1. The perfect Valentine’s Day gift for romantic chocaholics:
Personalised m&m’s! You can order the personal Valentine’s candy in a colour of your choice, printed with a personal message, for someone special.

2. A Valentine’s classic:
Flowers. But make sure your valentine isn’t allergic. Also, believe it or not, some women think flowers are a waste of money, because they fade so fast. These paper flowers are a fun alternative!

3. Self-Designed Valentine’s presents:
The most romantic gifts are always the self-made ones. Luckily, these days, there’s nothing that can’t be self-designed, even without real artistic talent. Why not design a mug, t-shirt or even shoes for your love on Valentine’s Day!

4. Poetry in motion on Valentine’s Day:
If you consider poetry to be essential to a romantic gift, instead of giving a poetry book, you could pick something poetic AND stylish, like this Rilke scarf.

5. The greatest gift of all:
We often forget that the best gifts are those money can’t buy. A weekend getaway, a night in a romantic hotel or a home-cooked meal can be the greatest presents for a special Valentine’s Day!

Still Single? Find your Valentine NOW at be2.

Just enter your name and the name of the person you want to break up with. Then choose from the options: why you want to end a relationship, whether you want to stay friends, which clichee you want to trot out and what wishes you have for their future.

Once you end a relationship, maybe you’ll find your new partner for a better, happier relationship at be2 We jest, actually, we think that if you have to end a relationship, you should have the guts to do so in person!

If you have no idea who we’re on about, you probably don’t tend to obsessivly follow US TV series on blogs, youtube and twitter before they’re even on European TV. Your loss – if you did, you’d know that Don Draper from Mad Men ist he coolest man on Television.

Go ahead, take notes – you can definitely learn something from him!

It’s another one of those seemingly insignificant issues that shows up how far from gender equality we really are. Sure, it’s not that big a deal who takes which name. It’s just a name! But names are loaded with meaning – family tradition, memories, social ties play into the true meaning of names. You realise what’s really in a name when you hear from men who have taken their wife’s name. This story about a man who decided to take his wife’s name is a real eye opener!

His reasons had little to do with emancipation or equality, they were pragmatic and understandable: her surname sounds nicer, she’s an only child and wants to keep the family name alive, so it just made sense to take his wife’s name. So far so good, until the couple received wedding cards in his name, there was loads of red tape to deal with, banks and phone companies refused to acknowledge his new name (instead congratulating his wife on her presumed new name) and all his friends reacted negatively to his decision to take his wife’s name.

Pretty amazing that such a non-issue would become a huge deal like that, isn’t it?

A) Try to see things from your partner’s point of view and find a compromise.
B) Talk it through and agree to disagree – arguments can never be avoided completely.
C) Scream as loudly as possible. Whoever loses their voice first, loses the argument.
D) Get an outsider’s opinion. Ideally, let complete strangers decide „who’s right.“

An American (what else) website obviously thinks D) is the correct answer. Sidetaker literally takes sides by allowing people to air their relationship arguments in public and letting users vote on who should win the fight. Each conflict is described from his and her point of view and introduced to the “online jury.”

The most popular relationship arguments on the site are currently:

- “He’s too mean to flush the loo”
- “Is he cheating?”
- “My girlfriend is too fat”
- “He doesn’t behave like a gentleman”
- “He keeps track of my spending”
- and so forth, ad nauseam…

The thing is, these are arguments everyone is familiar with, at least from hearsay, if not from personal experience, and they require neither judge nor jury. The issues these relationships are hung up on obviously go a lot deeper than the trivialities the partners are bickering about (judging by the tone of the posts and the fact that they’re battling it out in public). The issues are expressed this way one day and when/if one argument is resolved, the next one will follow, be it about leaving the toilet seat up, not closing the lid on the toothpaste or dirty socks on the floor.

Strangers taking sides on a website certainly won’t help solve the underlying relationship issues, because the people fighting only want to be right, not actually improve their relationship.

picture: © maartend/deviantART

A lot of people who think that couples who have cohabited before getting married have a less stable, less committed relationship. Somehow „living in sin“ equals „not taking the relationship seriously“ in some people’s minds. A study has now dispelled that myth, showing that relationships can actually profit from a phase of cohabitation before marriage. The divorce rate for couples who cohabited before getting married is lower that for couples who didn’t live together first. Couples who had previously cohabited with other partners didn’t have a higher divorce rate, unlike what some might have expected.

This study will hopefully encourage more unmarried couples to live together for a while, rather than rushing into things!

The fact that the gadget is called Slutometer isn’t necessarily offensive, either. Obviously, it’s tongue-in-cheek and most sexually active women can probably laugh at that type of „insult“.

What IS annoying: that the equivalent product for men is named (tongue nowhere near cheek) Studometer. Typical: sexually active women are sluts, sexually active men cool studs! But the thing is, there ARE no words with negative connotations describing promiscuous men, whereas there are none with positive connotations for women.

picture: © play.com

So we decided to sum up all the most common pros and cons of staying friends with your ex. Whether you are swayed by the pros or the cons is up to you.

Staying friends with your ex – PROs:

1. In addition to the sexual and emotional aspect, a relationship is usually based on many shared interests or passions. Just because the aforementioned aspects are no longer relevant to your relationship after breaking up, doesn’t mean you don’t still have a lot in common.
2. Friendships, just like relationships, are valuable. If you have built a friendship AND a relationship, you shouldn’t just give the former up.
3. As soon as emotions are out of the picture, your ex can become a valuable relationship consultant. Looking back, you can learn from your mistakes.
4. You share a lot of memories. Sometimes it can be nice to take a walk down memory lane and remember the good times together.
5. Surely you want to know what becomes of your ex after you break up.
6. If you stay in touch with your ex, you stay in touch with his/her friends.
7. Staying friends with your ex lets your new partner see what a good sport you are, even if things don’t work out.
8. Maybe there’s still hope for the relationship. You can at least hope for the best.

Staying friends with your ex – CONs:

1. A relationship makes you temporarily blind to a person’s negative personality traits. Now that the relationship is over, you ex suddenly isn’t quite as witty, charming and attractive as before.
2. Friendships and relationships are valuable. That’s why you should concentrate on the relationships and friendships of the future, instead of wasting time on the relationships of the past.
3. If you’re staying friends with your ex to get relationship advice, you will only get hung up on past mistakes, when you should be looking forward.
4. Great memories get even better the farther away they move. False nostalgia, however, can easily lead to misled sex with your ex.
5. There’s a thin line between natural curiosity and unhealthy obsession.
6. Instead of staying friends with your ex, you can find time for your own friends again.
7. Staying friends with your ex makes your new partner jealous. If you hope to achieve that effect, you’re being manipulative (but don’t let a new partner order you to stay away from you ex either).
8. Maybe there’s still hope for the relationship – but pining after your ex is more desperate than romantic and rarely leads to a happy reissue of the relationship.

Allan Wills, sick of single life in London, to set up a website dedicated to finding himself a wife. On that site, he put the question “are you my wife?” to the world and hoped for an answer. He declared himself open to dates anywhere in the world. Main thing was to get out of his rut, out of his single life and out of London. This led to hundreds of emails, 45 dates in 13 countries, worldwide media attention and finally the ultimate date with the woman who might very soon become his wife.

They have lived together for a year, travelled the world and reported on their shared experiences on their Blog and Twitter. Tomorrow is the deadline for the answer to the initial question: is she his wife? Considering how public this great love story has been, we look forward to seeing how they will present their wedding/marriage or breakup, Web 2.0-style!

Are you sick of single life in London, too? be2 can help you find love in London without the hassle.