Not so for a girl I know, L.

L is a genius at scaring people off right off the bat, on account of her absolute upfront-ness about herself, her life, her innermost thoughts. She just doesn’t seem to possess the filters most people have when it comes to releasing private information. Unfortunately, it’s sent many a man racing in the opposite direction.

When it comes to building a relationship with someone (romantically inclined or otherwise), it seems there is an art to the slow reveal.

If you put out too much information of the pouring-your-heart-out kind too soon, you risk sending others running for the hills. Fact.

Scaring people off isn’t just the domain of the ladies. Many a man has suffered a case of first-date verbal diarrhoea too.

Yes, you may be heartbroken after your last girlfriend ran off with your brother, but as painful as that is, you don’t need to roll that particular story out on the first date. Or the second. Or even the third.

If you’ve just met someone, play it cool for awhile. Think of a striptease that starts naked. Where would you go from there?

One glove at a time is a much more enticing proposition. It’s intriguing, it sets the mood and it makes the audience wait breathlessly for more, instead of having them gasp with horror at the naked chick that just turned up in the middle of the room.

Sharing secrets with someone absolutely is a crucial part of building intimacy and trust.

Most couples naturally go through a flurry of information swapping in their early courtship. (Remember when you were a teenager? “What’s your favourite colour? Blue? That’s my favourite colour too!”)

Yes, self-disclosure is more than just our deepest thoughts and feelings. It’s everything from sharing your music preferences right through to long deep and meaningful conversations.

Knowing classified information about a person makes us feel closer to them. We also like people more if we know some of their secrets.

Curiously, we also like people more if we’ve shared secrets with them.

You can see why many people make the mistake of thinking that the more they can divulge upfront, the more liked they will be immediately.

But before you go hiring a skywriter to tell the world your secrets, remember this secret-divulging social custom depends on the perfect timing. One glove at a time.

Sound familiar? Do you do this? Have you been sent running by an over-eager beau?

Being taken out of your comfort zone, thrown into busy sightseeing and touring schedules and coupled together for 24 hours a day can be a revealing experience to say the least.

Obviously, we’re not talking about your standard “romantic-weekend-at-a-bed-and breakfast” kind of travelling.

Anyone can keep their guard up for an overnighter in the country when all you’re doing is getting massages and sampling the local produce.

It’s a little harder once you spend a week or two together, battling jetlag and trying to get through everything on your crammed itinerary while your body adjusts to the local cuisine and you struggle your way through a foreign language.

(And that’s if it’s all going swimmingly. If it’s going badly, you’ll find yourself with Delhi-belly and your partner will be the only one around to hold your hair back for you. Romantic.)

Firstly, you should know: You’re probably going to have at least one fight, which is always crushingly depressing when you’re on holiday because the pressure is on to enjoy yourselves and make the most of being in an exotic location. (Are we having fun yet? What about now?)

Wasting an afternoon in Paris on a silly domestic? It happens.

My friend H walked right out of the first floor of the Eiffel Tower after a spat with his wife – they’d waited in line for over two hours and he never even got to the top because of the fight. C’est la vie.

An ex-boyfriend of mine left our trip altogether and flew home after a particularly awful argument. He booked the flight and packed in the heat of the moment, then called later to apologise.

Too late, there were already several thousand kilometres between us and the holiday was ruined.

Every little thing will be magnified while you’re away, spending 24 hours a day in each other’s pockets.

Try to move on quickly if you can from fights, resolving them fast means you can get back to enjoying your holiday together without wasting too much valuable time.

And remember that in your daily lives you have your own space and while the urge to do absolutely everything together while you’re away is strong, try and resist at least a little bit each day, for your own sanity.

Sit by the pool by yourself and read a book, go to a nearby café and grab a coffee on your own.

It doesn’t mean anything bad that you need space – just that you’re human!

But of course do as much as you can do together.

The great thing about travelling together is that experiences are more fun when you can share them with someone. It makes for years of regaling friends with stories, of heightened connectedness through amazing experiences.

The other wonderful thing about travelling together is that you’ll inevitably try things you otherwise wouldn’t.

Compromise is the key to all successful relationships, including in-transit ones. Agree to try some things out with your partner, even if it’s not something you’d usually do and before you know it your horizons will be wide as the plains of Africa.

