Let’s face it: Anyone who is planning a trip abroad is also hoping for a romance story to tell her girls when she gets back.  We all expect to take on some unsuspecting locals and show them what it means to be from America.  Of course, it is possible to have the fairytale ending that we see in every movie.  It’s also important, however, to stand your ground and not let the native tongue sweep you off your feet too fast!

The ideal situation would be to go to the airport heading home in style: on the back of the motorcycle of some hunk who makes your heart melt just by saying his name.  You met in a small cafe when he knew exactly how you like your coffee and everything took off since then. Okay: time to get real.

Most foreign men know exactly what to do and say to make your heart melt. The second their native language comes out, it’s essentially ‘game over’ for most girls.  “Te amo,” he whispers in your ear on the dance floor: it undoubtedly gets us every time.  It’s important to keep in mind that you are a tourist in an unfamiliar area.  He is going to try to flatter you just as hard as you would take on a foreign hottie in your neck of the woods.  Here are some horror abroad stories that I have collected over the past few days:

“I met this guy at a bar and we talked a little bit.  When I ran into him again the next day and he remembered my name, so I thought that I should give him more of a chance.  I was spitting out every possible word of Italian that I could remember and he flattered me with profound thoughts about love and life. He seemed so mature and put together, very different from the guys I usually date in the states.  Although we didn’t discuss many specifics about his life, he did mention that he is a successful business owner.  When he asked me to leave with him, the truth came out. I found out that he is 23 and lives with his parents.  I’m 35 with a full time job.“

“I met this guy in Israel and he was doing everything right.  I was really young and stupid and blew him off because he had the same name as my brother.  I ended up getting wasted that night and barely remembered anything about him the next day.  Coincidentally, we met again the next night and this time his name was different.  Sure enough, we ended up hooking up.  2 weeks later I find out that he DOES have the same name as my brother and had made up the exact life story that I had told him that I want to find in a guy the night before.  I guess I blame myself for being dumb and too drunk, but he definitely knew how to spit game after he knew what I wanted.”

Time to be positive.  There are definitely people who managed to work their way into the foreign world and come out with a gentlemanly stud.  It’s all about standing your ground and making sure that you aren’t being taken advantage of.  Not all foreign men are jerks just because they are hot:

“I met a guy at a dance club one night and he was actually Prince Charming.  It seemed as though he was right out of the books my mom used to read to me when I was little. He bought me dinner and took me to sights that I didn’t even know existed.  I was nervous about getting too attached to him because I was leaving in a few days but I decided to just live it up while I could.  Admittedly, I was devastated when I was leaving, but he has actually been keeping in touch with me and is a great friend to me now.”

“I have some family in Italy so I was going out with them a lot when I visited.  My cousin introduced me to her friend that she was sure I would hit it off with.  Sure enough, I found myself laughing like a fool after each martini that passed.  I’m usually not the “mushy gushy” type, but I definitely fell in love that night.  We didn’t hook up the first night but I think that I learned more about him that night than I have ever learned about a person in one sitting. I’m usually pretty standoff-ish in front of people that I don’t know.  For whatever reason, he made me appreciate men in general more than I ever have… some of them really know what they are talking about!”

So spill: Did you have any horror hook-ups abroad? Or maybe you found “the one” by chance? Fill us in!

Hangover Cures: Drink Without Guilt

The Hottest Celeb Pics

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Sex Cravings: Do Guys Always Want It More?

For most women, One Night Stands are never hard to find. We can get a man to pretty much have sex with us when ever and where ever. It turns out nature does know what it’s doing (sometimes, anyway.) Research has shown what many of us already notice: “Women experience an increase in sexual desire when we are most fertile,” according to Ask.com.

Sometimes you may want to meet someone and let your sexual desires out, even if it is not for actual intercourse, just for a hook up, or as black people say “get with him.” Hooking up has come to define sexual relationships for most of today’s teens and young women. It can mean anything from kissing and touching to oral sex or intercourse. Vagueness is its hallmark according to a story on Boston.com. Always know thy self and use a condom.

No Judgement Fridays: The Top Five Don’ts Of The Booty Call

Choice is key: This is a one time thing only, so do it when you are feeling extra free like on vacations, business trips and when you just need a change. The only must haves: extra cute with a tight body, i.e: Dwayne Johnson

WTF: Frankie Had Threesome With A Man And His Mom!

