Ann, 33

A guy just asked me out. He's a devout Christian and I'm a devout atheist. Do you think we have any chance of making it work?
Of course you have a chance to make it work. The key would be to be particularly open and honest. And to practice really quality communications and to explain to one another what you believe, why you believe it, and how it impacts your life and how it would impact a relationship with one another.

The guy I've been dating has only been with three women. I've been with at least thirty men, and more women than he has. I know it's only a matter of time before he wants to know how many partners I've had. Should I tell him the truth and risk scaring him off or is it okay in this case to tell a little white lie?
Always err on the side of being honest. Because when you're not honest with the person you love you risk the opportunity of really damaging the relationship and also feeling guilty about it yourself. So if you want to build a lifelong relationship, it's best to get off on the right foot and just tell the truth.

My boyfriend of five years just bought a house and wants me to move in. I really like living alone, but I'm afraid if I don't move in we're going to break up. He keeps saying things like "our relationship isn't going anywhere." What should I do?
Your boyfriend might have a point. Not necessarily that you should move in together, but that you might want to consider where your relationship is going with him. What do you want out of your life? A lifelong relationship with one person? To get married? Live together? If that's what you want, then you should go through the necessary steps to have that happen, but if it isn't what you want you should be honest with your boyfriend.

I'm a twenty-seven-year-old woman dating a twenty-two-year-old guy. He won't have sex with me unless we're officially in a relationship and I don't want to officially be in a relationship until we've had sex. What's a good compromise?
So, each of you have your own set of values over issues of relationships and sex. Perhaps the best way to move forward is to actually talk about some of your and his concerns and fears in order to understand why you think and feel the way each of you does.

I've been volunteering at the local soup kitchen lately and I'm 99.9% sure the cute, young, single pastor has been flirting with me. I've finally built up the Hooksexup to ask him out, but have no idea how to go about actually doing it. Any suggestions?
First off, folks should know that pastors really shouldn't date members of their congregation. I'm going to assume that as a soup kitchen volunteer you're not a church member. Which — good news for you — makes you entirely fair game. Just ask him out like you would ask anyone else out. Plus you should probably know he's actually dying for a date.

I'm a twenty-seven-year-old gay man, and I've come out to everyone but my very religious parents. On one hand, I feel like by not telling them, I'm living a lie. But on the other, I don't want to break their hearts, and I know they'll never understand or accept it. What should I do?
I understand what you're feeling because I felt similarly myself. But I discovered that perhaps I was prejudging my religiously conservative family by assuming I knew what they thought about my being gay. I ended up taking the risk and coming out to them, and though it may have taken a little bit of time, they came around to be wonderfully supportive. Had I just stayed in the closet I never would have given them the opportunity to know who I truly was and to know the person who I cared about and shared my life with. Ultimately, they decided that what they really wanted was to be a family to me. I would recommend praying about it and perhaps being open to the fact that maybe they love you more than you think. It actually takes a lot more courage to allow people to love you than to assume that they're going to hate you.