I have always been an animal lover. As a kid we were never without pets; dogs, cats, turtles, birds. Even after having my heart broken time and time again from the loss of a beloved animal I would pick myself up and reconnect with yet another furry or feathered friend.

As an adult I took in a stray cat even though I was allergic. I’ve spent more money than I am willing to admit on vet bills to heal said cat after many a late night brawl. Because I believe that animals provide us with an unconditional love that adds to our mental and physical wellbeing. Bottom line, I don’t trust people who don’t like animals.

I think they’re a bit “off”. So when I started dating a man who wasn’t a “cat person” and who insisted that my cat be left out of the bedroom at night when he slept over, I found myself in a bit of a moral dilemma. Up until then things had been going quite well with this new beau.

We had a lot in common, he was funny, intelligent, employed.  But once he drew a line in the sand between him and my pet, things changed. For some reason that I’m sure will come out in therapy one day, I didn’t challenge his initial request. Being the pleaser that I am I went along with it thinking, “what’s the big deal? The cat will sleep in the other room.”

Now for any of you who have cats you’ll know that the minute you close a door to a room that you are in and they aren’t a battle ensues. Even if the cat doesn’t want to be in that room they will scratch on the door as if they are being chased by a thousand bloodhounds. As I lay there listening to my cat viciously scratching a hole right through my bedroom door I started to find the man lying in bed beside me less and less attractive. I started to feel like I’d betrayed my pet for sex. Not always a bad thing but still. Maybe it was a power struggle. Maybe I am a softy. Or maybe I was realizing that my relationship to my cat was even stronger than I’d thought.

So after a few weeks of the nighttime ritual of closing the bedroom door, hearing the scratching, quiet, panicked scratching, quiet, crazed scratching, cat sigh, silence, I started to feel uneasy. Now, nobody wants an animal staring at them while they’re having sex. Well, some people do but that’s a different show. I understand that. But for me it was about more than that. It was about control.

And I don’t do well with control - mostly because, well, I’m really controlling. Animals don’t always do what we want them to do. Especially cats. Nothing amuses me more than watching someone try to train a cat. You might as well try to get a teenage boy to stop masturbating. Not gonna happen. In relationships control is always a huge issue. Even with pets.

I think that my new man was probably marking his territory, so to speak, and with that came the exclusion of my cat. He didn’t want the cat to take up too much room in the relationship. He felt that by laying down some ground rules it would show the cat, and possibly me, who was boss.

Sadly for him, I don’t find that attractive. I wanted him to embrace my animal and then maybe together we could set some boundaries regarding the cat and its place in the bedroom. In the end I chose my cat over him. Not solely because of the “bedroom” issue, there were other problems with the relationship. So now most nights my cat is back sleeping on the bed. It may not be wild, passionate, amazing sex, but hey, it’s love.

A friend of mine recently ended a relationship with a man because he was almost twenty years younger than her. Although he was very mature for his age – he played X-Box but was also into Nietzsche - she found that she was too embarrassed to go out with him fearing people would think she was a “cougar”, aka, An older woman in her sexual prime who prefers to hunt down young men and feast on their burgeoning sexuality.

I have to say I was shocked. Not that she was dating a man half her age but that she stopped dating a man half her age. It bothered me that the derogatory, ageist label of cougar is pigeon-holing women into the role of sex-starved, predator. Have women not earned the same right as men to explore the fruits of dating someone who’s young and beautiful? Okay that’s not always the only reason but let’s be honest, it’s up there.

I experienced my own “cougar” moment recently, actually I prefer to use the term “tigress” moment. It sounds more regal.  On my thirty-seventh birthday I found myself in a bar in Edinburgh with three hot twenty-something women partying into the night. Don’t ask.

At one point I looked around and realized I was one of the oldest people in the place. It didn’t bother me. Mostly because I realized I was the only one in the bar with absolutely no expectations of getting laid that night.  Just then a cherub faced, Ewan McGregor look a like walked up to me and proceeded to chat me up. I couldn’t believe it. He was interested in me.

Thank you birthday gods, I thought. I told him that it was my birthday and he asked how old I was. I played it cool. I asked him how old he thought I was. He looked me up and down, I sucked in everything that need to be sucked in and stuck out everything that needed to be stuck out, and he looked deep into my eyes and said … twenty-eight?

I almost slipped him the tongue right there in the middle of the smoke filled patio. Did I suddenly find him more attractive because he thought I was younger? Uh, yes. Did that make me want to have sex with him? Yes, it did. Well that, and the perfectly chiseled jaw, the six-pack and the accent – just being honest.

Would I eventually become paranoid that he would discover my true age and run off with some nubile, wrinkle free twenty year old? (laughs) Definitely. But in that beautiful moment nothing else mattered.

Whether it was the dim lighting, that expensive cream I’d been using or the ten pints my sweet Scottish boy downed that evening, in that moment I understood what all the fuss was about. No I didn’t sleep with him.

Not because I was embarrassed that people would accuse me of robbing the cradle or because I couldn’t handle watching Saturday morning cartoons but because I didn’t need to. Just knowing that I could was somehow enough.

So I stood aside as one of my severely intoxicated female companions proceeded to clumsily maul my Scottish prince on the dance floor. I didn’t feel like a cougar or a tigress I felt like a woman.

I don’t answer the phone. I don’t answer the door. There have been times when I’ve even ducked behind a car or crossed the street to avoid “running into” someone I know.

