I visited a friend in London this past weekend. While I was there, I ate lots and lots of yummy chocolate and cheese and baked goods. I basked in the idea that national health care was a given. Even more, the UK National Health Service doesn't rob women of their reproductive rights by allowing religion to dictate what health services are covered; except for in Northern Ireland, termination (abortion) services are covered. After a horrible week in the US, where Democrats sold out women and allowed religious lobbies to impose their beliefs on my health, I thought about defecting. London is perfect! Well, except that even in the UK, women are told that you need set aside your own preferences and needs if you want to get and keep a man.

There comes a time in every single girl's life when she must confront the fact that someone is calling her out for being single. It happened to me a few nights ago when I was having dinner with two female friends. Luckily, they are friends, and I know they have my best interests at heart. I know this even when one of them has a momentary...slip in rationality.

It always seems to me like knowing what you want will make things so much better. And yet, once you get there – no matter how long THAT takes – you soon find that knowing what you want is more like a first step in a process. And getting there is the real nightmare. I remember in my 20s when I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. If only I could figure it out, I reasoned, then everything would be so much better. I ached to be rid of the quest to figure out what I wanted.

Once upon a time, a man moved from Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love, to Los Angeles, the city of every man for himself. Elliott is a doctor; he's attractive, well-educated, and a gifted conversationalist. He met Julie through JDate, the leading network for Jewish singles on the web. They went on several dates and soon Elliott was regularly spending the night at her place. He liked Julie. They were getting close and Elliott was imagining a bright future.

I'm not exactly sure why this is, but I like to read about what people consider to be deal breakers -- you know, when you meet someone new and you're trying to decide whether you want to continue seeing each other. Deal breakers are a lot different from our preferences, those qualities we look for (or are attracted to) in people on a recurring basis. We tend to know what our preferences are, while sometimes you don't know that you consider something to be a deal breaker until it actually comes up.

I've always thought that if I'm interested in a guy, he should at least be my height, if not taller. It's just...easier, you know? People don't think twice when they see a shorter woman with a taller man, but when it's the other way around it tends to create chatter. I would say that most women I've ever heard from about this subject have said they have this preference, too.

Rather than an overall theme this month, I find that my short list of posts from the Sex and Relationships BlogHer Blogs comes in pairs. And so I bring you: Two darling dogs, Two Facebook friends, and Man Hair... times two. Did she rescue him, or did he rescue her? BlogHer kdsalyer writes about her dog Bear in her post, Rescued:

I've never looked at a place as having the potential to be mine for long. I travel too much for this to be the case, and even in my marriage, my ex-husband and I were always hopping from one of our houses to another, to the point where they felt more like hotels than anything else. But as my tiny apartment comes together and begins to feel more and more like a home—I'm giving in to the tempting idea of permanence. And permanence, boy, does it make you extravagant. Where a bed and closet would have done just fine, now I have and want all kinds of furniture.

When I started blogging in 2002, it wasn't normal for bloggers to meet each other in person like they do now. Writing online was becoming more popular, but there weren't regular local blogger meet-ups, and meeting another blogger one-on-one didn't happen very often, either. In fact, it was probably a few years into blogging before I met another blogger in person.

I've been thinking about love lately. About different kinds of love for which I'm hard pressed to come up with names for. I guess I've been thinking about giving and receiving.

A few weeks ago, Leonora Epstein wrote a post on The Frisky, which fed into CNN about something her therapist told her. "Some women are just happier in a relationship," the therapist said. This does not strike me as a particularly revelatory statement, but Epstein felt as though a bomb was dropped on her:

I found some really moving posts in the BlogHer Sex & Relationships Blogs this month. I so value when a blogger really opens up and shares something powerful. And I'm going to jump right in with kdsalyer's post, The Suitcase.