend to get over the idea of you consistently getting naked and freaky with someone else. You get double perversion points if it’s with his/her best friend.

Play mind games and sabotage the relationship. This forces the other person to take the role of “the bad guy” and end the relationship. This can range from simply changing your personality into someone unbearably selfish and obnoxious to getting creative with stories to scare the other person into retreat: fashioning aluminum foil hats to keep the FBI from reading your thoughts, insisting you no longer believe in sex before marriage and perhaps not even after, or claiming to have massive credit card debt and a credit score that would even scare MC Hammer. These work best when you’re in “a lie for a lie” mode.

Utilize the Internet to broadcast your decision. Post a YouTube video airing all the dirty laundry of your relationship and your reasons for rejecting your boy-/girl-friend. Tweet some rants, Lindsay-style. Change your Facebook status to “single”. If you’re feeling particularly generous, follow it up with a text message or an email with a minimal amount of information to confirm.

Enhance the humiliation by doing the “We’re done” deed in a popular public place. You can hope the presence of many others will keep the jilted one from making a scene, but it’s never a guarantee.

Choose to wait until a major holiday, his/her birthday or a family gathering. Consider the evil satisfaction you can achieve by ensuring yours is the “remember the time when…?” story whispered at every 4th of July picnic. Or perhaps your interest is in being the shadow lurking in the back of his/her mind every time it’s time to blow out the candles?

Play the avoidance game. Total silence is the best way to drag out a break-up as long as humanly possible while still ensuring you don’t have to physically face up to your decision. Your phone will blow up with messages progressing from concern to worry to disbelief to disturbing anger, your inbox will overflow with similar vitriol, but you can pretty much bet that within a few weeks, or for the dimmer ones a few months, your ex will finally figure it out that’s exactly what he/she is.

Ever experienced one of these relationship chicken-outs? Ever imposed one on someone? Tell Mimi your story, give it some air. Sometimes it helps to get it off your chest.

If so many perfectly dateable girls insist there are no good men out there, let’s try on the not-so-radical idea that perhaps we’re looking in the wrong places? Last week I mentioned I’ve been exploring more unorthodox ways to find dateable men, and I want to continue here. It’s THE taboo, but dating someone from work is another way to deepen the dating pool unconventionally.

Taboo or not, you hear many success stories for something so openly frowned-upon. Dating in the workplace seems like a tried and true tradition, the place where most people have met their mates. Why wouldn’t it be? You see each other every day, in the place you spend most of your waking hours. You likely have similar interests, education, responsibilities, and salary, and the same demanding hours. Having a romantic interest would be quite the enticement and motivation to be on your game all day, every day, at work. Heck, you can even carpool.

CNN reports 29% of office romances lead to marriage. This sounds like a sure bet. So why is dating someone in the workplace so taboo? Well, it’s that other 71% who don’t marry making things, well, a little messy. It’s not so much about what you get in the relationship — the undeniable chemistry, the thrill of the secrets and the risk, the illicit encounters — that makes office romance such an imprudent idea. It’s what could happen, if the flame flickers out, cautioning so many people to shy away, and leading so many companies to form policies against it. Apparently the consequences can be costly on many levels.

If you think you might be willing to give coworker courtship a shot, you first need to check with HR or your employee policy/handbook to see what you are and aren’t allowed to do. While there are no federal or state laws prohibiting employee dating, there also are no laws preventing employers from forbidding it. Dating laterally or outside your division may be allowed, but dating someone higher or lower within your own department might be off-limits, and for good reason. We’ve all had our Sexual Harassment in the Workplace training, and we all know where this can go, quickly, in a hand basket.

You then need to evaluate if you are certain your interest is interested in you romantically. Girl, there are signals and there are SIGNALS. Tread carefully until you are 100% sure the chemistry you are feeling goes both ways, and that he is truly available. Just remember no means no, and married is married. If you ask once and are told anything but an enthusiastic yes, let it go. Additionally, if the relationship starts to wane, get out earlier rather than later to avoid any harassment accusations or issues.

Sadly, you will have to assume the worst before you jump in: What will work be like if we break up, especially if it’s messy? Would it be possible to avoid him for a while, until the dust settles and feelings subside, or will we be trapped in insanely awkward every-morning 9AM status meetings? How much do I love or need my current job? (In other words, if I had to leave, would I be devastated or merely miffed?) Even a break-up handled in the best of ways can still make post-fling life in the workplace a living hell.

You have to decide early on, from the get-go, just what you will and will not reveal to coworkers. It’s probably best not to put it on display at all, and keep things hush-hush. Ask yourself: Can I handle constant lying and sneaking around? If you must go public, resist the PDA and hanky-panky, make sure to show this is not distracting from or affecting your performance, and demonstrate professionalism is still your priority. Prove you can keep the ups and downs of your relationship to yourselves.

