Healthy Life Guide

The Dating Nerd is a shadowy figure whose whereabouts and identifying details remain unknown. What we do know is that he is really, really good at dating. He’s been on more dates than you can shake a lengthy bar tab at, and he’s here to help the average guy step his dating game up a notch -- or several. Need his help? Email . The Question Hi Dating Nerd, I’m dating this girl but she’s evangelical, so we have hot makeouts but no sex, I’m kind of trying to ignore the christian thing, she doesn’t act like most religious girls I’ve met, but I don’t know if that will work out, what do I do? - All Out of Faith The Answer Hi Faith, I blame technology. Probably that sounds like a weird take, but I’ll explain, since I’m being paid to. Here goes. In the world of dating, as in so many other places, Silicon Valley has given us certain false hopes. (Where’s my not-at-all-geeky-looking hoverboard? Where’s my talking robot dog that pees bourbon? Where are the nano-particles th...

One of the major shifts in social and political behaviour in the last century came in 1960 with the approval of the pill for contraceptive use. Immediately, uptake was huge – 1.2 million American women were using the tablet within two years, with the number rising to 2.3 million just a year later. This potentially enabled women to have as many children as they wanted, at a time of their choosing; have a better chance of organising parenthood around their careers; and enjoy a recreational sex life without the constant fear of getting pregnant. Yet while science has since developed numerous ways for women to avoid pregnancy, men are still stuck with a condom , a vasectomy , or keeping your fingers crossed and hoping for the best. (Disclaimer: this last one is a really terrible idea). Why, when progress has delivered everything else from the iPhone to Deliveroo, hasn’t the male pill arrived? The side effects (that women have had to deal with for years) The biggest and most significant...

We live in a world that has sex on the brain. You can't escape sexualised images and, if you force yourself to stop and think about it, sex drives a scary amount of our day-to-day behaviour – from shopping to social media to that punishing pre-breakfast HIIT session. It's exhausting. But what if you were immune to all that? Around 1% of the population is asexual, according to the latest available research . Asexual people don't have sex on the brain. Not at all, in fact. Characterised by one’s lack of sexual attraction to other people, asexuality is rare and poorly understood. If modern culture is an all-you-can-gorge buffet of sexuality, we're malnourished on the subject of people who aren't interested in sex at all. It got us thinking: what can we learn about relationships and intimacy from people who aren’t motivated by sex or physical attraction? We spoke to Brian Langevin, a 20-year-old non-binary asexual from Kamloops in Canada, to find out what we could...

“I always say this and people take it the wrong way, but I think it’s awkward to date someone who makes less money than me. This bold statement comes from Brook, a pretty 24-year-old who is easily the centre of gravity at the bar we’re in. Originally from California, she has long brown hair falling in loose curls to her shoulders, and a confident manner that makes socialising a breeze. She’s good company, and she knows it – if I were wealthy and had a penis, she might even charge me for it. Brook is a sugar baby, you see. She arranges relationships with sugar daddies, men (usually older, always richer) who shower her with gifts and money. We’re in a bar in central London, drinking strawberry-topped champagne with 30 other women who want to be more like Brook. Hosted by SeekingArrangement.com , an online dating site for sugar relationships, this is an event for sugar babies to network and swap tips. Brook, who’s been a sugar baby for four years, is a spokeswoman for the b...

Online dating in the modern world is less like falling madly in love, more like chucking mud at a wall and seeing what sticks. If only there was someone else to do the hard work for you, eh? Away from the cattle market of Tinder, a few dating apps are now promising to personally match clients rather than let you exhaust yourselves. Sites like eHarmony have fancy algorithms for matching personalities, whilst Once actually employs human matchmakers to trawl through profiles to offer you a new ‘match’ every single day. I had a spin as a professional Once matchmaker. As a former dating columnist I was reasonably confident in my match game, but throwing a couple together every 45 seconds on average is a brain-melting task. What if I hooked an awesome girl up with someone who went on to wreck their life, or ticked the wrong option for a guy when his Miss Perfect was the other choice? After my panic subsided, I got into the groove and – from my feedback – I got a rate of 68% ‘like...

When you think about that beautiful woman who turns on the coffee pot in the morning, who looks equally as sexy in her college sweats as she does in a cocktail gown and who one of these days, you’ll get on bended knee and ask her to take a stroll with you down the aisle -- you know how you feel about her isn’t just in the way she looks. In the healthiest, happiest relationship, your connection goes far beyond physical attraction and sexual chemistry and extends to qualities that arguably mean more in the long run than anything else. that is why so many people -- and likely, yourself included -- identify as a sapiosexual. Now before you raise an eyebrow to this funny-sounding term, chill out: Sapiosexuality is merely an attraction to intelligence, above anything else. This does not mean you do not appreciate other parts of the female body , it just means that what’s going to go the extra mile for you in a relationship and under the sheets is the conversation, the banter and the sm...

You know how they like their eggs cooked best, can recite their phone number off by heart (even in this day and age), and took up their favourite extreme sport to ensure more quality time with them. They struggle to remember your mother’s name. Have you ever taken a good long look at your relationship and thought “Hmmm something stinks of one-sided bullpoop around here? If so, you aren’t alone. Apparently no less than 1/3 of us are in what scientists are calling ‘Asymmetric Commitment Relationships’ , where one party is fully invested and the other is, well, just bumbling along without any whiff of meaningful commitment. ACRs can be (and often are) long-term relationships , where the couple have relaxed into their roles – where one of them is in it for the long-run and the other takes the convenience and contentment but sidesteps any plans for the future. In today’s society there is less pressure on couples to marry , and perhaps this is why so many of us potter along wit...