As I alluded in my first comment, I'm off the dating scene. Very happily so.

I like reading about relationships and dating because being social is not one of my strengths and used to be a huge weakness. I learn a lot about getting along better with people platonically through these articles and comments.

US culture conditioned us all - men and women - to court in a very particular manner. That's part of what I meant about more social freedoms in Europe. In the US there are few laws about social freedoms, but until only a few years ago the unwritten rules of US society were unbelievably strict.