All the treachery considered, sometimes you can’t deny love, or lust, especially if it’s right in front of you. If you are developing feelings for a coworker, it’s a huge risk, but don’t you owe it to yourself to see where it will go? Check out your situation and see if you can make this happen without stepping outside the bounds above. And then ask the big question: What WON’T you do for love? Maybe it’s worth all these risks, and more. Maybe not. As I always say, there’s only one way to find out!

Girls, let’s face it: it’s a small world, especially in the dating scene. Since it seems there aren’t many good men available, I’ve been toying with some radical ideas to deepen the dating pool. Most recent idea? Dating an ex.

Now some of you are probably thinking Mimi here is taking “green” just a little too far. Recycling is fine for old cardboard and reuse is good for vintage clothing, but redating an ex? Before you ask me what I’ve been smoking, indulge me for a few paragraphs. Sure, it won’t work for everyone and every situation, but I’d like to show you that in a strong subset of cases this may be exactly what a Love Doctor would prescribe.

I’ll admit, as a rule, I have always held fast to the idea that I couldn’t redate an ex. The child inside me held stubbornly to the notion there are no take-backs, and as an adult it seemed to make sense. He is an ex for a reason and those reasons will always be there, right? The purity of the relationship, the passion, and the trust died a quick death during the break-up. Rekindling the fire and rebuilding a real relationship would be no easy feat. It took me forever to get over him – do I want to go down that rabbit hole again? Deciding if the connection, and the guy, are worth the gargantuan effort are the real questions here, and until now I’d never allowed myself to give them a second thought.

Suppose you recently ran into him, and still felt the tingle. It’s natural to be tempted to rekindle the relationship, because the familiarity and friendship you experienced can rush back over you like a tsunami. It’s then you have to be honest with yourself, before deciding to pursue. There are some unhealthy reasons you might want to go back, and if you identify with any of these, you’re simply not ready to try: Am I lonely? Am I willing to forgive because I hate being dateless every weekend? Am I jealous because he has a new girlfriend and he’s moving on more easily than I am? Am I inflating who he is and what we had? Giving him another try means you suspect he’s right for you now, not the idea of him will help you hide from your own issues.

If you can establish this isn’t your way of avoiding loneliness or therapy, then let me get to my big point, which for the two of you can be a deal breaker or a deal sealer. You must first understand why you broke up in the first place. Did he lie, cheat, have an addiction, verbally or physically abuse you, or become overly jealous? If that’s the case, hoping for a huge personality overhaul is pointless and he’s a terrible redate candidate. Was it merely a misunderstanding that snowballed? Was it something fairly trivial, like he was a slob or he spent too much time playing Halo with his buddies? Did you date only briefly, somehow ending up in the friend zone, but now the sight of him makes your heart skip a beat? Usually a break-up occurs when someone’s needs weren’t being met. If you can identify and understand the issue or pattern that led to the break-up, and ask “has that issue been resolved?”, you’ll be able to determine if the two of you had enough time to heal or grow past that issue being valid anymore. You must ask yourself: Are we mature enough to forgive, forget, and start anew?

Also evaluate this man as you would any other guy you’d consider dating now, with a fresh look and a fresh attitude. Is he clean? Respectful? Considerate? Perhaps your needs have changed since you last dated, and he offers things you value now but did not before.

If you still have feelings and a desire to revisit this, you owe it to yourself to give him, and you as a couple, another try. Don’t go through the rest of your life wondering “what if?” Sit down with him in a casual setting, share your feelings, and decide together if it’s worth giving it another try. If he’s amenable to the idea of recreating the couple, discuss the breakup, but only once, and then agree set it aside. Take things slowly, and avoid falling into old routines and going to the same old places again. Creating new memories will help purge or replace old, and possibly emotionally charged or stressful, ones. Keep things relaxed, and keep your expectations in check. Don’t expect either of you will instantly fall in love again. Give this new couple a chance.

Then if it doesn’t work out the second time, you’ll have definitive closure. There is no reason to try by giving it a third, fourth or even fifth try. You may be hopeful, but recognize many people simply cannot change. Some people will put on their best game face to keep things together. Eventually the mask will come off, if the change is not one of the heart, but motivated by fear of losing.

Sometimes merely the passage of time can allow you to appreciate an ex in a way you weren’t able to before. Who knows? Maybe maturity was all your relationship needed to thrive. With eyes wide open, a clean slate, and a little more life experience under your belts, the second time around could be great with an ex.

After some not-so-serious thought and discussion among friends (both nerdy and not), it’s still not clear if most of my girlfriends would enjoy dipping their feet into the geek dating pool. Would it be worthwhile to broaden our dating purview to the world of techies, dorks, dweebs and poindexters? Not trying to persuade or dissuade anyone, and as always taking the opportunity to poke some fun at a potentially delicate situation, I’d like to throw out some thoughts, both pro and con, for your amusement and input.

