Romance

DEAR ABBY: I come from a Third World country and live as a legal alien in San Francisco. I grew up reading great American authors, watching American TV and Hollywood movies, so I thought I had a good understanding about your Western societal structure. I have made many friends in this wonderful city, but the women here drive me crazy. I am a romantic at heart, but not desperate. However, my gestures are often misunderstood. One time I gave a feminist/radical girl a book about the feminist movement and she freaked out. She said she wasn't looking for anything serious and didn't want me to expect anything from her. Abby, it was just a book, not a diamond ring.

DEAR ABBY: "Kyle" and I have been good buddies for 10 years. The problem is I'm crazy about his younger sister. She and I have been talking over the last few months. Kyle knew we were talking in the beginning, and he told her to stay away from his friends. I think I understand his reasons, and I tried to talk to him on my own. Kyle said he doesn't want to deal with me calling him eventually about problems that may arise between me and his sister. Now when I hang out with her we have to be secretive.

Many postings on Missed Connections have absolutely no chance of catching the right person's eye because of how they are written. Here are tips from Peter Freedman, Craigslist director of romance research, to better your odds of making that connection. When describing your subject, mention colors, clothes. Be specific. If you actually spoke, mention things you talked about. Have a vivid and eye-catching headline. Don't procrastinate. Get your message up there quickly and keep reading Missed Connections because the other person might be looking for you, too.  

A WOMAN dressed in black and wearing North Face boarded a train at the Cecil B. Moore/Temple University stop on SEPTA's Orange Line and plopped down next to a stranger. Her seatmate was stunned. Although he had admired her from afar, he had never spoken to her, and there she was, sitting next to him on the subway. Later, he kept thinking about her, so he did what people do these days - he logged on to Craigslist, the Internet classified site, and clicked on Missed Connections. He wrote: "I see you around often, especially in the library, and I crapped my pants when you sat down because I have a serious stranger crush on you. Saying hello obviously would have violated the terms of the stranger crush, so I pussed out and looked at my feet.

When Anne Lubeck met Peter Silverberg back in 2003, she was divorced and he was a widower. Things clicked on their first lunch date at a South Jersey restaurant, and after some months a romance was budding. At the time, Peter was living in the single-family home he had shared with his wife, and Anne had begun flirting with the notion of moving from her condominium in Edgewater Park to somewhat larger space. As the romance progressed, and it was clear that marriage was in the offing, Anne became more proactive about moving.

I'M THE FIRST to agree that lawyers are not paragons of virtue. But most of us try to abide by both the letter, and the spirit, of the law. This is particularly so when it comes to our ethical obligations. It is a violation of the Model Rules of Professional Responsibility to date a client while that person is still your client. Unless you were intimate prior to the commencement of the attorney-client relationship, it is verboten to engage in hankus pankus thereafter. There's just something about the whole scenario that makes you go "ick.

Question: One of my best friends is interested in me, and I'm confused. I really like Friend, but I recently ended a relationship and am not sure I'm ready to start dating again. Above everything else, I don't want to hurt Friend because I do care very deeply. I don't know how to figure out what I want without leading Friend on, since I might realize it's not what I want, and more heartbreak will ensue than if we just stayed in Friend-ville. On the other hand, there's a voice in the back of my head saying, "What if Friend is right for me?"

In 1931 Jacob Jankowski isthisclose to getting his veterinary degree at Cornell when, like lightning, grief strikes. To escape his woes, he runs away . . . to join the circus. More precisely, he hops a freight carrying roustabouts from The Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. No sooner does Jacob take a job shoveling muck out of the lion cages than this lad with animal skills and animal magnetism is named circus veterinarian. Jacob (Robert Pattinson) is quite taken with Marlena (Reese Witherspoon)

Before becoming a bride eight times over, Elizabeth Taylor was a 17-year-old starlet scribbling letters to her first fiance, charting on pale pink stationery his progression from her one-and-only to the one who got away. "I've never known this kind of love before - it's so perfect and complete - and mature," Taylor wrote to William Pawley on May 6, 1949. "I've never loved anyone in my life before one third as much as I love you - and I never will (well, as far as that goes - I'll never love anyone else - period)

This week's new DVD releases include looks at the love of danger, love of the game, and love of picnic baskets. The Tourist, Grade B: An American tourist (Johnny Depp) thinks he's found romance in Italy but finds himself in danger. The film is reminiscent of the mid-20th century, when great-looking actors - Rock Hudson, Cary Grant, Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn - were thrown into exotic locations to find adventure and love. It never mattered if the story was contrived and clichéd.