Casey asks a dating question: "We've been dating a few months now, and I feel like I'm falling in love with my boyfriend. How can I tell he feels the same way without asking him outright?"

I once counseled a preteen girl who had told me she had a boyfriend for a day. No one knew that she had a boyfriend, and they didn't do anything but read a book together. She told me that she broke up with him because she realized she didn't like him "like that", but wanted to know if she'd done the right thing. My answer? "When you meet someone that you are so excited about, so enraptured over, that you can't help but want to yell off the top of the mountain how amazing they make you feel -- you'll know. Because if he was meant to be your boyfriend, you wouldn't want to keep him a secret." And that dear reader, is fairly similar advice to what I'll give you. Read more...

Its that time of year again - when we all reflect and review on what happened in the past twelve months, and award the best and worst of awards to the most deserving of dating sites.

The categories this year are:

• Best Paid Dating Site
• Best Free Dating Site
• Best Niche Dating Site
• Worst Dating Site

You can vote in each category, choosing more than one dating site if you feel its appropriate. Please comment if you think I've missed a dating site, but if you'd like to share your experiences with a particular dating site, please find it in my master list of dating sites, and after clicking on the appropriate site, please share your thoughts and experiences there.

Its a tricky question, but as we near the end of 2009, I've been thinking more and more about what events, people, research, websites, concepts and information have changed the face of dating in the past decade.

As I sift through the options (and there are a lot!) I'd love to hear what you think were some of the most impactful and important dating-related things that came about in the past 10 years. Speed dating perhaps? Books like The Rules (Buy Direct), or He's Just Not That Into You? What about shows like Sex in the City, The Pickup Artist or Queer As Folk/The L Word? Or even the whole concept of pickup artistry as an 'art form', or the increasing number of singles moving towards casual relationships as opposed to long term relationships or marriage? And if I'm going to bring up the whole casual sex and hooking up phenomena, then I also have to mention the numbers that show fewer and fewer cohabitating couples getting married in North America and not using moving in together as a relationship test. I might also want to add online dating, although it did start before 90s but only became mainstream over the past couple of years.

So what about you? What do you think were the most important dating events of the past decade, and why?

Plainbutnotjane in the dating forum asks: "I'm 29 and plain as in not pretty. Think of a cross between Ellen Degeneres and Gisele Bundchen in the face, my features are strong and would look better on a man than a woman. I'm in good condtion, 5' 8" and a size 8, I'm healthy. Good teeth, good hair, I'd make a great show horse.

I'm not sure yet but I might be befriended for the purpose of dating by a nice looking successful man. I'm not about to get my hopes up, I've accepted that I'm not the ideal most men are looking for. At the same time I have butterflies when I get a text or call from him. Then I think why would he waste his time with me when he can do better?

If you're a guy, have you ever dated a plain woman when you could do better? Why? And if you're a woman, are you plain and if so have you dated successfully? Read more...