Got a horror travel story for me? Or your own tips to share for “how to not strangle each other” abroad?

This ‘How Was It For You?’ column was originally published on the Flirt Page of mX Newspaper on 8 October 2010. Emma writes a weekly column for the paper. You can see the back-catalogue here.

With your individual meeting prep done, it is time to lay the ground rules for the meeting itself, and what you and your partner hope to get out of your finances. At the money meeting:

• Plan for a 20 minute meeting. This doesn’t draw out the issue and no one gets bored, tired or frustrated.
• Remove distractions. Make sure the TV is turned off and the kids are in bed, leave the phones off the hook or on silent and give your full attention to the meeting.
• Be open and honest about finances and goals. Each person should begin by explaining their approach to finances and their financial goals. This will allow you to understand what is important to your partner and you can work together to find a way to integrate both ideals into your budget. Plus, if you are aware of what your partner wants out of life, it is easier to make other financial decisions in the future regarding homes, holidays and children.
• Decide which are joint expenses. While you are sharing lives, it is up to you to decide how you want to share what is in your life. At the same time you are both bringing things to the relationship – your own car, your own TV, your own credit cards – and these can be considered individual expenses and you can total up the joint expenses such as household bills, holidays, dinners out and so on.
• Decide who will manage the finances. Having one person responsible for making the bill payments reduces the risk of late payments because ‘I thought you paid it’ or paying the same bill twice.
• Decide how to deal with emergency joint expenses. If you buy a dog when you move in together he becomes a joint expense and if he needs an emergency visit to the vet, you need an emergency plan. Does the person with the most funds in their individual account pay? Do you put it on a joint credit card? Do you set up a joint savings plan for a joint emergency fund?
• Decide how to deal with individual emergency expenses. If your car needs and emergency repair and you can’t afford it, your partner may be able to cover the costs but you need to decide how to deal with the blurring of money lines. Will it come out of joint savings? Will you keep your own savings account?

Have you ever had a money meeting with your partner? (One that didn’t end in tears?)

Stay tuned for the third and final part of this series tomorrow, in which we will learn about how to deal with uneven salaries between partners and which part of your finances to keep separate.

Timothy Ng is a personal finance writer who has a real passion for encouraging people to compare credit cards to ensure they get the best deal. Check out his comprehensive guide to best credit cards where he provides an in-depth overview and analysis, to help you find a better deal.

But how many people arm themselves with instructions on how to be in a relationship?

Not many. And certainly not many proactively. It seems to me that most people won’t seek help or guidance on how to be in a relationship until problems arise. By which time it’s usually too late.

Here are four common relationship mistakes that people make. Anything sound familiar here? I know I’m guilty of a few.

Arguing to Win, Not to Resolve

It’s far too easy to fall into the trap of keeping tally of argument wins, particularly if you’re both the stubborn type.

When arguing, try and keep on point, and try to remember that the best end goal for you both is a resolution of the problem, not another point on your imaginary scoreboard. This should help keep you both calm and civil towards each other.

Also? In light of this tip, let the little things slide. Who cares who forgot to change the toilet roll in the bathroom or who drank the last of the milk? Chillax, it’s not worth the pain.

Expecting Too Much

Oh boy, am I guilty of this one! Having major expectations of a situation or a person is always going to leave you disappointed. Bitterly, bitterly disappointed.

For example, I had this notion in my head that once we were married, we would have a wonderful honeymoon period of no arguing at all, gazing at each other lovingly for hours, wanting to spend time only together, passionate sex every day… and then Den got sick on our honeymoon and I was left to fend for myself while he played his PSP and watched DVDs in our hotel room. Not exactly the picture perfect life I had planned! I thought we’d be blissed out for months. In reality, it lasted all of three days.

Same goes when it comes to birthdays, engagements, proposals, wedding rings, gifts and more… if you have certain expectations of your partner, let them know. It’s only fair!

Letting Romance Slide

Sure, you’ve been together for years. You’ve seen each other at your worst, held each other’s hair back while throwing up into the toilet when you’re sick (or after a big night out), on the couch in trackies with unwashed hair, perhaps through childbirth. Perhaps you leave the bathroom door open.

