Well, I'll let you decide how much of a loser you think I am.

Good article, actually. The line "it's not you, it's me" is absolutely true: what they're really saying is "it's me who doesn't like you."

I think I pin-pointed my problem with this article: the author thinks that women take Cosmopolitan articles seriously. We don't. We really, really don't.

Furthermore, there's a difference between being "an embarrassing, spectacular mess of contradictions" and just plain being incompatible. Relationships are about growing together, and if a person (man OR woman) is unwilling to grow into a fuller part of the couple, then what, indeed, is the point of continuing the relationship?

One last thing: often, the "little things" in a relationship that make someone "a loser" are really just socially-acceptable covers for the bigger issues. So a woman may call a guy a loser for living with his parents, but that's just a short-hand for the idea that the woman wants someone with similar goals and aspirations to her own.

So a woman may call a guy a loser for living with his parents, but that's just a short-hand for the idea that the woman wants someone with similar goals and aspirations to her own.

Totally agree! I always said my friend's now-ex is a loser because "he doesn't have a job and he lives at home", but those things aren't the reasons he's a loser, they're just symptoms of his complete inability to engage with the outside world (and now, my friend as well).

Oops, damn, I hope you don't think I meant this post as a comment on you, Melismata. I was totally thinking how it applied to me, especially that "spectacular mess of contradictions" part.

/building myself into my own doghouse

LOL not to worry, Ardiril, I knew that. I always assumed that when posting to MetaChat the snark/sarcasmometer is turned on, but that's not always the case.

Well, it's a humor column. I wouldn't worry too much about it.

Actually, it's a syndicated humor column. I would worry even less.

Actually, it's an internet-syndicated humor content piece, designed, no doubt, to fill a particular tag hole somewhere amid the CNN metroplex. If you worry about those ....

It's the point of these magazines to tell its readers "Without me - you are nothing, and you'd make nothing but huge mistakes - in all the things you care about."

So really - it wouldn't matter if all men were perfect. The magazine would still find some thing that you're paranoid enough to shell over the buying price for. Either that, or it'd invent something. Else.

Reading a "Why do I always pick losers." article is just shorthand for "I think I'm really sick, and without the soothing snake-oil ink of the womens glossy magazine, I would probably die. What with me being so ill and all."

And it doesn't matter if you're cynical enough to understand the dynamic here. Every time you buy a magazine that tells you you've got terrible taste in clothes or food or men, you're helping to keep the myth alive a little longer.