These quirks, as I like to call them, existed long before email, call display and social networking sites. But for a direct communication-phoebe like myself online connecting is extremely dangerous while at the same time beyond appealing.

There are days, okay maybe weeks, where I realize I don’t ever have to leave my house. I can do business through email, catch up with friends on Facebook (well, comment on their drunken party photos and annoying status updates), watch a concert on youtube, and text my family members to inform them I’m still alive. Perfect, right?

Not quite. I’ve run into some difficulty trying to sustain this disconnected disguised as connected lifestyle. The first being, the inability to communicate with people in person anymore.

Don’t get me wrong. I haven’t turned into a conspiracy theory obsessed, bearded, talking to my pots and pans like they’re my army, Unabomber type … yet.

Although sometimes I think I’m only a log cabin, a crowded subway ride in rush hour and one more line up at Starbucks away.

I was on Facebook way too late one night procrastinating by marveling at how many of my high school friends have babies and go on trips to Disneyland P.S. I don’t have babies and find Disneyland creepy, when suddenly an instant message popped up from one of my Facebook “friends”.

I use the term friends very lightly as this individual and I had never actually had a conversation. We had mutual friends, respected each other’s work and maybe in another life would have been room mates.

But for now we were just two people in the middle of the night Facebook “creeping”. Yes that’s a term. He messaged me asking what I was doing up so late. I replied, “I could ask you the same question”.

We shared this … kinda flirty, kinda witty, kinda silly banter back and forth for about ten minutes. Then I wrote I should get back to work. Him too. And that was it. I forgot about it until about a month later I was walking down the street on a beautiful spring day.

The sun was shining, the birds singing, the street smells were resurfacing after months of laying still under the snow. Life was good. And then I saw him - my middle of the night Facebook friend.

Oh God. What do I say? What do I do? It was too late to duck behind a car or cross the street. He’d seen me. I smiled. He smiled back. As he got closer I started to sweat. I don’t know him! I thought. What the hell was I thinking sharing a brief online moment with him?

He was almost right in front of me. I could pretend to faint, I thought. But then what if he wanted to take me to the hospital and then found out I was faking it. That would be even weirder than it already was. We were right in front of each other.

He said, “hi”, I said “hey” and we both kept walking. Like nothing had happened. Like we hadn’t had that “real” online moment. Like we were just friends of friends. Like we didn’t know each other at all. Which we didn’t. I was shocked … and a little confused.

These new online rules of engagement are so odd. Why was it easier to “chat” through fiber optic cables than to actually exchange pleasantries face to face? I learned something that day.

Don’t ever leave the house! Okay no, but I did realize that sharing words or pictures online does not equal a personal face to face relationship. As much as we want to believe we can just replace one with the other and multi-task our lives into a neat web address we cannot.

I’ve tried to answer the phone more. Sometimes even the door. But if you see me hiding behind a car as you walk by don’t be alarmed. I’m just avoiding you.

New. Captivating. And potentially disastrous. I can safely say that if someone isn’t a good kisser or at least open to advancement in that department, there is no point in continuing. I’m sorry. Kissing is crucial. And anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar or unbalanced. I once dated someone who I was so attracted to I could barely look him in the eye. It was blinding. We went on a couple of dates and then the first kiss happened. It was outside. A perfect spring night. We both stopped and looked at each other at the same time. This was it. My heart was racing. My stomach was turning. He grabbed in his arms and our lips touched. Gentle, soft and then before I even had a chance to take it all in his tongue was down my throat like he was searching for polyps.

No, I thought, No! Don’t ruin it. Why can’t you stay with the lips for a minute. My poor tongue wouldn’t engage, instead it cowered in the corner of my mouth afraid of being side swiped by the anaconda that was invading it’s space. I kept trying to pry my tongue lose, persuade it to give the old French kiss a try, but no dice. It knew. This was not going to end well. I kept trying to reign in the kiss, you know when you try and settle things down for fear of chocking but to no avail. I was snapped back into reality as he removed his tongue from my mouth (the force of which may have dislodged a couple of fillings), he looked into my eyes and said, “I really like you.” I smiled.

And said, “Me too”. We dated for a while. Things were okay. But the lack of focus in the kissing department was always looming. It represents more than just lips locking.

Kissing is a language. It can reveal so much. I remember kissing an ex-boyfriend after we’d split up. Yes, I know never have ex sex. But it’s so good. Even though our kiss was passionate and exciting, I could feel the sadness as our mouths touched. It was so heartbreaking. Both of us knowing that it was really over. Then there are people who kiss you on the lips who shouldn’t. I never know what to do when they’re coming at me. If you avoid the kiss and give them a cheek it’s weird but then if you accept the mouth it’s just plain creepy. Sorry. I’m not a prude or anything but I think some guys go for the mouth just to see if you will. It’s like greeting someone by coping a feel. Not right. Kissing is intimate.

I don’t just go around kissing people willy nilly. That’s anarchy! I do remember as a child kissing my mother goodnight on the mouth. I don’t recall when exactly that ended but I’m sure it was me deciding I don’t want to be a kid anymore. Looking back I think it was beautiful. Kissing brings us closer to people. It’s how we express our love and intimacy for one another. Sadly my relationship with the “bad kisser” didn’t last. It couldn’t. It was doomed from the first moment our lips touched. As much as I was attracted to him we couldn’t connect on that basic level. And without the kiss what is there?

Do you have something to rant about in regards to kissing?  Be our guest, rant away!