Is it a big deal when a guy asks you to spend the night?

What's the big deal about "spending the night"? Well, plenty. To be honest, I'm sick to death of men assuming that just because they've paid for your dinner, told you they like your hair and offered to take you to a trip, you will go back to their place … that night. "Just to talk," they'll tell you.

"Just to cuddle," they'll beseech. "Just to tickle your back." Bollocks.

"Oh that's the line I always use," my womanising pal J told me the other night.

I was asking him about this kind of behaviour that I'd noticed repeatedly from men who'd asked me out, and wondered if every man under the sun asked the same question.

And if so, what's their real intention? Did they really only ask you out on a date to have you come back to their abode? Surely they can't all assume that we're all that dumb?

"Not every man asks that," J snapped. "Just the ones who think they can get some."

But here's the thing: J says that, more times than not, the men actually succeed. "There are so many girls out there willing to do that, it becomes sort of a game. And if we're just out to have some fun, we think, why waste time on ones who won't?"

Great. My girlfriends told me I was harping on about nothing. That it was because I usually wear short skirts (I don't own anything below the knee), tight dresses and heels to rival Victoria Beckham that I put the wrong message out to the men I date.

"You need to wear something a little less … revealing," my girlfriends finally told me. "And stop being so gushy too. You don't have to try so hard to make them like you. They should be trying to get your attention. Not the other way around."

What about the women who fail the male test? Is it really that big a deal if they decide - just once - to go up and see the view from his window?

"It's about putting a value on yourself and knowing what's going to happen without being naive," says my girlfriend Donna, who is a dating expert and author of Never Trust a Man in Alligator Loafers.

"When you are spending four to six hours in skin-to-skin contact with someone, all of a sudden your body starts wanting sex, not just your mind. And it's really hard to say no. Every hour you spend skin to skin, all the reasons not to go out the window."

She also says that the morning-after syndrome is very real. "When you wake up and your mascara is run, your feet hurt from the heels you wore, and you look at each other and hardly recognise one another, the fantasy is gone. You're thinking that he's seen you naked and yet you don't even know how to spell his last name."

Right. Either way, no one told me this dating stuff was going to be so bloody darn difficult. And confusing. And that there'd be so many freaking rules. Whatever happened to just "being yourself"? I guess that must have gone the way of VHR machines and Chris Brown's reputation.

But c'mon blokes (and I'm not only talking to the players out there), what happened to basking in the ability to get to know one another? What happened to waxing poetically about your similarities and laughing off your differences? Sharing an intimate kiss at the end of a delectable evening together before embracing goodnight and making plans to see each other… another time? Seriously… are all men the same? Or just the ones I meet?

After analysing the situation, seeking advice from the experts, weighing up the possible responses and deciding on what to do, when it happened for the fifth time in a row, I was finally prepared.

"You should see the view from my apartment," a first date recently asked during dessert. "It's amazinggggg."

"Oh, I'd really love to…" I oozed cheerfully, before adding, "but maybe another time."

While that answer certainly managed to shut him up, I'm quite sure it put me into the no-second-date category, but I didn't give a toss. Surely there must be some blokes out there who are willing to take a woman out without an expectation at the end of the night? Not even "just to cuddle" as they so eloquently put it?

Why do we bother? Is it really that important to find a partner? Why can't we just be happy by ourselves for all eternity? I was thinking the same thing, believe me.

To get answers, an interview with Helen Fisher while she was recently in New York. (The trip was supposed to bring me a summer fling, help me get over my break-up and heal my broken heart in the way Julia Roberts's character Elizabeth Gilbert was able to in the film Eat, Pray, Love. Sure I ate loads, dated loads (there is never a shortage of people wanting to hook you up with their friends) and drank my weight in vodka. (What else are you supposed to do on a boring date?)

But I certainly didn't fall in love. Rather, all this frolicking about in search of something made me crave the safety, familiarity and the chivalrous way my ex-boyfriend treated me. Of course I wanted to see his bloody apartment at the end of the night – I lived in it!

In case you haven't heard of Fisher, she's the brilliant woman behind recent research into dating and relationships from the Rutgers University in New Jersey, and also the author of Why Him, Why Her?

First question to her was this: do we really all need love? And if so, why?

"We need it for evolutionary reasons," she explained. "We all have three powerful brain systems that drive us to find a partner: our sex drive, the need for romantic love and the yearning for attachment – all necessary for the ultimate goal that has been our goal for millions of years: reproduction. We are a species that exists to form pair-bonds with the opposite sex to have babies."

