Consider this before going on that date:

When it comes to alcoholic beverages, how much is OK to drink on a date? Believe it or not, it’s a tougher question than it sounds to answer.

Factors to consider when trying to figure out how much to drink on a date:

• Do you follow his lead? her lead?
• Do you not drink at all?
• Do you limit yourself to 1 drink? 2 drinks?
• Does it depend on where you go on your date?
• Whether you are having a meal?

These are all great questions and one of the reasons it makes it so hard to figure out the answer.

My advice on first date drinking

My advice is to know how many drinks it takes them before they stop caring about how many drinks they have. Once you know that number, stop drinking before you hit it!

For example, most people can easily have 2 drinks and still have their full wits about them, but pour that 3rd drink and inhibitions start to go. So stop at 2 drinks, regardless of what you are doing on your date, how much you are eating, or how much your date is drinking, just call it quits.

Some people say, "But we are eating a big meal, I can tolerate more" or "we are watching a baseball game or other sporting event for several hours, a drink an hour will be fine." Why risk it? Do you really want to let your inhibitions go on a first date? Too much alcohol typically ends up providing too much information to your date.

So before you go on that next first date, know your limit and stick to it. Agree? Disagree? How do you set your limits? Let us know what you think!

Should a woman make a man chase them?

We’ve all heard about or joined in the games people play when they first start dating. Both men and women play them. As a matter of fact there are plenty of books out there that encourage you to play games, though most of these books consider them "strategies."

The games daters play.

For example, when a guy meets a woman and says "I’ll call" he should wait 5 days to call, he doesn’t want too appear to excited. On the flip side, a woman shouldn’t appear too eager and she needs to play hard to get. The "strategies" go on and on.

The big question is, are any of these games necessary? The one I hear all the time from women is "I don’t want to appear too available or interested, so I need to make him chase me a bit."

So, is the game where the guy has to chase after the girl really necessary. Is this true guys? If a woman appears too available is that a turn off to you? or do you expect to have to chase her a bit?

Just yesterday I was talking with a guy friend of mine and we some how got on the topic of age and looks.  We ended up discussing what he thinks is the disparity between how men are expected to look as they age and how women are expected to look.  According to him, men get to keep it natural - turn gray gracefully, put on a little weight around the middle, lose a little hair and it’s just expected and ok.  Men are considered wiser when they are gray where as women are just considered older.  Is this fair?  Why don’t men have to stay in shape and color their hair?

I was recently having a discussion with a friend of mine, we’ll call her Linda, about love.  Linda told me that her mom once advised her that in a relationship the man should love the woman more.  Well it got me thinking, is this true?  For a relationship to work does the man need to be more in love with the woman than she is with him?

Linda recently took the advice to heart and stayed with a man she knew she didn’t love the way he loved her.  She stayed because she thinks this statement should be true.  He loved her so much and so unconditionally, how could someone give that up?  Well, the relationship didn’t work, but why?  Was it because she didn’t love him enough and he loved her more?  Well, as it turns out it was really because she didn’t respect him enough. She didn’t think he was strong enough as a man and complained too much about the difficulties of life. His love for her was the fabulous part, but not enough to make the relationship last.

In a relationship, if he loves her more, does that make him weak? or less of a man?  And is this why Linda’s relationship didn’t work? This is a question I have an opinion on.  I think even the strongest of men can have a super soft spot for a woman in their life that they love unconditionally.  That Type-A personality can still be a softy when it comes to his woman.  However, this type-A man needs to let his ego go at the door to his home,  he has to be in touch with who he is and know that he loves and needs this woman in his life and she needs to love him back, unconditionally too.

Which brings me to my original question, should he love her more?  If you have an opinion let me know, I’d love to hear it, especially from the men!