Growing up, Bethtina Woodridge heard all kinds of advice about dating, finding a husband and getting married.

"There are just not enough services for creating healthy relationships, and (it is) a major gap in the gay community," said matchmaker Patrick Perrine, founder of San Francisco-based Mypartner.com, which caters to "sophisticated, cultured and relationship-oriented gay men" and has more than 50,000 clients across the nation.

Muscovites count the cost of Valentine's Day

It was there I met Katya Kuznetsova, a beautiful and confident advertising executive with a weakness for strawberry ice cream, although you would hardly know it from her slim figure.

Katya, who's 22, is dating Sasha, a drummer in a heavy metal band. This will be their second Valentine's Day together.

Last year he took her to see a romantic foreign film, which was rather more her cup of tea than his.

She also likes watching the TV comedy series "Sex & The City" about the seductive antics of some very liberated New York women.

There's a Russian equivalent, in which Katya says the characters want more than hot dates and casual sex. They're looking for marriage.

It's a silly programme, she says, but in a way very Russian.

Speaking of her parents' courtship back in the days of the USSR, Katya says: "They took everything very seriously back then.

HowStuffWorks Reveals The Science Behind Kissing, Chemistry and Cupid ...

ATLANTA, Feb. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- HowStuffWorks (www.howstuffworks.com), the high-quality content platform famous for its easy-to-understand explanations, has launched a comprehensive Valentine's Day guide spilling all of Cupid's secrets.

For anyone grappling with how to understand their mate, or how to get a date, HowStuffWorks explains it all in plain English -- helping you apply reason to romance.

Courtship Rituals of Cornellians: An Ethnography

There was, I imagine, a moment in history when courtship rituals among the young men and women far above Cayuga's waters were fairly homogenous. That moment having been summarily executed in a parking lot, our current dating repertoires are sorely in need of documentation. It was the practice of pre-1990s anthropologists to write ethnographies that trampled all hopes of agency and otherized with grace rarely seen in today's literature. It is my intent to follow in that tradition with this column.

Hipsters — Although sometimes thought to be a twenty-first century construct, the Hipster genealogy is long, with Bob Dylan throwing the term around the East Village in 1959 and Billy Corgan beseeching Hipsters to unite in 1993's “Cherub Rock." Any such illustrious lineage must carry entrenched norms of courtship and reproduction.

UC Davis Gets $1M grant to respond to violence against women

The University of California, Davis, will use a new, nearly $1 million federal grant to help the UC's 10 campuses improve their response to violence against women. The three-year project, supported by a $999,369 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice's Office on Violence Against Women, aims to coordinate a model program to reduce the incidence of campus-based violence against women, including domestic and dating violence, sexual assault and stalking. The program will also focus on improving the quality of response when such incidents do occur. The innovations it promises in cross-campus partnerships could benefit a broad range of colleges and universities throughout the country. In 2000, the Justice Department published a study on the sexual victimization of college women. It concluded that there are more than 27 incidents of violence against women for every 1,000 female students, and fewer than 5 percent are reported to police or campus officials.

President Bush Declares March Red Cross Month

In a tradition dating back to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President George W. Bush declared March as Red Cross Month, calling it a time to "honor this charitable organization" and "reflect on its remarkable achievements and contributions to our country."

In a Proclamation signed today, the President cited examples of how the Red Cross had provided food, comfort and medical assistance to the victims of a number of disasters in 2007, from the tragic bridge collapse in Minnesota to the devastating wildfires in California. He also noted how the Red Cross provides vital assistance by organizing blood drives, teaching health and safety programs, and supporting our men and women in uniform.

Throughout the month, 750 Red Cross chapters across the country will celebrate in a variety of ways, including holding special events, trainings or fundraisers to give people an opportunity to support the organization through donations of time, money or blood.

How To Marry A Millionaire — Really

There are more millionaires than ever, and no shortage of people who want to share their success.

But one event in Manhattan last week turned the old idea of a gold digger on its head.