She explained the purpose of each brain system: sex drive is to try people out. Romantic love enables us to focus our mating energy on one person at a time. And the yearning for attachment is what sustains us together to rear children as a team. "Those who didn't fall in love and just had sex wandered off, had fewer children and died out. It wasn't the best choice."

(She also said that love doesn't last forever and that research done in 58 societies found that divorce is most common in the fourth year of marriage after a couple has stayed together to raise a child through infancy.)

So why all the casual sex? According to Fisher, and a recent study, we're all just kidding ourselves.

"A study found that 50 per cent of women and 52 per cent of men actually had a one-night stand with the hope of creating a longer-lasting relationship." The study also found that a third of one-night-stands end up in relationships after all.

Hmm. Perhaps a "cuddle" at the end of a date isn't so bad after all ...

At The Boys' Club: Scary Girlfriend Behaviors

Clingy. High maintenance. Pushing boundaries. Mates with her ex. It seems that while we're often preoccupied in this column with naming and shaming the myriad douchebag behaviours of men - such as bonking and fleeing (without a phone call), doing a Tiger Woods on their wives (OK, so perhaps not that extreme but you get the picture), or quite simply forgetting to pick up their socks off the floor (you'd be surprised at how catty some women can get when smelly laundry is involved) - we forget about the things women do to upset men.

For years I thought that, once you met the man of your dreams, stopped playing text message games and actually agreed to settle down together, playing the role of "girlfriend" would be the easy part.

After all, ask any singleton and they'll be quick to snort that finding a man in the first place is the tough part thanks to the "man drought", rampant casual sex and commitment-phobic blokes who toss you aside like a used piece of gum.

I thought that, once you were officially the girlfriend, you could let down your hair, wipe off that sticky lip gloss (which men secretly hate), start hanging out in your sweat pants and ugg boots and everything would be hunky dory, chocolate dipped strawberries and sensual foot massages for all eternity. Surely it should get easier from thereon in … right? Apparently not ...

I'm often stopped in the streets by people begging me to listen to their relationship conundrums. Whether they're single, married, de facto, dating, booty-call bonking – whatever – I'm often shocked, sometimes traumatised and always amused to discover some of the bad behaviour that occurs within seemingly happy relationships that look perfect from the outside.

But what recently had me bamboozled is something I discovered about the fairer sex and their behaviour when the initial courtship wears off.

I was first made aware of this when my gay hairdresser friend regaled me with stories about a few of his female clients – all smart, professional, gorgeous career women – who had been exhibiting a certain decorum (or rather lack thereof) towards the gents they'd been seeing before they promptly got dumped.

This sort of behaviour is known as SGB, or Scary Girlfriend Behaviour.

"These women don't understand that they got dumped because they are just too difficult to deal with," he warned me.

"Single girls these days need to come across as being low maintenance as possible and easy to be around – especially in long-term relationships. Because, trust me, I see it all the time; the men who are stuck in relationships with women who are impossible to please will quickly start looking for a way out."

This got me thinking about some of my own awful SGB. My latest memory is of the time I got drunk at my best girlfriend's 30th birthday party and ended up staying out until four in the morning. Which is all well and fine, but the following day my boyfriend at the time had organised a surprise romantic getaway together for our monthsarry. (I ended up stuck in bed for the entire trip.)

And that wasn't the only case. I think back and realise that I often put my girlfriends before my man, was away for work on his birthday (twice) and was too busy with my own life to worry about making much effort in his.

But according to a recent story for male web portal Ask Men, my behaviour isn't as bad as some can get. There's stalking, introducing herself to his family and friends behind his back, getting a key to his house made without him knowing, getting physical when arguing, and the top SGB trait - not letting him break up with her.

A gent who I spoke to the other night was in the opposite predicament. He told me that, while he recently got dumped by a girl for being "too nice", (what she really meant was that he might have been displaying personality traits of a beta male), he wished he would have had the guts to dump her first, considering she displayed first class symptoms of SGB.

When I asked him why the heck he didn't do something about it at the time, and how in the world he let it go on for an entire year, he told me this:

"I'm a tyrant in the office. I pull up my team constantly on their S#$%. But with her, and with women in general, I just can't do it. I'm a nice guy. It's just not me."

Are women any better at pulling at the male bad behaviour? Or do we always give the guy another shot?

