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Red flags to look out for when buying online

Due to the growing numbers in unemployment, a lot more people are starting their own businesses. But many of these new entrepreneurs have to rely on online transactions to boost their businesses.

5 ways to deal with interfering sister in laws

Some are blessed with secure, mature and loving sister in laws but many complain that their sister in law is very interfering in the couple’s life.So what do you do without fighting with them and putting the husband or wife in a soup?

How to deal with backstabbing coworkers

When you work anywhere, you do know that there are some co-workers who will help out and be nice but then there are colleagues who will backstab you in some or the other way.

Some do it while you are working with them and many do it especially when you have left the organisation and they know they will not be confronted. So here are 5 ways of dealing with such people if it bothers you.

Saying less

No matter how sweet they are, it is best to share less with such beings. They can and many do, use the personal secrets and opinions you shared about whoever, tweak it and add their own creative angle to it and eventually use it against you. So don’t wear your heart on your sleeves.

Be on the lookout

There are certain situations that make you bad and desperation brings out the worst in many people. If your seniors or the management push certain people to a corner, they are bound to break down and spill the beans. If nothing else, when appraisals and promotions take place, the game gets dirty. Those who looked like angels may have demon horns at that moment so beware.

READ ALSO: 5 reasons why visiting the dentist regularly is essential

Never judge a book by its cover

This saying if understood, goes a long way and can be applied in millions of situations. Those people who look very decent, are soft and polite, are many times that backstabbers you did not see coming. They help you but they try to ruin you as well if they have harbored some hatred for you without you knowing. Trust is not something you can have on many people.

Keep yourself updated with office gossip

This seems very shallow but it works! You may not like it but if everyone knows that you keep yourself well informed of the office politics and gossip then backstabbers tend to think twice about their next step.

Confrontation

If you have been backstabbed, the best way is to bring the backstabber and confront them. Say that you want to resolve it right away as this is nothing but negativity which affects the work environment. Even if you are an escapist, you must take this step if that person and the office means a lot to you. Sometimes the course of your future can be altered by backstabbers and this is not what you want. So confrontation is the key.

Credit: Timesofindia

How to know your partner's love language

He says people respond best to certain actions and to get the best out of your relationship, you have to know what your partner's favourite action is.

Nigeria's royal wedding: Private jets, glitz and glamour (Photos)

Private jets filled up the runway of the airport in the northern Nigerian city of Kano as members of Nigeria's elite and West African dignitaries flew in for the wedding of the president's son and the daughter of a prominent religious and traditional leader.

Signs you are ready to quit your job

We all want to do well at our jobs and earn more promotions and increments. To achieve this we work hard for long hours, try to impress our bosses, and even bear with those colleagues whom we don’t like.

‘My partner lasts only a few minutes in bed. Any advice?’

I’m a 31-year-old woman, and I’ve just started a new relationship with a man. We’ve been together two months and have been having sex for a month. I really like him, but I’m a bit worried he suffers from premature ejaculation. He’s generous in bed when it comes to paying me attention and performing oral sex, but he really does not last long – a few minutes at most. I don’t know how to bring it up or how to deal with this problem. Any advice?

Why can't we have sex on a first date?

I’ve recently been on a few dates after a couple of years out of the game and on some occasions we’ve kissed, but all the men I’ve met have been resistant to having sex on the first night.

5 foods to eat for a flat tummy

We all know that hard exercise is the best way to achieve a perfectly flat belly, but diet also has a lot to do with it, which means that you need to be choosing the right kinds of foods in order to best complement your workouts and get your body in the best shape possible.

Why choose love over money

‘You can earn money but never love.’ It’s one of the main reasons why love stands above everything else in the world. It is the only emotion that has the power to be eternal, whereas money is just temporary happiness. You may buy things, travel anywhere, be powerful but you can never buy love. That’s all the difference it takes. And so, we have listed down a few reasons why you should choose love over money.

I sensed something wrong, so I read my girlfriend’s messages; it’s much worse

How to Do It is Slate’s sex advice column.

Dear How to Do It,

I’m a 41-year-old man who met my partner (35-year-old woman) just two months before the pandemic, and we immediately connected on all levels from the start. Everything from activities to life goals to our sex life just seemed to click in spectacular fashion. I had been a couple years out of a divorce, and she had been a few years out of an abusive, all-consuming relationship, and we were both ready for something steady again. So we resolved to make it exclusive mere days before everything shut down. It felt serendipitous, and also weirdly at odds with the outside world: As everything was crumbling, we were discovering new ways to be excited about each other every day. It felt lucky to find joy in the middle of so much sadness. Our communication remained open and honest throughout: We were comfortable talking about everything from why our past relationships dissolved to what we wanted in bed to handling stress or needs for space.

