Yahoo's Relationship Tips are Worthless

Sometimes when I'm logging out of my email or my fantasy baseball page, I end up on Yahoo!'s homepage and see their articles. Tonight I see an article promising "15 Ways to Keep Your Partner Happy." I see this and say, "Hmm, if my marriage needed saving, this is just the sort of thing that could save my marriage. I should read this."

The article is written to a general reader whose partner is a "she," so the readers are presumably heterosexual men and homosexual women. In general, there is not a single tip here that I haven't seen elsewhere. Hell, there's not a single tip here that's not a stereotype of the things to do: this is like a list that should be given to a sitcom husband. Let's look at some of the particularly worthless tips.

"2. Make her dinner one night. Don't ask her if she wants you to make dinner. Make her dinner before she gets home."

Because it is traditionally the woman who makes dinner, so if the man makes dinner, that makes it something special! Men, make dinner, and you've gone above and beyond! That's one of the little things that can satisfy your partner. Of course, if you are in a relationship in which you each, you know, cook meals, and you don't just assume that, you know, everything in the kitchen is the woman's realm, this tip means little. But if the woman in a relationship makes dinner every other night of the week, the man in the relationship deserves major kudos for making dinner one night of the week. Good job.

"4. Send her a text in the middle of the day telling her'I miss your smile from this morning' or 'Last night was amazing!' or 'The conversation we had last night was great.'"

That's an idea: interrupt your partner with a completely effortless, meaningless, emotionless form of communication, the text message.

" 5. Send an eCard in the middle of the day... something cute to remind her how much you really care about her."

Tell me how #5 is fundamentally different than #4. Is #6 "send an email"? Is #7 "call and leave a message"? Are there any other forms of technological communication we're leaving out? Was it that hard to get to 15?

"6. If she's going on a business trip, offer to drive her to the airport or pick her up to make her life that much easier."

Well this is pretty specific. It's also a tip predicated on the possibility that your partner goes on business trips.

"7. Let her have control of the remote control. Don't monopolize it for a change. Just give it to her and let her actually sit there and enjoying watching one of her shows. Then you can share one of her interests by watching it with her."

Is this a standup comedy bit? Are we really relying on such stereotypes here? As Jerry Seinfeld says of the remote control, men hunt and women nest. Therefore, let your partner have the remote. Also, put the toilet seat down. Oh, and if my partner chooses to watch something like "Friends," then unfortunately there is no way I can enjoy watching one of her shows. Maybe on an ironic level, but then I'll start making fun of it while watching, and she'll get annoyed. I'm already trying hard to pretend I'm not bored during "Wheel of Fortune."

"8. Offer to iron one of her shirts or take her clothes to the dry cleaner."

Let me tell you what we've never done in my household: iron a shirt. Let me tell you where neither of us have ever been: the dry cleaner. I've only seen dry cleaners on sitcoms.

"11. Take a shower together, then wash her hair, scrub her back, and give her a spa treatment. Do this and enjoy it!"

I'm going to leave this without comment. I could comment on the "advice" that men should enjoy a shower with a naked woman. I could comment that there may be a lot of men who wish their partners wanted them in the shower with them. But I won't make those comments. I won't.

"14. Decide on and set aside one night a week as date night. Have a date like when you first started dating."

Hmm. Never heard that one before. Are they just coming up with this stuff?

"15. Call her in the middle of the day and just say hello. Don't wait for her to call you."

Oh, we got there! Of the 15 relationship tips, three involved using technology to communicate with your partner during the day. Let's also point out that #1 (give a footrub without asking if she'd like a footrub) and #14 (reciprocate messages without being asked [and we'll further add, "What if there's no massage to reciprocate?"]) are also pretty much the same thing. And #9 involved cleaning the bathroom without being asked (basically, to keep your partner satisfied, do things without asking if you should. And evidently, that includes just going ahead and climbing in the shower with your partner).

Thanks for the non-help, David Wygant. I'll admit, I don't ever really expect Yahoo! to help me with much of anything--I only come across these brilliant bits of advice by accident, as I said, when I log out of better things. Sometimes Yahoo!'s stuff is interesting: today I also accidentally learned about superfoods. I mean, I guess I already knew about this too, and I'm already eating most of those things all the time (I'm mostly vegan). But usually it is stupid advice or celebrity gossip (I think the only time I learn about celebrity gossip is when I log out of things and Yahoo! provides me with stories. Really. Just recently a couple of people told me that Tony Romo had broken up with Jessica Simpson and it was big news. I never heard it at all. The only reason I knew about Romo and Simpson at all was because I happen to watch a lot of football. But really I both purposely and inadvertently avoid all celebrity gossip. Man, my use of parentheses is just totally out of control. I'm really rambling here. Basically, this advice sucked).