6. Nagging

There are many ways to get someone to do something. Nagging is not among those ways. It makes someone resent not only whatever it is that needs to be done, but the person nagging them as well.

If you want your boyfriend to grow an intense dislike for you as a person, then nagging is your method of choice. But if you want him to do the dishes more often, you might want to try a different approach.

5. Demanding attention at the worst possible times

No matter how much a guy loves you, sometimes he just wants to (or has to) spend time on other things. And that should be alright. After all, he’s your partner, not your Siamese twin. If you don’t respect his personal space, you will just end up driving him insane.

So if he spends the occasional afternoon goofing off on the computer, watching the game on tv or “fixing” things in the garage, just let him be and maybe bring him a beer. He’ll love you for it, and will return the favor when you want some “you-time”.

4. Saying the opposite of what you mean

When he asks you if something is the matter, saying “I’m fine” is the worst possible way to tell him that you’re upset about something. Even if he realizes that you’re actually not fine at all, that answer makes it all but impossible for him to actually figure out what’s wrong and do something about it.

3. Getting between him and his friends

So you don’t like his buddies – perhaps even rightly so. But no matter how much you dislike them, something you should never do is try to come between him and his friends.

Even if you truly despise them, you don’t need to tell him about it. He probably knows it already, anyway.

2. Asking questions you don’t want answered

Do those jeans make you look fat? Is that girl prettier than you? Was his ex-girlfriend better in bed? Would he prefer watching the game and drinking beer over having dinner with your parents?

Every guy knows what the “correct” answer to these questions is, no matter what he actually thinks. And you know that he knows, so you also know that the answer you’ll be getting has nothing to do with what he thinks, and everything with his desire not to upset you.

Of course, it’s okay to ask such questions occasionally even if you already know what the answer will be. But if you ask them constantly, you will just drive him crazy in your quest for validation.

1. Being obsessively jealous

A bit of jealousy is normal, and even flattering. But when your boyfriend mentions something a female co-worker said, that does not mean he’s having an affair with her. And it definitely doesn’t mean you should spend the next three months obsessing over her and hinting that he has a thing for her.

Well, for all female readers, here’s the answer once and for all. We actually, truly, really are thinking about nothing at all. Nothing coherent, anyway. We might have random fantasies involving being a superhero, fighting ninjas, becoming president, racing formula one cars, becoming professional wrestlers, hunting sharks or climbing mountains.

Of course, there are times that we seriously think about things. But those times are few and far between. Most of the time, we’re just thinking about nothing at all, and at best you’ll be disturbing a pleasant daydream if you ask us what we’re thinking about. Ask the question if you have to, but if we answer with “nothing”, accept that it’s probably the truth.

So if you occasionally ask us if we think you’re still beautiful, that’s perfectly ok. We’ll even mean it when we answer with the obligatory “of course, you’re absolutely gorgeous!”

What’s not ok, however, is if you keep asking it again and again. Our opinion isn’t likely to change in a week, much less in an hour. If we’re dating you or are married to you, regularly have sex with you, and like touching your body even at the most inappropriate of times, we expect those things to make the answer pretty clear already. At that point, if you continue to ask about it, it’s not just annoying. It actually shows you don’t trust us.

We like your body. It’s probably not perfect, but we don’t care. It’s like a tasty pizza – we want to enjoy it, not think about whether or not it’s the best we’ve ever seen. To us, the fact that we get to play with it is far more important than any possible imperfections. And as long as you allow us to watch it and touch it, we’ll be entirely happy with it.

Fair warning before I go on: being a man, I am not unbiased in this argument.

As said above, it’s really a ridiculous thing to fight over. After all, either putting the seat up or down is a small trouble. So why do people keep fighting over it?

From a woman’s perspective, I suppose it makes some sense. I can’t imagine accidentally sitting down on a seatless toilet or even sitting down and falling in to be fun. Funny, perhaps, but not fun. So you women might have a point when you ask us to put the seat down.

However, looking from the man’s perspective, it’s about more than just the toilet seat. It’s about control. Every time a man takes a pee, he already puts up the seat. So to us, having you just put it down before you pee doesn’t seem like something that should be a big deal.

If you complain or nag about it anyway, it feels like you are trying to control even the smallest things we do. And while the act of putting down the toilet seat might not be a big deal, having someone try to control what you do in the bathroom is.

My advice: let it go. Forcing a man to put down the seat when he’s done will make sure he feels like you’re trying to control his life every time he takes a pee. And that’s hardly a recipe for love.