Our sex life throughout was vigorous by my standards—several times a week, with both parties usually orgasming, sometimes multiple times per session. It was maybe a little vanilla by some folks’ standards, but that was mostly because we were too eager to rip each other’s clothes off to mess with extra layers. We leaned into the animal desire we had for each other, joking sometimes together that “our love language was fucking.” We moved in together midway through the pandemic and started talking about a future, maybe getting hitched, kids, the works.

Of course, in a story like this, there’s always a “but,” so here’s mine: She maintains relationships with many of her exes, including the ones who were abusive. One of them is a rich narcissist who still sends her expensive gifts; she can’t seem to cut him out, even though he let her take the fall for a mutual domestic altercation that sent her (wrongfully) to jail. Another ex-turned-friend pressured her for sex on a vacation they went on together as friends shortly after we got together, but before we became exclusive; I supported her from afar in fending him off with late-night texts encouraging her to stand her ground.

She told me she cut that ex off, but after we became exclusive, she left her phone at home and open and I noticed that she hadn’t in fact cut him off, and that this ex was also encouraging her to get rid of me and get back with him (though she professed no interest at all to me). It’s important to note that I didn’t root around for these texts—I was in the process of returning the phone to her and they were staring me in the face. We had an argument about it, and eventually she confided in me that she has issues with attention from men when she’s in a relationship, and that she has very few girlfriends. She feels she needs to keep these exes around because they’re the only friends she has. Though she’s grown close to my friends and family, in some way they “don’t count” because if I leave her, they will cease to be her friends, or something. It’s been an on-and-off issue, and the only real point of friction in our relationship. But things have gone so well otherwise that I’ve been content to let it fade into the background, even though I know these former-lover friends are bouncing around in her phone, if not in real life, given the pandemic.

Fast forward to now: For the last few weeks, something had felt off between us. So following our usual convention of open conversation, I tried on several occasions to figure out what was wrong, to no avail. She blamed it on flare-ups with anxiety and depression, which she struggles with and I do my best to support her with. I tried to mention that it felt like I was more into her than she was into me, but she pooh-poohed that notion.

With not much to go on and her not wanting to level, this time I did the no-no and snooped when she left her phone open. I don’t feel good about violating that boundary, and I know what your feelings are on this, but I felt like there was enough smoke that there must be fire, and sure enough I found a conversation with yet another ex where she said exactly “he’s definitely more into me than I am into him” and how she’s not as attracted to me as her exes. She mentioned that this relationship is “healthy” and “stable,” but without the thrill of attraction she’s used to. She expressed a desire to want settle down with me, because she was trying to be honest about how much time she had left, but remained “freaked out” about committing to a relationship when she wasn’t really into the sexual part of it.

I know: I did it to myself. But that doesn’t make it any less devastating, or contrary to what I believed we both were sharing and building on. I suppose it’s possible she wasn’t telling him the whole truth—but then I feel the only explanation is that she was lying or embellishing to communicate sexual availability to this ex.

I am now utterly lost. I had planned on building a future with this incredible woman, but a huge part of that was what I believed was a shared passion that could endure the test of time. It’s how I feel inside. I don’t know if I should apologize for snooping but confront her to get at the truth of these feelings, blindside her by just breaking up, or hope that what I feel between us is the truth and just let this sink below the waves so I can focus on what we have in the physical world. Please help.

—Lost

Dear Lost,

I’m not going to ride you about looking at your girlfriend’s phone the second time. You shouldn’t have, you know you shouldn’t have, and you’re not defending yourself for doing it. You’re also doing a lot of justification of her behavior.

I think the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic placed a lot of pressure on new—and existing—relationships. The stress, the restrictions on who we could share air with, and the fear and trauma all added up to us being not quite ourselves. Now that things are opening back up, we’re either reverting to form or coming out the other side different than we were when this started. I’m not sure which is happening for your girlfriend, but she certainly isn’t contributing to a healthy relationship.

If you aren’t ready to give up, by all means, go ahead and let this sink below the waves. At the end of the day, it’s your choice whether to stay or go. The thing about choppy waters, though, is that objects we thought lost to the depths have a way of resurfacing later. You’ve tried to have conversations about your feelings and insecurity within the relationship, and they haven’t been satisfactory. It seems unlikely that her behavior will change, but your feelings are your feelings.

If you decide you want to end this, you can break it off with her gently— “this isn’t working out.” But she’s probably going to be surprised, upset, and possibly hurt. She may be using you for stability and comfort while she gets her desires for attention, expensive gifts, and whatever else she gets out of these interactions met. She may genuinely love you and be struggling with sex that isn’t what she’s used to—toxic relationships tend to make for great sexual energy.

You would do well to articulate what you want out of a relationship somewhere—maybe to a trusted friend, maybe on paper—and compare it with your current situation to help you decide. Good luck and let us know how it goes.

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