We’ve all been there. You’re out with someone you’re newly dating, it’s not a full-on committed relationship yet, and you run into someone who you used to date, and still have feelings for, or you run into someone you’d typically be interested in dating had you not met while with your date!

So, how do you make introductions without burning either bridge? Simple: don’t include titles. Say hello, introduce the person you’re with to the person you’ve run into by first name only, and don’t get flirty. Respect yourself by being respectful to your date. You can always send a quick email, text or Facebook message later that day letting the person you ran into know that it was nice seeing them.

A recent article in The New York Times “Modern Love” column titled The Hard Won Lessons of the Solitary Years resonated with me. Although there are lessons that we learn while IN relationships, there are also many lessons we learn the older we are as singles. Which is why it always bothered me when my coupled up counterparts would speak to me in a condescending way about things that I “wouldn’t understand” because I wasn’t married or in a relationship at the time.

What I found ironic though is that I was learning life lessons as an independent woman that would go on to benefit me later. There’s no right or wrong answer to what age is best for getting married; everyone has their own path, but in the meantime we should be cognizant of the way we speak to our friends who are on a different path and make sure we are respectful. Everyone learns their own hard fought lessons on their own time and we never know what someone is going through, it’s best to appreciate what they bring to the table — a perspective that comes from being in a different stage of life than ours.

Because of my newfound fame writing dating columns for 100hookup during these past 3 months, every so often I’ll get email inquiries from men and women alike, looking to solve their dating dilemmas. This one comes from Mack B. of Austin, Texas.

(NOTE: THIS POST IS HEAVY ON AMBIGUOUS SPORTS METAPHORS)

Dear Dating Prognosticater,

I have a problem. I’ve been in the Austin-Round Rock metropolitan area since 1998, and have enjoyed my time here, both professionally and personally. I have a couple of problems though- I feel like I’ve dated just about every Jew in the area.

I had a four year relationship with a religious girl, before she moved to Cleveland, and was in a really high-profile relationship with a girl who brought me a lot of fame seven years ago, and just moved back to be a model at a steakhouse downtown, and I’ve dated a bunch of girls in between.

I feel like I’m damaged goods, and destined for a life of singledom. Especially since there was this one girl who really liked me, but I didn’t like her back, so she moved to Waco, and now is a famous personality in Washington D.C. I cry inside every day about that.

What should I do?

Mack B.

Mack B.,

Have no fear. I have one solution for you: Look elsewhere. Have you been doing the same activities in Austin for the last fifteen years? Have you seen your friend group change? Have you dated the same types of girls (I guess not, since you dated a religious girl and a steakhouse model)? Answer that first.

Find a new hobby. Do you go to happy hour every single Monday-Friday? It might be time to take one of those drinking days off, and go to yoga. Maybe a pottery class is in your future? Join a co-ed book club? You still want to drink heavily on one day? Well, there’s always kickball.

Having a routine is great. The great thing about dating, however, is it relies on spontaneity- you don’t find your date through search engine optimization, but through chance encounters in person and online. You’ve been dating the same girl over and over again? Might be time to look at yourself and change some of your personal characteristics. That way you won’t miss out on the girl who might be “The One”.

I have always been completely confident in the fact that I would never lose my hair. Though my dad lost most of his hair by age 7, my parents had always told me that hair loss was inherited from the mother’s side. My maternal grandfather always had a lot of unmoving hair on his head. I didn’t really pay attention to the fact that it never moved. I was more interested in the fact that it wasn’t falling off. However, later in life, I would learn that hair that never moves is the first sign of toupee.

So, by the time I turned 22, I still did not know what a wig was, for the purposes of this blog post. I actually didn’t know that he wore one until I was about that age. I just figured he had a gorgeous head of hair, as I would have, forever. When I found out it was a wig, I finally saw myself for the way I actually was. A young, overweight, albeit handsome young man, with some flaws, the least of which was the beginning of my male-pattern baldness. However, it did not bother me that much because I was in the midst of an eight-year-long OCD-induced potentially life-ending breakdown. The hair loss was just that one thing that, even during those few moments when I finally allowed myself to forget about everything else, reminded me that everything was horrible.

Well, I finally learned to manage my anxiety, and lose all of the weight. The hair loss is just there to remind me that not everything can be controlled. I am always in control of the long line of women that are constantly rejecting me. I am always in control of the car that I am constantly almost driving into things, usually things traveling towards me at an equal or greater speed. I am always in control of the remote control that controls the television that I watch to control my anxiety and worries that had previously controlled my life. However, I am never in control of the way that things have stopped growing on my head.

I’d much rather be semi-sane, thin, and balding than insane, fat, and sweaty with a full head of hair. However, I don’t think anybody on earth is insane, fat, and sweaty, with a full head of hair. Hair is still good for one’s self esteem. Having all of that hair can prevent insanity if you’re fat and can prevent weight gain if you’re insane.

I’m still waiting on meeting a woman that likes me as much as I like her. Maybe I should get a wig.

