ADVICE GODDESS

ACROSS

1 Model in the Beach Boys’

“Fun, Fun, Fun” 6 “Nightmare” street 9 Middles 15 Demonstrating skill 19 Subtle glows 20 Wasikowska of

“Damsel” 21 Allergic outburst 22 Hudson Bay nation 23 *Grizzly, for one 25 *Olaf II of

Norway, notably 27 Ornamental vase 28 Earthly 30 MLB Hall of

Famer Fox and journalist Bly 31 __ a soul 32 Va. winter hours 34 Genesis twin 35 Hose clamp tightener 37 More klutzy 40 Prepare, as a contract 45 Like some dorms 46 *It goes up in cold weather 48 Sound of shock 49 Sharply hit baseball 51 Relax, maybe 52 Wolf down 54 Guru’s residence 56 Pool concern 57 Loses steam 60 Claim no longer allowed on cigarettes 62 Fortune 64 Show with constant cliffhangers 66 Cell division 68 NL Central club 69 *Nickname for

Joe DiMaggio 73 Words of understanding 75 Uses, as a scale 77 Candy bar with a

Nordic name 78 Self-reproach 80 Thinks 82 Played really badly 85 Comic book artist 86 Mentally assimilate 88 A musician usually has a good one 90 Originally called 91 Bête __ 92 Willing to listen (to) 93 *The sun will eventually be one 97 Button alternative 98 Posse carriers 101 Max Ernst, for one 102 True 104 Yearn 106 Eye, to a poet 107 Pickup relatives, briefly 108 Condemnation 111 Zip one’s lip 114 “Rugrats” dad 117 *ICBM booster until 1987 120 They’re on the same side ... and a hint to the answers to starred clues 122 Pizzazz 123 Spiritualist

Deepak 124 Bagpiper’s topper 125 Past pudgy 126 Target of a military press 127 “Dear Evan __”: 2015 musical 128 Mahershala of

“Moonlight” 129 Grown-up efts

DOWN

1 Perfume that sounds forbidden 2 VP under

Jefferson 3 Par-3 choice, often 4 Not even rare?

5 Insurance that covers dams? 6 Manicurist’s board 7 Yarn spinner 8 Dark area on the moon 9 Surfboard/kayak hybrid 10 Yellowfin tuna 11 Response to goo 12 Slugger’s creation 13 Shades 14 “I’m __ to hear from you!” 15 Smoothie fruit 16 Cheese on crackers 17 Telescope part 18 To this day 24 Docking place 26 Result of one too many, maybe 29 Rookie, briefly 31 “I can’t agree to this” 33 Scrabble piece 35 Going places? 36 *Kipling’s Shere

Khan is one 37 Author Sheehy 38 Relaxed 39 Airline with an allkosher menu 41 Turkish bigwigs 42 *“Virtuous

Woman” reggae singer 43 Solheim Cup team 44 Fluoride-in-water meas. 45 Cat’s weapons 47 Little trickster 50 Confirms, as a password 53 Sub 54 China __: showy bloom 55 Use for preservation, as wine barrels 58 Takes off 59 Pass rusher’s stat 61 Small intake 63 Attacks 65 Story line 67 Singer Ed featured in the 2019 film

“Yesterday” 70 “Just kidding!” 71 Place for a pad 72 Modern Persians 74 __ throat 76 Utopias 79 Knowledge of spiritual matters 81 Bareilles of

“Waitress” 83 Without ice 84 Understanding 86 Quote from

Homer 87 2012 Facebook event, for short 89 Overhaul 94 Sunbather’s pride 95 Poke fun at 96 Best Supporting

Actress before

Ingrid 99 Merit 100 Discolor by burning 101 Military alert state 103 Jack of “Some

Like It Hot” 105 To-do 107 It was added to create an everyday quintet in 1990 108 Tick off 109 Series finale:

Abbr. 110 Huff and puff 112 R&B great James 113 Ring at a wedding 114 State of suppressed worry 115 Reason to cram 116 List for a versatile tool 117 Talk acronym 118 Mil. mess duties 119 Before, poetically 121 Presidential nickname

THE FASTIDIOUS AND THE FURIOUS

I’m a woman in my 20s seeking a boyfriend. On the first date, I like to have a few drinks and, if the guy and I hit it off, have sex to see whether we have physical chemistry. Lately, I’ve had a string of great first dates – flowing conversation, emotional rapport, and what seemed to be long-term potential – yet they all ghosted me after sex. Are men still living in the Victorian Age? — Confused