"We are hosting a speed date exclusively available to ultra-wealthy women and hot young men," said event organizer Jeremy Abelson.

One female in attendance, Gail Garrison, said she is a 44-year-old fashion designer.

Another said: "My name is Vivian Cha. I'm 47 years old. And I'm a physician."

Nancy Richards said: "I'm 50 years old. But my motto is '50 is the new 30.'"

"I'm open to dating men that are younger, whether it's five years, ten years, 12 years," Garrison said.

What did one of the younger men there have to say? Paul Janka, 27, said: "I want to be coddled, yes."

"There are a lot of people who are gonna say, 'That's disgusting.' Anytime you integrate money into dating, people are going to say, 'That's disgusting.' And it's usually by people who don't have any money," Abelson said.

THE MIRROR: Point and Counterpoint (Browne)

College males have it hard, especially at Dartmouth. Hanover is not really what you'd call the dating hotspot of the Lake Sunapee region, so avenues to meet those women you want to take home to mom are limited. Luckily for Dartmouth men, there is still one avenue where guys can meet ladies and show off their skills. This avenue, my friends, is the dance party. In 2003 Dane Cook uttered the phrase, "Dude, I just wanna dance." When he said this, Dartmouth men everywhere stood up and cheered. Not only do Dartmouth guys love the dance party, but we also know how to treat a lady on the dance floor. For all the men out there who aren't avid dance party–goers and don't know the codes of conduct, take what I say as scripture. And just for everyone's information, the tips I'm giving are not just my observations, but also extensive research of reading over 100 Dartmouth women's diaries and Xanga profiles.

Pr. George's Police Suspect Online Prowler in Six Rapes

The rapist stalks his victims on the Internet, surfing popular dating Web sites and chat rooms, where he meets women and sets up sex dates. At least six times, unsuspecting Prince George's County women arrived for a date but found a masked attacker, armed with a handgun, county police said yesterday.

Best evidence yet of caffeine-miscarriage link

Women in early pregnancy who drink a cup and a half of coffee every day are at greater risk of miscarriage than those who stay away from caffeine, according to a Kaiser Permanente study out of Oakland.

But the Kaiser study, said doctors who were not involved in the research, makes a fairly solid case against drinking coffee, or any kind of caffeinated beverage, early in pregnancy.

UK women spend 105 mins a day online

UK women are spending an average of 105 minutes online a day, according to findings from at IPC Media. Women were found to visit an average of nine sites per session, prompted mainly by emotional and functional activities. Dating, social networking and photo-sharing were among the most popular activities. Up to 7,500 sit on IPC Media's Origin Panel, which researches the changing attitudes and behaviour of UK women. Amanda Wigginton, group head of Insight... .

To find a partner, scratch and sniff

Sniffing someone's armpits does not sound the most promising start to a date. Research, however, suggests that it will probably turn up a better prospect than either a blind date or gabbling nervously to 20 consecutive strangers. Now a new dating website, ScientificMatch.com, promises a discreet way of letting you nose out potential partners.

Researchers found more than a decade ago - by asking female students to sniff T-shirts worn by men - that ovulating women rate certain male body odours as sexier than others. Crucially, the preferences depended on a certain part of the immune system called the major histocompatibility complex (MHC). Women, it turned out, were bewitched by the odours of men whose MHC genes were most different from their own, and repelled by the aroma of men with similar MHC genes.

Girl-group get-togethers to plan for 2008

Many women have a love-hate relationship with Sex and the City. It was a great show but it spawned so many horrible things: New York bus tours that stopped at, among other show-specific sites, the store where Charlotte bought her "Rabbit Pearl" vibrator; sassy single-girl dating columnists; and online quizzes to determine which character you are. So when the Sex and the City movie was announced, we wearily resigned ourselves to the onslaught of more articles on what the fab four were wearing; if the on-set photos of Carrie in a wedding dress were a real part of the plot or just a dream sequence; and on the cultural impact of the series we just can't seem to get away from. We'd love to say enough already, but who's kidding who? Come May 30, we'll be in line for the movie with everyone else.