Melissa Petro

If you missed my weekly column this summer all about getting engaged and planning a wedding, here’s the highlight reel: after doing

Arran and I joke that no one wants to go to a wedding, not really— and maybe that’s true, but (perhaps naively) we had thought of the day as a gift to everyone involved, including ourselves.

Everyone I talk to agrees: Apparently, wedding planning is the most awful thing ever! Seriously, I did not know that when I first got engaged. This got me thinking... What else don’t I know?

Sometimes the fights I pick with my fiancé are really fights with myself.

Would Sheryl Sandberg be able to get away with leaning in while donning Zuckerberg's signature v-neck T-shirt and jeans? History says no.

Teaching sex ed the right way doesn’t have to be weird or hard.

Without a doubt, going to AA meetings saved my life. But after six years of devoted participation, my attendance dwindled until, about a year ago, I stopped going entirely. Contrary to what I was taught when I was in the program, my sobriety’s just fine. You can stay sober without AA — at least, I can. Here’s how I do it.

"Certainly, my life as an alcoholic was not what most would imagine. I was a writer, living in the West Village of New York City, enrolled in a prestigious graduate program and working on a book. At least, this was my cover story."

The other day my friend on Facebook had made a remark about how there are people who have multiple income streams and travel abroad constantly and drive cars and eat at restaurants every week and then talk about class privilege like they don't have it and in my mind I was like, Oh. Yeah. She’s right. In the past six months or so, my life has dramatically changed.

For someone like me — someone with difficulty forming and maintaining relationships, who has struggled with commitment, and who’s got intimacy issues galore — surely, you can see the appeal. You don’t need to be Freud to figure out why, at a disturbingly young age, I looked forward to the day a man would commit.