All of which are no excuse to let the romance slide! Make an effort. Do it regularly. They don’t have to be grand gestures. Bring home a bunch of flowers. Switch off the TV and eat by candlelight at the dining table. Call from work and arrange to meet your partner at a restaurant, surprise them with tickets to a show, book a hotel room.

In short, stop every now and then and do something spontaneous for your sweetie that will blow them away and show them that you care. They deserve it! And so does your relationship.

Not Understanding the Needs of Different Personality Styles

We all need different things. Some people need lots of affection. Others need to spend quality time with their sweetie. Some need to feel looked after and some like small gifts and gestures to show that they’re loved.

Do you actually know what your partner’s Love Language is?

Find out, and use it to your advantage. It will make them happier and therefore you will be happier, and your relationship will feel more fulfilled.

These are only four common mistakes out of gosh-knows how many. Are you guilty of any of the above? Any I’ve left off that you’d like addressed?

The office – you spend most of your waking life there. Australians, in particular, are at work an average 1855 hours a year. That’s more than any other country in the Western world.

Couple that huge chunk of life energy with the mere exposure effect and BAM, you have chemistry.

Was it love at first strategy meeting? Or did the attraction slowly grow with each trip to the photocopier?

In most cases it’s the latter – thanks largely to the mere exposure effect.

It’s a well recognised psychological phenomenon, whereby the more time you spend with a person, the more attracted you feel to them – and they to you – simply by virtue of being around each other so frequently.

So what better place to find a potential partner than the office?

True, once upon a time organisations frowned on office romances. These days, though, companies have to be more adaptable to cope with the number of relationships blossoming under their noses.

Most workplaces won’t frown too heavily on employees dating, but if you are thinking of knocking socks with a cutie two cubicles over, there are a few things to consider.

1. Be sure of what you want. The last thing you think of when starting up a new relationship is how it’s going to end, but being frivolous with a co-worker’s emotions or going on dates with someone if you’re not sure you like them is playing with fire.

No matter what happens, you’re still going to have to face them on Monday morning.

Before you get involved, ask yourselves what it will be like if you break up. Will you be able to behave as adults? Can you be professional? It sucks enough just breaking up with someone, let alone losing career-cred over the matter.

2. Your boss is off limits. It’s just not a good idea to get involved with anyone directly responsible for managing you and your role. That’s when the lines between work and private life get really blurry.

Plus, you’ll continually be the butt of office gossip as all your co-workers dissect how you’re getting “preferential treatment”.

3. No funny business at work. That includes hugs, hand-holding, kisses and butt-pinches. Absolutely not appropriate for the workplace, even if everyone already knows you’re an item.

Also, tempting as it might be, no sex on the desk.

Are you dating a colleague? Love to hear about all about it.

“We love your body. If we’re in love with you, we love your body. Your potbelly, everything. Even if you’re insecure about something, we love your body. You feel like you’re not this or that? We love your body. We embrace everything. Because it’s you.

Speaking of your body, you don’t understand the power of your own smell. Any woman who is currently with a man is with him partly because she loves the way he smells. And if we haven’t smelled you for a day or two and then we suddenly are within inches of you, we swoon. We get light-headed. It’s intoxicating. It’s heady.

We remember forever what you say about the bodies of other women. When you mention in passing that a certain woman is attractive — could be someone in the office, a woman on the street, a celebrity, any woman in the world, really — your comment goes into a steel box and it stays there forever. We will file the comment under “Women He Finds Attractive.” It’s not about whether or not we approve of the comment. It’s about learning what you think is sexy and how we might be able to convey it. It’s about keeping our man by knowing what he likes.

We also remember everything you say about our bodies, be it good or bad. Doesn’t matter if it’s a compliment. Could be just a comment. Those things you say are stored away in the steel box, and we remember these things verbatim. We remember what you were wearing and the street corner you were standing on when you said it.

Never complain about our friends — even if we do. No matter how many times we say a friend of ours is driving us crazy, you are not to pile on. Not because it offends us. But because it adds to the weight that we carry around about her.

Remember what we like. When I first started dating my husband, I had this weird fascination with the circus and clowns and old carnival things and sideshow freaks and all that. About a month after we started dating, he bought me this amazing black-and-white photo book on the circus in the 1930s, and I started sobbing. Which freaked him out. I thought, Oh, my God, I mentioned this three or four weeks ago and talked about it briefly, but he was really listening to me. And he actually went out and researched and found this thing for me. It was amazing.

