My guilty pleasure is reality television shows on VH1.  Flavor of Love, I Love New York, Rock of Love, Charm School, I Love Money, Confessions of a Teen Idol, Scott Baio, and all the various spin-offs… I watch all of it.  (Okay, so I didn’t watch Scream Queens, and I only kinda-sorta watched Miss Rap Supreme but just as background noise while doing other things.)

The latest addition to VH1’s reality show compendium is “Tool Academy.”  The basis of the show is that girlfriends secretly signed their jerk boyfriends up for “relationship camp.”

Here are some of the things the girlfriends have said about their boyfriends in the premiere episode interviews (emphasis is mine):  (more…)

I recently wrote about friends who don’t reciprocate and listed several ways that those friends can give their social awareness a jump start.

But what should the person always extending himself or herself do?  The way I see it, you have three options:  (more…)

Are there people in your social network who never reciprocate?  These are the people you’ve invited to go out time and time again but never extend any social offers to you in return.  Or, they’re the one who always seems to have left their wallet at home or in their car when it’s time to buy the next round of drinks.

If you don’t have a friend like this, chances are excellent that you are that friend.

I have a friend of a little over 2 years who doesn’t reciprocate.  We’ve gone on short road trips, gone to clubs and seen movies, gone out to eat together.  We’re in an organization with each other, and we live within walking distance of each other.  The thing is, I don’t think she doesn’t want to be friends.  I think she doesn’t realize she’s that friend.

I stopped inviting her out to do things when I realized she had extended an invitation to me only once in 2 years and almost always declined my invitations.  It grew to be so long since I’d invited her anywhere, I’d completely forgotten why I’d stopped inviting her in the first place.  But I quickly remembered why when I extended another offer and she declined.  I won’t make the mistake of inviting her somewhere again.

Reciprocating is easy.  Here are a few ways you can stop being that friend immediately:

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