Too often we forget that an ideal partner is someone who enhances an already full existence.
Every adult has the right to choose who they wish to spend their lives with, and we're all capable of making mistakes, but no one escapes with their self-regard intact.
For many, long-term friendships, rather than family ties, are the foundations for sustainable lives.
There are many ways to make the most of your time on the planet, and propagation of the species is just one of them. If you're convinced that it's the key to your happiness, there are routes open to you, whether with the help of modern medical science, marrying into a readymade one, or through fostering and adoption.
Nothing can prepare you for the all-consuming nature of motherhood, and I am very aware of my good fortune, as I spent years fretting about whether I'd ever meet anyone to have a baby with.
I hate the thought of my children being glued to a screen. Children only play on computers all day because their parents let them.
I can't sleep in an isolated place without pills, earplugs, and both my children in bed with me for fear of scary, feral characters with a hankering for the wilderness.
My parents split up, and a lot of things going on in the outside world made me want to immerse myself in an alternative world.
As for tweeting and texting: impassioned discussions, particularly when they're intimate, don't work in abbreviated script messages. No relationship should begin or end in 140 characters.
Reading a book you are not enjoying is a torture not to be undertaken without a reward. I leave plays at the interval, too!
In my late teens and early twenties, I thought having children was possibly the most irresponsible thing you could do because I thought that the world was a dreadful place; I thought the sooner we all got off the planet, the better.
In romance, we feel the need to zoom in and expound on our partner's foibles in intimate detail; in friendship, we tend to do the opposite, avoiding confrontation through fear, lethargy or both.
Personally, I think there's a lot to recommend being friends with your ex, and I'm glad to admit that I'm living proof of its possibility.
What an unappealing responsibility that is to lumber any prospective lover with: the need to be a saviour, not simply an equal partner.
We're naturally programmed to endure a muddle of emotions as we leave childhood behind.
I recognise my old self in a lot of the letters I get from single women who are unrealistic about what they want.
Placing 'amicable' and 'separation' together creates an oxymoron - we don't usually decide to end a partnership until the very sight of our soon-to-be ex fills us with disgust, misery, agony or a combination of all three.
I met Jason on a charity walk in 2001, and we got married on a friend's boat in Panama two years later. It was the perfect wedding for two people who'd already been married and who weren't teenagers.
Mixed messages are just part and parcel of the romantic terrain, and rather than berate yourself for any crossed wires, you'd do better to work on your future resilience.
It's a universal truth that no parent wishes to acknowledge that the fear and phobias we are in thrall to in adulthood almost invariably connect back to childhood experiences.