We want you to order Scotch. It’s the most impressive drink order. It’s classic. It’s sexy. Such a rich color. The glass, the smell. It’s not watered down with fruit juice. It’s Scotch. And you ordered it.

Stand up, open a door, offer a jacket. We talk about it with our friends after you do it. We say, “Can you believe he stood up when I approached the table?” It makes us feel important. And it makes you important because we talk about it.

No shorts that go below the knee. The ones almost like capri pants, the ones that hover somewhere between the kneecap and the calf? Enough with those shorts. They are the most embarrassing pants in the world. They should never be worn. No woman likes those.

Also, no tank tops. In public at least. A tank top is underwear. You’re walking around in your underwear. Too much.

No man should be on Facebook. It’s an invasion of everyone’s privacy. I really cannot stand it.

You don’t know this, but when we come back from a date, we feel awkward about that transition from our cute outfit into sexy lingerie. We don’t know how to do this gracefully. It’s embarrassing. We have to find a way to slip into another room, put on the outfit as if it all happened very easily, and then come out and it’s: Look at me! Look at the sexy thing I’ve done! For you, it’s the blink of an eye. It’s all very embarrassing. Just so you know.

Panties is a wonderful word. When did you stop saying “panties”? It’s sexy. It’s girlie. It’s naughty. Say it more.

About ogling: The men who look, they really look. It doesn’t insult us. It doesn’t faze us, really. It’s just — well, it’s a little infantile. Which is ironic, isn’t it? The men who constantly stare at our breasts are never the men we’re attracted to.

There are better words than beautiful. Radiant, for instance. It’s an underused word. It’s a very special word. “You are radiant.” Also, enchanting, smoldering, intoxicating, charming, fetching.

Marriage changes very little. The only things that will get a married man laid that won’t get a single man laid are adultery and whores. Intelligence and humor (and your smell) are what get you laid. That’s what got you laid when you were single. That’s what gets you laid when you’re married. Everything still works in marriage: especially intelligence and humor. Because the sexiest thing is to know you.”

Taken from Esquire. If you head over there, you can see some damn fine pics of Christina in a nifty little slideshow.

The woman oozes pure class and I’m pretty sure most every lovely lady on the planet will agree with what she has to say. I especially love her note on marriage at the end… husbands, it is not enough to simply grunt at us and expect it to be turned up. Put some damn effort in as if you were wooing us all over again.

That is all.

Instead of throwing him out, setting her lawyers on him or sobbing hysterically, Laura called bullshit.

What ensued was her husband going through a mid-life crisis and Laura giving him the space to do that in his own home. By letting him have his solitude, he worked through his issues in his own mind and came back to his family.

Laura’s initial article on the ordeal was published in the New York Times last year, causing great controversy along the way. Here is an excerpt:

“Here’s a visual: Child throws a temper tantrum. Tries to hit his mother. But the mother doesn’t hit back, lecture or punish. Instead, she ducks. Then she tries to go about her business as if the tantrum isn’t happening. She doesn’t “reward” the tantrum. She simply doesn’t take the tantrum personally because, after all, it’s not about her.

Let me be clear: I’m not saying my husband was throwing a child’s tantrum. No. He was in the grip of something else — a profound and far more troubling meltdown that comes not in childhood but in midlife, when we perceive that our personal trajectory is no longer arcing reliably upward as it once did. But I decided to respond the same way I’d responded to my children’s tantrums. And I kept responding to it that way. For four months.

“I don’t love you anymore. I’m not sure I ever did.”

His words came at me like a speeding fist, like a sucker punch, yet somehow in that moment I was able to duck. And once I recovered and composed myself, I managed to say, “I don’t buy it.” Because I didn’t.

He drew back in surprise. Apparently he’d expected me to burst into tears, to rage at him, to threaten him with a custody battle. Or beg him to change his mind.”

Since then, the article has evolved into a book. Here is Laura talking about it on ABC News last week:

Is this method a revelation? Could more marriages have been saved with the same attitude? After all, in just about every argument there can come a point where you know you’ve gone too far, said too much, to ever reverse the situation. Could the same ring true with divorces?