No Oral Sex: You can get kinky with positions, but it is never a safe idea to put an unknown penis in your mouth and vice-versa. The last thing you want to get is herpes simplex 1, a virus with symptoms including cold sores on the mouth–not cute.

No Cuddling Afterward: It is over, and hopefully it was great. Now, go home and take a shower. There is no need to have a tender moment with a one-timer.

Never Admit It: When you meet the next love of your life only discuss boyfriends, not booty calls and one night stands because the number of partners you have had matters to men. This one should never be spoken of and/or added to the list.

Check out these hot celebs that can get it:

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Getting the hang of this online dating thing, but don’t know exactly what to say to your paramour? Well, Twitter is the newest way to e-stalk your friends and crushes, but how do you express your feelings in such a fast-paced online social environment? YourTango has come up with 21 funny things you can say to the person you like without looking like a total dunce. Check out a few below.

[From YourTango]

1. Be my date and I’ll #FollowFriday you every day of the week.
2. I’m twitterpated with you.
3. I need more than 140 characters to tell you how beautiful you are.
4. If Twitter is a meat market, you must be the prime rib.
5. You’re so hot, you must have more followers than @aplusk
6. Your twitters make my heart flitter.

To read more, click here!

Does texting equal dating?

Recently I was asked the interesting question of “If you had a superhero power, what would you want it to be?” I started to think about the endless possibilities… Would I want to shoot to spaghetti from my fingers? Fly? Invisibility? Force Djimon Hounsou to dump Kimora and fall in love with me? Oh no, mine is way more beneficial: X-ray vision. But not to save people’s lives or even to be able to see into people’s pockets in case I decide that my lunch is on you. My X-ray vision would be to solve the age old problem my friends and I have had since we started doing the No-Pants Mambo: Answering the question of what his one-eyed-snake looks like. I’m sorry – actually, I’m not sorry – but I’m a busy girl with a smorgasbord of male options. So before I commit any amount of lip flapping to you about some subject I don’t care about, all in an effort to bang, I need to know if it’s going to be worth my while. It isn’t good when any woman rips off your pants and has to ask herself any of the following questions: 1 – “Is it supposed to look like that?” or 2 – “Where is it?”

Since I have yet to encounter a toxic waste that will bestow the awesomeness that is X-ray vision upon me, I’ve made an ode to the five most interesting surprises my friends and I have discovered.

1. Awe, Cute – An Extra Belly Button
It is never good for a guy to have his wang confused with an innie or outie belly button. This is not doing either of us a service. All I’m saying is if said guy has the arrogance of someone packing a whole lot of meat in between their slices of bread, he better have the goodies to back up your bravado.

2. Is Your Penis Cold?
I consider myself pretty comfortable with the naked penis. However, when it is wearing a coat, I get slightly intimidated. Call me cruel or sexist (both of which I’ll accept), but there is nothing worse to me than unzipping his pants and almost circumsizing him yourself. When I encountered this “Chilly Willy,’ at first I thought, ‘Hm, a challenge, like calculus,” but then I recanted with, “Yup, I’m an English major for a reason.”

Beauty alert – foreskin might make you look younger!

3. Excuse Me, Sir, You Have Balloons in Your Pants
In general I am a minimalist, hence, I don’t want to get knocked up. Ergo balls at all, let alone giant balls, are just unnecessary. To put it in more feminine terms, balls encompass the general life conundrum of pocketbook choice: if you are only packing a blush compact, why would you put that small of an amount of material in a huge tote bag? Catch my drift?

4. Penises, Like My Martinis, Should be Straight Up (but a lot cleaner):
Sex is hard enough to maneuver without adding in certain necessary angular adjustments because he is cocked to the left or right. When you think about any sexual act (handy J’s, Beejes, or sex itself), it is all based on the general assumption that he is as straight as an arrow. Being crooked is NOT a plus, buddy. I mean this specific dude also had slopey shoulders and cries more than most menstruating women; I should have known better.

