Dear Men in Relationships,

I have some rules for you. Kudos if you already apply them, but I know there are enough of you out there who aren't that this must be said.

1. When you are in a relationship, the person you talk to about your relationship the most is your girlfriend. Not your other friends who are girls. NEVER, EVER complain about your relationship to other girls. You have no idea how many of those girls are sitting there trying to be helpful when all they're really thinking is, "If she sucks this bad, why don't you just dump her and jump me already?" Unless you know some seriously cool, 100% complete lesbian, your best friend of the opposite sex should be your girlfriend. SHE is the one you love. SHE is the one you should want to talk to the most. If you need to vent, write in your journal. Then talk to your girlfriend about the issue.

2. You can flirt with other girls, as long as it's completely harmless and happens rarely. DO NOT flirt over facebook or some other public forum where your girlfriend can accidentally come across some comment you left on your hot friend's suggestive picture. That makes it really easy for both the girl you're flirting with and your girlfriend to read whatever you wrote over and over again. As I said before, you never know when that other girl may be really interested in you.

3. Emotionally cheating is still cheating. Even if you aren't doing anything physical with some other girl, if you find yourself wanting to spend more time with or talk to her more often than you do with your girlfriend, you have a problem. I don't care how close you were to this girl before you started dating your girlfriend. I don't care if you really think there's no way a relationship would work with her. If you had to choose between your girlfriend and this girl, and you have to think about it for more than 10 seconds, you need to reevaluate your relationship and have the guts to do something about it. This isn't high school. Friends don't come first anymore.

4. There is no such thing as "The One," at least in the sense of what that usually means. If you're going through relationships thinking, "Someday I'll find the one whom I will never want to cheat on. She'll be all I'll ever want, and suddenly I won't be attracted to any other girls. I won't stop looking until I find her!" you will continue looking until you become that creepy old man who lives at the end of the street that all the parents warn their young teenage girls to stay away from. Finding true happiness in relationships comes from choosing to focus those desires on that one person and making it work with this girl who's crazy enough to make it work with you, too. Love isn't something that can stand on its own; it must be cultivated constantly. You don't find the one, you create the one.

I know this could take a 180 and switch the genders of the situation. I just find that in my life, this is an issue with guys a lot more than it is with girls.

Also, I know some of you may be thinking, "Wow, this is a potentially seriously jealous girlfriend talking here." You may have a relationship where these offenses I've discussed are not considered as such. That's called an open relationship, and if it stays that way, you aren't going anywhere with this girl.   If you're saying you'll commit, then commit.

Love, Tanika