Beards: Are they hot? (Sometimes.) Do they always make a guy better looking? (No.) Do women prefer them? (Some.) Are men with beards more likely to be sexist? (Yes.) Does having one signal to women your desire to commit and have a baby? (Yes.) Is there such...
If you’re married, there’s a 40 to 50 percent chance of divorcing, but there’s a 100 percent chance you’re going to eventually hate what your partner likes watching on TV. Sure, at first you were happy pretending to like the Bachelorette when you really wanted to watch...
Genetic luck dictates that are three outcomes when it comes to sweating: You smell good, you smell bad, or you smell neutral. Existing research has found that unless you won the neutral sweat lottery (i.e., you’re among the 2 percent of Europeans or the majority of East...
They say nothing is certain in life except death and taxes, but heterosexual couples might amend that to nothing is certain in life but sex and dishes — or, rather, fights about both. But a survey on family dynamics found that dishes have taken the clear lead in the...
Getting blitzed in the middle of the day, unless you meant to, can be far more unpleasant than getting accidentally hammered at night. This is because day drinking (usually) requires maintaining at least the appearance of real-world competence while you continue to challenge that competence with a...
A 2018 humour piece in the New Yorker offered a series of questions to ask yourself to help decide if you’re actually ready to be friends with someone with a kid. It is absolutely correct on most counts: Being friends with someone who has a kid will...
There is no one bit of advice that will guide every decision you’ll ever have to make in life, but that won’t stop us from trying to craft a one-shot, one-kill approach to living better. This week, it’s “if you’re not all in about an opportunity, just...
Anyone can be a jerk, but it takes a relatively self-aware person to realise they’ve been a jerk and apologise. What’s less understood is the fact that you can still be a jerk on the other side of the apology. One of the fastest ways to do...
Smokers are really easy to hate, if for no other reason than that you can usually smell them from a mile away. Yet the idea persists that some people are “secret smokers” who successfully hide their smelly habit from coworkers, friends and loved ones for years, even...
Love doing nothing but can’t stand having to think about your nothingness (aka mindfulness)? Well, have I got a concept for you: It’s called niksen, and it’s a Dutch lifestyle trend that encourages you to do nothing. Or rather, the word means “doing nothing for nothing,” or...
The other day a colleague mentioned a friend who is really turned on when his girlfriend wears a sports jersey to bed. We joked about all the stuff men want women to wear for sexy time — the obvious lingerie, knee socks, a T-shirt and underwear, boy shorts, nothing…...
There have always been cultures, groups and individuals — sports, the military, fitness freaks, the hyper-successful — who claim that negative self-talk is motivating for them in a way positivity can’t touch. But can that ever really be a good thing? I asked Chicago psychologist Jacqueline Duke. “For some, the use of shame...