If you’re in the L.A. area, please check out our annual breast cancer benefit Breast Cancer Be Trippin. If you’re not in L.A. or if you’re busy that night, please consider making a donation to the ABCF.

Last year, we took a look at Valentine’s Day from a guy’s perspective. This year, we’d like to celebrate the most trippin day of the year with a few Do’s and Don’ts for the fourteenth of February. I made my Valentine’s Day bones with flowers and cards, but now - a little older and a little wiser - I think I’ve got some insight on this made-up holiday that’s worth sharing.

If you’ve got suggestions for Do’s and Don’ts for Valentine’s Day, feel free to share them in the comments section. We’ll choose our favorite suggestion, and the Valentine’s Day wiseguy (or girl) will find himself with $110 worth of cologne and skin products on behalf of The Body Shop. To double your chances, post your Do’s and Don’ts both here and at The Body Shop’s Do This, Not That.

DO buy a card. For whatever reason, women love getting cards.

DON’T buy only a card. Even if it’s one of those awesome ones that plays music when you open it, a card alone does not guarantee an argument-free V-Day.

DO tell her that her hair looks good.

DON’T sigh in exasperation when you get the bill at dinner.

DO go out to dinner.

DON’T think that you can score a rad table if you haven’t already made a reservation. At this point, you should just give up. The ship has sailed, my friend.

Now, we’d love to hear yours…

As a man, you can be friends with a lots of different kinds of people, but if you’re in a committed relationship, there’s one type of friend that you absolutely cannot have - a hot friend. I’m talking, of course, about the female variety. You can have hot dude friends. No one will care about that, but a hot girl friend quickly puts an unnecessary burden on the ’ship.

Girls can be friends with some dreamboat from work or a guy she met at the gym, but if you try to invite some hottie with a body to your next dinner party, you’re in for a world of suspicion. You’re always on the hook for why you’re friends - as if it’s okay to be friends with a hundred smart, funny, ugly girls, but one smart, funny, pretty girl sets off all the alarms.

Additionally, girlfriends resort to their disastrously catty selves, where every comment and question is intended to tear down other women - in this case, the hot friend.

Why is that?

In woman-world, kisses are magical moments of enlightenment, where the universe reveals itself in all of its truth and glory. How often have you heard a woman say to her friend, “Once I kissed him, I knew that the spark was gone.”

What spark? What does this spark feel like when it’s there? Maybe I’m just doing it wrong, but I’ve never felt a spark. I’ve felt good kisses and bad kisses, but never a path-altering, ground-shaking lip-lock.

And I don’t think I’m alone. Besides the Righteous Brothers, no other dudes are lamenting to their bros that she never closes her eyes anymore like she used to. Nope, this emphasis on the kiss of enlightenment is solely the territory of women.

In my opinion, however, women don’t really believe in path-altering, ground-shaking lip-locks either. They just trick themselves into thinking they do. I think that if one kiss can convince you that you’re not into someone anymore, then you probably already knew it to begin with. You’ve been secretly harboring that feeling for a while, but were waiting for the kiss to solidify your emotions.

Meanwhile, your dudefriend is left out to dry while you sort out your emotions all over his glad-to-be-kissing face. Uncouth, ladies. Uncouth.

First dates can be awkward. You’re sitting across from someone that you don’t know very well, and you’re expected to fill an inordinate amount of time with conversation. Never again will you be expected to keep a conversation afloat longer than you are on your first date.

Consequently, you discover pretty quickly that you need some fallback questions - a few tried and true convo-starters - that will jump-start the evening in case things start to get quiet. A quiet first date isn’t necessarily a dealbreaker; it’s just less desirable. The girls at TMI Weekly offered some advice on questions to ask on a first date. Here’s our list of Five Questions You Should Never Ask on a First Date:

1. When do you see yourself getting married?
Does he have an answer? Probably, but he sure as hell doesn’t want to tell you about it.
What this question really means: I really want to get married. I really want to get married. I really want to get married. I really want to get married. Do you see yourself marrying me? I really want to get married. I really want to get married. I really want to get married.

2. How do you think you’ll raise children?
Does he have an answer? He thinks he has an answer, but I guarantee it’s not as intricate or well-thought out as yours.
What this question really means: I think I’d be a great mommy. Don’t you think I’d be a great mommy? I want to have babies, babies, babies. Don’t you want babies? Don’t you want me to have your babies? Babies, babies, babies.

3. How many people have you slept with?
Does he have an answer? Yes, unless the answer is greater than fifty.
What this question really means: I kind of want to sleep with you, or I’ve at least been debating it in my mind, but I want to make sure that you’re still going to call me in the next few days. Also, I haven’t slept with very many people, and it will help complete my fairy tale image if you haven’t slept with very many people either.

4. What was your ex-girlfriend like?
Does he have an answer? Yes.
What this question really means: ???

5. Do you believe in true love?
Does he have an answer? No. If he answers the question, it’s bullshit.
What this question really means: Do you think you could love me, or are you just looking to bang? Are you gonna introduce me to your friends and family, or are you only gonna call after midnight when you couldn’t get anyone at The Rusty Nail Bar & Grill to sleep with you after a wild Tequila Tuesday?