Pros

He’s smart — insanely, awesomely, and impressively smart.

He won’t play mind games with you.

He will call you when he says he will.

He will be on time when he’s supposed to meet you.

Not only can he fix anything that ails your laptop or desktop, for free, he’ll probably improve it.

He’s more romantic than you’d expect, just in very unexpected ways.

He’s attentive and eager to master his sexual skills on you.

He’s fairly low-maintenance, even for a guy, so if you’re not a great cook, he won’t care as long as you have an online take-out account for all his favorite pizza and Chinese restaurants.

If you gain a few pounds, he won’t make asinine comments or do his best to make you feel like a cow.

He spells properly and uses correct punctuation.

His friends aren’t arrogant, narcissistic players.

He won’t cheat on you.

He’s not into football.

He’s intimidated by you.

He’s probably got a small fortune squirreled away from selling off a startup, in options from an IPO or simply because he doesn’t waste money on clothes, motorcycles, season tickets or boozing it up in the clubs every weekend.

Cons

You have to make the first move.

He won’t have a way with words.

You’ll have to expect a certain level of detachment.

His concept of personal and relationship space may be very different from yours.

He’ll have an offbeat sense of humor, sometimes so dry you often won’t get he’s joking.

He considers a car something to simply get him from point A to point B, and good gas mileage is his primary consideration, not luxury or speed.

He won’t understand why you need eight different pairs of black shoes. He will have exactly two, and perhaps a pair of flops.

You do not exist when he’s playing a game.

He’s easily embarrassed.

He’s intimidated by you.

He can’t dance, not even to that techno music he loves so much.

If he thinks you don’t understand something, he’ll spend days, months, years, whatever it takes trying to explain it to you.

He may have a charming and witty online personality, but he’s still a social klutz in real life.

Overall, I’d have to vote for geeks and nerds making great boyfriends. Why? They actually give a damn about you. Not for how skinny or stylish you are, or how domestic you can be, but they’ll appreciate you for you. In my opinion it’s better to be with an honest geek than a charming (and playing) cheat.

While devouring a decadent pot of guac and a premium rita at Mez last week, I remarked to my girlfriend how men seem to dominate every lunch and happy hour spot in Research Triangle Park. Once you notice it, you realize RTP must rank pretty high in the country on its male:female ratio. But if that’s true, why are so many of my girlfriends constantly bemoaning the supposed fact there aren’t any single men here? There obviously are! So why aren’t we getting hit on every time we hit the buffet at Rudino’s or grab some curry at Thai Lanna? We’re reasonably hot professional chicks. We’re catches…aren’t we? We started to to wonder.

Back at work that day, I was trying to wrap my head around this, and wondering how such an oversight in my world view (and blog) was possible. A statistician joined my conversation, and he had plenty to add: “In my world people are usually surprised anyone who knows stats can put a couple sentences together. They’re usually more surprised if stats guys have any social skills whatsoever. So sure, there are plenty of guys out there, but they’re brainy, Mimi. The odds are good, but the goods are odd.”

He then helped me realize just how odd they might be to us, and, comically, how odd we must be to them. This is a pool of overly educated, highly motivated, insanely intelligent, and, for the most part, socially challenged men. They aren’t putting themselves out there by joining the masses at North Hills on Thursday evenings, hitting the clubby gyms after work each day, playing cornhole at the popular pools every weekend, or doing the self-promotion on Match or Facebook. These are men who spend their free time building their own PCs, playing World of Warcraft, watching and critiquing Caprica, thinking “blogging” is so ten years ago, and building up their mint condition Star Trek model starship collection. No wonder they’ve been so easy to overlook — they don’t play The Game! (They’d rather play Call of Duty, online, for fourteen hours straight.)

So what can we mainstream single women do with this remarkably high nerd concentration? Can we find a middle ground? Will the quiet nerds find flashy chicks in the least bit interesting, past a purely physical draw? Can the party girls find the awkward guys dateable, and not just because such guys would enthusiastically keep everything electronic in her house in perfect working order? I hear the occasional dating success story, but for the most part I think these two pools of dating potential rarely get the right opportunity to mix. In my opinion, that’s a shame, because it’s my humble opintion merging those two worlds could bring an odd balance to the universe.

Give me a couple days, and I’ll see if I can come up with 1) a strong list of pros and cons for the melding of these two worlds and 2) ideas to bring the two together. I know, I know, it hasn’t worked for Leonard and Penny on “Big Bang Theory”, but could it work in the real world of RTP? The optimist in me says it certainly can, and the woman (who’s anxious to deepen the dating pool) in me pleads “It has to!”