The wait to have sex with you mirrors the mandatory waiting period to buy a plastic squirt gun. That said, you aren’t wrong to want to figure out upfront whether there’s sexual chemistry. As for just how “upfront” to do that, there’s reason to slow your roll – even if it means you get involved with a few guys who turn out to be sexual duds. Because a woman can get pregnant from a single ill-advised naked romp, women evolved to be the “choosier” sex – to take a “Hmm, we’ll see...” approach: stand back and assess a man’s potential to “provide” and willingness to commit before dropping their panties (and everything else) on his bedroom floor. Men co-evolved to expect female choosiness and to need to prove themselves over time to women of

high mate value: women who can hold out for just the right guy. In short, men tend to value (and stick around for) what’s hard to, uh, grope. Women are also more likely to succumb to a sort of alcohol-induced blindness, which psychiatrist Andy Thomson, in an email to evolutionary psychologist David Buss, called the “Prosecco perception bias,” after the Italian sparkling wine. Buss, who included this in his book, “When Men Behave Badly,” explains that women have less of the alcohol-detoxifying enzyme, alcohol dehydrogenase. (That’s why women get more rapidly drunk than men, even when they throw back less alcohol per pound of body weight.) “Because alcohol stimulates bonding endorphins, women are more likely to misread interactions with men” when tipsy, Buss explains, and “overestimate the likelihood of an emotional bond and a long-term relationship.” Sure, there are blissful long-term relationships that started out with no-strings-attached sex. However, because you’re a woman hoping to find a boyfriend, having sex on the first date is a risky strategy. There’s a way to get a guy to stick around after sex, and it’s to wait to have it till he’s got feelings for you – though, admittedly, zip-tying him to your headboard works, too.

GHOSTING STORY

I’m a straight guy using dating apps. What’s with the constant flaking that guy friends and I experience from women we’re meeting for first dates? One woman on Hinge texted me to confirm 30 minutes before we were meeting at a bar but never showed and stopped responding to my texts. The next day, she complained that her phone had died. Another girl on Bumble agreed to have drinks, but when I texted her the day of, she unmatched. This extreme rudeness only happens with women I meet on dating apps, not those I meet in person, like at a friend’s party. Any idea why?

— Disturbed

There are valid reasons to be a no-show for a date with no explanation, for example, the experience so many of us have of being abducted by aliens who don’t have a charger that fits our phone. This rudeness you’re experiencing – all these women treating you like a disposable object instead of a person with feelings – isn’t caused by app use, per se. The problem, as I explain in “Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck,” is that we are now “living in societies too big for our brains”: vast, transient “strangerhoods.” We didn’t evolve to be around strangers and aren’t psychologically equipped to live in a world filled with them because the psychology still powering our thinking (and behavior) today is adapted for small ancestral hunter-gatherer societies. Ancestral humans might’ve been stuck with pretty much the same 25 people for much of their lives (per estimates by anthropologists Robert L. Kelly and Irven DeVore) and might’ve have had a larger surrounding society of perhaps 100 to 150 people. In the tiny ancestral world, the need to preserve one’s reputation was a psychological police force that kept even rotten people from acting their rotten worst. (This is still a factor today in small towns where everybody knows everybody.) In contrast, strangers “meeting” in the virtual world – on apps that are basically eBay for dates – have no shared social context, so... bye-bye fear of reputational ruin! In other words, when connecting via an app, it’s probably a good idea to expect unreliability. You might even bring a book to read in case a woman ends up running a little late – uh, intends to leave you sitting there at the bar until you decompose.

GOT A PROBLEM? Write to Amy Alkon at 171 Pier Ave, Ste. 280, Santa Monica, CA 90405, or email her at AdviceAmy@aol.com.

Can You Spot The Invasive Species In the Ballona Wetlands?

The 2015 SoCalGas Aliso Canyon methane blowout was one of the worst greenhouse gas emission events in US history, forcing residents to flee their homes, closing schools and making thousands sick.Their Playa del Rey sister-facility stands out as one of the riskiest gas storage operations in the state. Allowing its continued operation in our community and embedded in the Ballona Wetlands Ecological Reserve is daring history to repeat itself.

Given its location, a similar event would devastate fragile coastal ecosystems, the surrounding community, local businesses and property values, with an evacuation area potentially including Santa Monica, Culver City and Los Angeles International Airport. The current plan that is masquerading as a “restoration” calls for more SoCalGas drilling infrastructure and bulldozing large sections of the wetlands. This is an unacceptable threat to native species of plants, wildlife, local residents and business. It’s a timebomb wrapped up in a wrecking ball.

Sempra Energy, the owner of SoCalGas is a 60 billion dollar company. They can afford to find another way to deliver energy to their customers. We can afford nothing less than the closure of this facility and withdrawal of the destructive plan that would benefit SoCalGas more than any other entity. Defend the Ballona Wetlands and tell our elected leaders not to gamble our future for Sempra Energy’s profit.