Everyone’s heard the metaphor about the boiling frog. If you put a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will jump out, but if you put it cool water and slowly boil it, the frog will remain there until it dies. That’s essentially how it works with having a baby. Barring accidents, women don’t just up and get pregnant one day. They ease you into it, using The Baby Ladder.

The Baby Ladder is a slow escalation towards making dudes realize that they’re mature enough to have a baby, they’re ready to have a baby, and they might actually want a baby. The first step on the ladder requires you to start…

1) Owning Plants
Dudes don’t own plants, but the second he moves in with his girlfriend, he is now the proud owner of at least three potted plants. Plants are super low-maintenance. Water them every once in a while. Make sure they get the proper sunlight. Speak to them in soothing tones. Piece of cake, right? Right, until she insists you think about…

2) Buying a Puppy
Puppies have to be fed daily. They need to be walked and cleaned up after. They require veterinarian visits. Vacation plans have to be changed to accommodate the dog. If you just bought a puppy with your girlfriend, this shit just got serious. Over time, you get used to the dog. You appreciate its loyalty. You forget what life was like before you got it. And right around the time she’s sure that you’ve passed the point of no return, she suggests the two of you start…

3) Babysitting Your Friends’ Kids
This is as close as it gets to putting a baby on layaway. And I don’t know who initiates this step - whether her friends and relatives assume you two are ready because you’ve taken to the puppy so well or whether she goes out trolling for a baby in need of sitting. Either way, it won’t be long before you’re spending your Saturday night or Sunday afternoon caring for her nephew or for her BFF’s daughter. And that’s fine. Babies are easy to deal with in short doses - when you know they’ll be returning home soon. But pretty soon you’re spending a lot of time babysitting other people’s kids, and then you’re on the hook, because pretty soon, you’re…

4) Having a Baby.
How did you get here? When did you sign up for this? By the time you realize it, you’re too late.

WBT Podcast: Women be trippin on giving their boyfriends some “alone time.” Is it too much to ask for?

Subscribe to the Women Be Trippin Podcast on iTunes.

Have you ever noticed that the longer two people date, they begin to look like each other? It’s almost inevitable, considering how much time they spend together, but some women hasten that appearance-merge by consciously making themselves over to look more like their boyfriends.

They might dye their hair, in the belief that their boyfriends will appreciate it if they’ve got the same color locks. This one makes no sense to me, because if the dude was that interested in dating someone whose curls were the same color as his, he would’ve found someone like that in the first place. Secondly, it’s pretty deep on the creep-scale for a girl to play “color catch-up” with her hair. We’re talking about real-life here, not Mission: Impossible. Unless you’re a CIA agent on a covert mission, you shouldn’t be dyeing your hair to match someone else’s.

They might change their wardrobe, hoping to dress more like their new beau. Again, if he wanted someone that dressed like him, he would’ve found that person in the first place. So when she suddenly starts wearing The Clash t-shirts even though she doesn’t really like The Clash, you’ve got a problem. This brings us to the next shapeshift…

They might start listening to your music, in the hopes that if they fall in love hard enough with Morissey, then you might fall in love hard enough with them. While it’s nice to date a girl with similar music tastes, it hasn’t been a necessity since I was fifteen years old. I’ve since gotten older and realized that there are more important aspects of a relationship than the similarities in our iTunes libraries. If she suddenly claims that she “loves” your favorite band, it’s more than a coincidence. It’s shapeshifting at its finest.

They might start wearing your college sweatshirt, hoping that you’ll conveniently forget the fact that she didn’t go to your college. Take off that sweatshirt before you curse my Trojans to a losing football season.

WBT Podcast: Women be trippin on finding boyfriends that fit the same genre, like ska musicians. (Special guest: Erica)

Subscribe to the Women Be Trippin Podcast on iTunes.

Cheating on your wife is pretty fucked up. I admit that up front, just to avoid any confusion.

But getting revenge on your cheating husband is unforgivable. Colluding with his mistresses to trick and bind the two-timing bastard and then glue his penis to his stomach - that’s a wee bit overboard, don’t you think? Again, I’m not taking the dude’s side, but isn’t the better solution to confront him one day, tell him that you know he’s cheating, and then simply walk away? Doesn’t that solve more problems than committing multiple felonies?

Michelle Belliveau and her sister Therese Ziemann, along with Wendy Sewell and the man’s wife, did exactly that - arranging a phony meeting with the dude, then knocking him out, tying him to a motel bed, and gluing his johnson to his stomach. Not cool, ladies. Not cool.

Granted, most women never exact this extreme form of revenge, but deep within every scorned woman is a nasty revenge story, lurking in her past. She’s probably pulled it off in some way, or, at the very least, she’s got some intricate scheme of Bourne Identity proportions, and she’s just waiting for the perfect moment to pull it off.

Why the hate? Can’t we all just get along? Or, even if we can’t get along, can’t we agree to walk away non-violently?

WBT Podcast: Women be trippin on their boyfriend’s ex-girlfriends. Is it a good idea to get drinks with your boyfriend’s ex? (Special guest: Erica)

Subscribe to the Women Be Trippin Podcast on iTunes.