5. The Pinky-Sized Penis Attached to Andre the Giant:
It is my plight in life to only be attracted to men who are 6’4″ and over 200 lbs. of muscle. This body usually suggests a good-sized wang because if it didn’t, what kind of sham would evolution be?! Why would a huge masculine man’s man have a literal prick attached to him? Because of my atrocious taste of men, I was able to find the large-man-small-wiener anomaly that exists in this world. So disappointing.

I guess I have pretty much said it all. If you are sadly born with balloon balls, a crooked cock or your parents were named Sunshine and Flower and didn’t snip you at birth, unfortunately you might be screwed, but not necessarily in the good way. As for the dicks without dicks, you better start shaping up or you might end up on some girl’s list. And women talk!

Does size matter?

It is generally widely accepted and recommended that one does not shit where one eats. Mainly because it is annoying, messy, requires extra clean-up and you have a greater propensity of catching a disease that the medical community hasn’t even discovered. This same concept is applied to screwing around with people who are your neighbors. The inevitable breakup (because let’s face it, everything ends, either via breakup or death) is way messier, involves inevitable and unavoidable constant contact, and if your neighbor is anything like my neighbor, your next gynecological exam will involve more tests than a lab rat. (Just for record, I am disease free and single and ready to mingle). Being the semi-rational woman I am, I am going to weigh the definite negatives and silver linings to dating your neighbor.

Positives

1. No walk of shame, only a few steps: No one will mistake you for a stripper, prostitute or homeless person on your way back to your apartment. There will be no construction workers to holler at your bandaid-sized skirt and four-inch heels, and your man’s basketball shorts and T-shirt will not be mistaken as homeless chic, because no one will see you. This is definitely that best part of dating your neighbor, especially if your sexual social life mostly revolves around alcohol, like most twentysomethings’ does. So when you wake up in the morning after a night filled with my favorite men, Jose, Johnnie, and Jack, and you look like something that popped out of a grave, who cares? Your Clinique face wash and hair brush are only steps away.

2. It makes hanging out less awkward… in the beginning: Since I am, and every single man I am attracted to is dating-inept, having him be a neighbor is a great ice-breaker. In the beginning stages of any relationship, it’s always awkward because you don’t want to always be inviting him over, but you want to still appear interested – but not too interested – because, let’s face it ladies, it’s all about the chase. But if he is your neighbor, it is a whole new ball game. If you see each other while getting your mail, you can just casually be like, “I rented a DVD today; want to come over and watch it?” (obviously, even at the age of 22, ‘watching a movie’ is still code for nakey time). But it eliminates the formal calling and arrangement of schedules.

(There are obviously many) Negatives

1. Hello, Awkward: So, that whole it’s-great-not-to-have-to-set-up-dates-because-you’re-within-close-proximity deal makes it more casual. Well, unfortunately, just because you break up doesn’t mean he has to move out of the building, regardless of who moved in first… I’ve learned this. I don’t understand those couples who break up and are like, “We loved, you enriched my life, now go, prosper and be happy.” I am way more like, “You’re a dick, I hate you with the power of a thousand suns, I hope you get struck by lightning and no longer exist” (especially when you are breaking up because of some way-younger zygote skank). But, if you both live in the same building, everything becomes territory you have to claim: who gets the elevator, non-overlapping mail checking times, etc. When you break up and still have to co-exist, your whole domain becomes a hot zone of hell.

2. Arson: Ever since Lisa ‘left-eye’ Lopez from TLC was charged with arson for burning down her boyfriend’s multi-million dollar home in a jealous rage, it is something I have considered in the name of vengeance. However, when their home and your home share a wall, there are logistical problems… but I am working on it.

3. I can hear you banging: I am still in college and relatively cash poor, so I live in an apartment whose walls are about as thick as Kate Moss’ thighs. Therefore, when people engage in certain arduous and loud activities I can hear it, and they can hear me. There is something very wrong with two people who used to sleep together, sleeping with different people, but close enough to each other that they are in auditory range… it gets creepy.

In general, when dating a neighbor or someone you work with or anyone that has a close and unbreakable (at least until your lease up) relationship, it gets messy. My advice is simple: bathrooms and dining rooms are separate rooms in your home for a reason, apply this logic to your dating life. Happy hunting!

Tried to make it work, but ended up with a messy breakup? Here are 5 things you SHOULDN’T adhere to when getting over an ex.

How do you divide friends after a breakup?