These past few weeks have been shmorgasboard of Mazal Tov’s and they are simchas that are so inspiring that they are worth sharing with the public (anonymously, of course). I’m sharing these stories to give you hope that you can find love too, no matter what your baggage/background/etc.

One girl I know was engaged 3 years ago when her fiance walked out. It was shocking and devastating. But since then, she changed her life and found her new happy and her new body. She lost weight and found a new man – she just got married and wore so many gorgeous dresses throughout the many festivities showing off her new waistline, she was beaming with happiness. This is the guy she was meant to be with and she would never had found him had that jerk not left her.

Another girl has been dating and dating and dating. She is a spitfire! An awesome gal who is active and fun and sweet and smart. A few years ago she moved and started a new life in a new city where she could meet new people. It was the best thing she could have done for herself. She wasn’t running away from life, but running towards something. She is approaching 40 and I just didn’t know if she was ever going to settle down, if anyone was ever going to be good enough for her and meet her expectations. Over the weekend, her boyfriend took her away to a tropical destination and proposed!

Another friend, in her early 40s, decided to stop waiting to meet the right guy and to have a baby on her own. At this point, she hasn’t become Jennifer Lopez in The Back-Up Plan – meeting her love just after being inseminated – but she is perfectly content and satisfied in her life, right now, with her baby. She wanted to get married and have kids and she could only have control over one part of that equation so she became a Mommy. I have no doubt she will meet someone in the next few years and add wife to her timeline.

These are just a few examples… with the point being that you can find love. It WILL happen.

If you want to get girls to like you, you can’t just be likable. You have to practice. You can’t just practice in the mirror because the mirror will love you, but the world won’t.

Start with places where you buy food. See what works and what doesn’t. Try your cute mannerisms on the woman (or man) behind the counter. If you’ve got new material, this is the place to try it. If you’re wearing jeans, casually put your left hand in your pocket. See if that garners any attention. If it doesn’t, try the right hand. Ask her how her day is going. If she answers unfavorably, it’s either because your question isn’t working or because she just hates her job. If it’s the former, try to revise your question the next day. Go for minimalism. Just say, ‘hi’.

For the lady working behind the counter at dinner, take another approach. Be the over-confident guy. Hold up the line while you continuously talk to her, whilst never taking your eyes off hers. When the guy behind you tells you to move, defend your honor! Show her that you’re not a pushover. Ask her out in front of all of the angry people behind you. Sure they will roll their eyes, and may spit on you, but it will be spits of respect.

Do this so much that it becomes second nature whenever you’re in public. I don’t see any potential drawbacks to this at all. Don’t necessarily hit on every girl you see. Just work out all of your quirks and pay attention to what works. The absolute worst that can happen is that you will alienate everybody in your life and will die alone.

However, do not practice your flirting at work. This is dangerous, and really is the best literal manifestation of a lose-lose situation. When you get rejected, you lose a date. When you get rejected at work, you lose a date and a job.

I was checking out my friend’s updates on Facebook and came across on interesting post — one of the hottest women I know wrote “I love being single!”  Following 8 comments. I had to click and see what people were saying about such a statement, something you don’t often hear. One gal wrote, “I do too! I love the freedom to be selfish and not have to worry about anyone else’s needs!” Another woman wrote, “Me too! I don’t have to spend all my hard-earned money buying everyone else presents this holiday season.” A guy wrote, “I love flirting!” Another man wrote, “It’s just so much easier. If I want to be alone I can be, if I want to go out, I can.” Finally, someone wrote, “Being single is definitely easier than being married. Marriage is hard work.” And someone else followed up with, “Try being married with 2 kids!” More comments followed along these lines — promoting the positives of being single along with the negative of being married.

Usually you see people talking about how awful single life is, how depressed they are being single, how desperate they are to meet someone, how they’ll never ever meet anyone, how they’ve given up hope at finding love and so on. So it was really nice and refreshing to see people discuss the positive attributes being single has.

All singles should take the time to appreciate what they do have instead of harping on what they don’t.

Life is boring. Single life is no different.

The fact that I have eaten nothing but Subway sandwiches for the past thirty days doesn’t help the monotony. Yes, I do interchange meats weekly in order to make sure I don’t jump off of a building.  There is nothing like the taste of chicken after having eaten nothing but turkey. Actually, there are a lot of things like that. In fact, almost any activity on earth is more exciting than that. You know how you feel cold when getting out of the shower? That is more suicide-preventative than changing meats on a sandwich. As a child, my brother was convinced that, in order to get rid of that cold feeling after a shower or bath, you should take a cold shower. It turns out that is not true at all, but provided me with miserable showers for almost an entire year.

The changing of my meats is probably the most exciting part of my day. Usually, if I have a date later that night, it usually turns out pretty dull. However, all day before the date I am uncomfortably nervous. This nervous energy is always more exciting than the date itself. I wonder if it’s possible to get anxious for an imaginary date. That would be just the thing formy obsessive-compulsively-crippled personality. There has to be some way to organize a date and then guarantee that it won’t happen. I will have to employ all of my childhood and early adulthood women-repelling skills. It all starts with weekly showers and a strong refusal to shave.