Of course, every marriage and every break up is different, but what I love is that Laura believed in her husband enough to know that he was just freaking out. He got through it, but I wager that if she’d reacted – yelled, screamed, fought back – that we would be looking at just another divorce statistic rather than this book.

It’s a massive change, but she has coped remarkably well with the separation, and has re-established herself as an independent woman – new house, new job, new outlook on life.

Now, after months of painful healing, her ex is having regrets about the breakup.

And her doubts are creeping back too.

“I always thought I’d be married and have kids by the time I reached 30” says Y “But now, at 28, I have to start all over again.”

So, does she take the chance and get back together with a person she’s devoted six years of her time to, or does she start looking elsewhere?

If you are a numbers kind of person, doing the maths can be daunting.

How many dates do you have to go on before you find someone you like enough to be serious with? Give it, say, at least six months to a year?

Then one to two years of co-habitation before an engagement (assuming all goes swimmingly), perhaps another year to plan a wedding and then the obligatory honeymoon period before settling down to have some babies?

You can understand why she’s considering going back to an ex that she’s already been through all the preliminaries with. But is it the smartest idea?

If you look at it clincally, it’s a bit like the stock market. When your relationship stocks are down at this age, do you pull all your money out, cut your losses and move on, or hold tight to the familiar relationship and hope no one declares bankruptcy and bails out altogether in the meantime?

The problem is, love is never clinical (or normal) and few pre-planned life-timelines run to schedule.

While some people love a good five-year plan, others shudder at the thought. As John Lennon sang, life is what happens when you’re making other plans.

Why? People change, we change, things happen.

Y is not alone in her dilemma.

Many young women can tell the same tale – just as she expects him to step up the commitment level, he withdraws altogether.

Dr. Karen Weiss of East Melbourne Psychology thinks that it’s a blessing these women find out before the nuptials.

“Women tend to stay in a relationship longer than they can really afford to, time-wise, hoping that the man will one day commit,” says Weiss “Often, the late-20s break up can be a turning point for these women.”

Weiss recommends that women in their late twenties should be looking for men in their early thirties, with a little more maturity, who are ripe for commitment.

As for Y and the move-forward-or-go-back question, my advice is: Cash in your stocks and invest in a new market. The dividends will be worth it.

The Daily Mail has reported how millions of men don’t know the most basic of details about their partner – including dress size and even eye colour.

2,000 men in the UK were questioned and it was found that 12% couldn’t recall their partner’s eye colour, 10% didn’t know her date of birth and 11% didn’t know her job title and 30% weren’t aware of their partner’s bra size.

Most of those men admitted that their girlfriend probably knew everything there was to know about them.

Apparently, it’s because men are wired differently. While small details are important for women, it just isn’t in male DNA to notice these things.

Relationship expert Francine Kaye had the following words of advice for disgruntled wives and girlfriends:

‘You can’t expect men to get it right without prompting and reminders. If you want them to remember certain details, you have to tell them. Don’t be too subtle. Say something like, “It’s coming up to Valentine’s Day, I hope you’re treating me to something nice”.’

I quizzed Den and was relieved to find he knew my eye colour, bra size and had a close approximation of my clothing size too… the poor guy can never get it right when it comes to my favourite foods, etc, because I’m known to change my mind every five seconds. I don’t even know what my favourite foods are! He at least has a good idea of what I like in my top five, and for that I am grateful.

My advice? If your man is subject to “forgetting” these things, just keep drilling them into him. Something has to stick eventually, right?

What about your beau? Does he remember the small details? If you’re a guy, do you? Do you consider it important?

“Combine all your favourite date ideas and put them in a box! My partner and I have created the ‘Mystery Date Box’ – Each fortnight we pull one date idea out of the box and complete the date within the fortnight. The box is full of different ideas and whenever we think of a new idea, we add it to the box. It’s exciting, mysterious, thoughtful and fun!”

Brilliant! The analog version of our random date generator we have on $30 Date Night! I love the impulsiveness of it AND I especially love that these guys have a date night ritual every fortnight together.

If you like the sound of that, you know where to head for date idea inspiration. AND with our new account feature, you can get all high-tech about it and save your favorite ideas from our collection to your own private account for reference later.

Let us know if you have an awesome date ritual with your partner too!