Codependency or codependence is a tendency to behave in overly passive or excessively caretaking ways that negatively impact one's relationships and quality of life. It also often involves putting one's needs at a lower priority than others while being excessively preoccupied with the needs of others Now...does that sound like such a bad thing? I argued with my shrink. In the drama of my physical illness I almost forgot about my mental health. This was my second appointment with my therapist. Needs versus wants...desires versus happiness...independence versus co-dependance. I have always been a relative independent person. I was the middle child of three children. I was the diplomat...shuffling between two divorced parents living thousands of kilometers apart. I left home when I was 17 for Boston to study. At 22, I moved half way around the world to Australia. I became financially independent then. I started a new life...all alone and built a career, an urban family. To all intensive purposes I’m pretty independent..except when it comes to love. I’m a love addict.

• Loveawake Insta Contacts
• Strip Cam

I lost myself in my last relationship....focusing my whole life on a man who did not equate my love for him. Maybe I was codependent. I put my own needs at a lower priority while worrying about his. Now, I’m terrified of getting out there...putting myself on the dating scene. Worried I will make the same mistakes. Worry that I will get sucked back into a codependent relationship. I would rather run...than face that prospect. My shrink reckons I suffer from low self esteem...hence my attraction to codependent relationship. Remedy....more and more weeks of therapy...and taking a long...long break from any type of relationship.

• Netherlands Kinks

She asked me how it was in the gay world...when there were two men involved. I actually had never thought about the gay dating rules. I mean...I always expect the other guy to make the first move, open doors and pay for the bill. But maybe that was because I always date older guys. If I dated younger guys, I’d be more likely to pick up the check and make the first move. For me, maybe it was all about life experience....or in this case dating experience. Therefore if you are older...you generally make more money and therefore take the role of sugar daddy. My flatmate had a different theory. In her limited experience of the gay relationship world..she being Japanese saw gay men in two camps: the man in the relationship (this is illustrated by blokey guys who are emotionally withdrawn - pretty much anyone I would date could be used as an example) and the women in the relationship (pretty much me. Someone who thinks and feels). She reckons the man in the relationship would do the man things...and the woman would be the one waiting by the phone. Simple.

• Netherlands Dom

My friend Max had a different take. He figured sexual roles translated into the dating role. Tops are active..make the move, pay and try to get into the pants of the bottom/passive partner. Simple. Except what happens when you are both vers??? or most times you are not aware of each other’s sexual preferences. I could not help but wonder that maybe there were just no dating rules. Sex comes before dating in the gay world. So maybe the rules were thrown out the window...maybe the best thing is just to do what feels right. For me...I like to be looked after....so I’m always happy to follow the old fashioned dating rules...

• Loveawake Daters

I was having brunch yesterday with my friend Fiona. She’s the girl Single in the City. We often catch up to trade date horror stories and to ponder why we both seem to attract emotionally unavailable guys. Fiona is a dating pro. She’s tried online dating, speed dating and now she’s doing the dating dinners. An official matchmaker actually invites three single women and three single men on a sort of group blind date. She went on one a few weeks and is seeing a guy named Simon. Fiona is traditional when it comes to dating. She waits for the guy to make the first move, open doors and pick up the check. She reckoned the dating rules and roles were simple in the hetro world. Men make the first move...and women happily sit by and wait for the phone...while keeping guys in a waiting pattern for sex.

• Netherlands Sugar Babies