In the past few months, I've heard (and lived through) some horror stories with men and have decided that, since so many women are so darn desperate for a man, they're actually slightly more forgiving than the blokes when it comes to scary boyfriend (or first date) behaviour.

In case you're wondering what the men have done oh-so-wrong, here's a list I've compiled of some pretty bad blokey behaviour that I've recently witnessed. And all the women who've experienced any of it ... have all gone back for second helpings ...

* Telling you you're being immature for not sleeping with him after two weeks of dating.

* Pretending there's an after-party at his house to get you back to his empty room.

* Finding another woman's toothbrush in his bathroom … AFTER you've slept with him.

* Ringing his mate in front of you and saying: "She's made it quite clear she isn't going to put out so I'll meet you at the Commodore Bar in fifteen."

* Conveniently forgetting his wallet after asking you out for dinner and choosing the priciest restaurant in the city.

* Telling you that he's deciding between you and another girl ... with topless pictures of her to prove it.

Gen Y men are not as scared of settling down as some say

The other day I was listening to a radio interview in which a so-called marriage expert was complaining about the fact that the rising divorce rate was all the fault of Gen Y.

"They don't understand the meaning of commitment," he spat. "It's all their fault that divorce rates are so high."Hmm. Being a member of Gen Y myself, I can attest that commitment is certainly fading. A quick poll of my friends found that, while some of them are indeed married, the rest are gallivanting around the world, learning foreign languages in various countries from Bali to Beirut, job hopping, relationship hopping, engaging in one-night flings (and not feeling guilty about it), eschewing any notion of long-term plans and certainly not worrying about being fiscally responsible. (Studies show that Gen Y do indeed have the attitude of being able to "have it all".)

"Why now when I'm still young?" they rationalise. "I have all the time in the world for that stuff." Some of them are in their 30s.
But all this got me wondering. Sure, Gen Y are being accused of a myriad things from not being able to stay in jobs long enough to engender loyalty to growing credit card debts and the growing number of STDs. But divorce? Really?
Sure, we can blame our parents for not teaching us about long-term financial responsibility or for encouraging us to follow our dreams and constantly telling us that "anything is possible". But does that mean we understand relationship commitments any less?

US-based psychologist Nancy Irwin, said that, sure, half of all Gen Yers grew up in divorced homes. And yet she says the fact Gen Y are more cautious about jumping into a lifelong commitment is actually a positive thing.
"I find it extremely encouraging that the younger generations are more thoughtful about marriage and family, and feel free to choose alternative lifestyles. No longer is singledom looked down on as loserdom! Living together and having children outside marriage is accepted more and more. It seems like the Gen Yers are the ones that are really driving this progress. Good for Gen Y! They are extending the menu of choices, and actually solidifying the concept of marriage."

The author of A Little Bit Married: How to know when it's time to walk own the aisle or walk out the door says it's too early to tell whether or not Gen Y relationships will end in divorce.

"The majority of Gen Yers do want to get married and do want commitment," she tells me. "I don't see it as commitment-phobia but rather as an economic issue. A lot of people don't want to get married until they're in a better place financially."
This is her explanation of the growing number of couples who date long term, live together, even raise families together, and just don't tie the knot.

When I carried out a poll of a mix of Gen Yers and baby boomers, one career woman in her 30s, named Juliette, had this to say: "Gen Y do not understand commitment in the same manner as previous generations. You can thank the media and the rise of sexualised and porn culture for this ... "

But Tamariqa says that it's not a Gen Y thing at all.
"Are baby boomers really that committed? Or did they settle down early because of social stigma?" she asks in response to my question. "I know many boomers who divorce later in life. How committed is that? Gen Y have more options, especially women - we have to have careers. Why should we also accept a man as a husband when they have outdated ideas about women's roles? On another note, if Gen Y are so afraid of commitment, why the big push for gay marriage?"
She has a point.

When I look at my girlfriend P, who is a poster child for feminism and putting one's career before dating, men and commitment, I often wonder if her decision is symptomatic of a bad childhood, a misunderstanding of commitment, or a generation gone wrong.

Sure, you can tell me many people choose to be single. But when I ask P if she believes in commitment, she tells me that she does so more than anything and yet, because she's blocked out the quest for a relationship for so long, she's almost forgotten how to go about meeting men.

"I think it's time," she tells me. "I want to find a husband. I'm tired of being alone." And that is perhaps the point at which everyone – no matter from what generation you hail – begins to understand the meaning of commitment …