Normally I would complain about having to spend Valentine’s Day in Austin, Texas, with the likes of Tucker Max. But considering he's helping me prepare my book for publishing, it's the best Valentine's ever.

Well, kinda ...

Friday night I was sitting alone at a coffee shop/bar in downtown Austin, drinking a spiked coffee while entrenched in the edits Tucker assigned me, when a guy plopped down in the extra chair at my table. In a deep English accent he introduced himself, “I'm Eddie, what’s your name?”

I peered over my computer screen, “Ummmm … Brittney.”

"What are you working on?" he asked.

My train of thought was completely ruined, and I was irritated that he'd so boldly interrupted me. What do you want, dude? I'm just working on the biggest project of my life and have five minutes to finish it. I'm not busy or anything.

But I tried to be friendly and threw some closed-ended answers at him: “Some writings.”

"Oh really ... what are you writing?"

"A book."

He sat there for five minutes asking random questions that I responded to with one-word answers. Soon, a buzzer goes off — I assumed it was coming from the noisy downtown streets beyond the open doors 10 feet from me.

“OK, nice to meet you,” he said, getting up from the chair he invited himself to sit down in.

“Oooo… K then, you too,” I responded, rolling my eyes at him as he turns around to sit at another table where another girl sat alone. Maybe she'll want to talk to you — weirdo.

The chair still warm from Eddie's ass, another guy moseyed on up and copped a squat. What is up with the guys in Austin? Is this standard procedure down here? The place is packed so maybe he just needs a seat. But he didn't even have ask. Chivalry is an endangered species, I swear.

“Hey, I’m Jim.”

Apparently writing this blog makes me some sort of relationship expert, because it inspired an invitation from ESPNU to host a a Valentine's Day segment to school boys in how to survive Valentine's Day.

You can watch the segment here, but in synopsis, here are some words of wisdom to get gentlemen through D-Day. I mean, V-day ...

1. Well for starters, don't forget! Though, jewelry commercials certainly make it hard to forget about Valentine's Day. But help the economy (and yourself by making your woman happy) and partake in the Hallmark holiday.

2. Don't get a gift from a drug store or a gas station. Make us feel classy and get our box of chocolates from the grocery store at least.

3. No stuffed animals! ... unless you're shopping for a 10-year-old girl, which in that case would make you gross. Women make their beds with throw pillows as adults, not teddy bears.

4. Be creative when setting up the date. Besides, the more creative you get the cheaper the date gets. And be tactful — don't take her to an expensive steak house if she doesn't eat meat.

Valentine's is typically a holiday geared toward couples and florists, but in all honestly, single men seem to actually reap most of the benefits from it. They can go out on Valentine's Day with the unavailable women already weeded out for them, leaving an assortment of single women looking for a little love, or loving — whatever. And they don't even have to buy a present.Thus the single guys seem to be the ones who score the most on Valentine's Day. Pun intended.

According to the best-selling book by Tucker Max, Assholes Finish First … because we all know the nice guy finishes last. The nice guys in the back of the line can confirm.

And according to another best selling-book, by Sherry Argov, Men Love Bitches. She even goes so far to tell you why.

So does this mean nice girls finish last, while bitches finish first?

I don’t think either gender is exempt from this distorted phenomenon … while the good girl goes after the bad boy, the nice guy likes the bad girl. It makes total sense.

When a person lets someone walk all over them, they will, whether they intend to or not … and then lose respect for said person as they’re digging their heels into their heart.

I'm not even running in the race anymore — you'll find me just driving around in circles, spinning my wheels while assholes like Kyle Busch keep winning. Why? Because I’ve been too sweet to the guys I’m sweet on. I translate into a welcome mat for them to walk all over.

And not just in the dating world either. People will ungratefully abuse my generosity, preying on it like it’s a weakness. Since when has being a good person made you a victim for bad people? But maybe they’re not the asshole for taking advantage of us — we’re the assholes for letting them.

Speaking of assholes, Tucker Max actually makes an excellent point in his book, that men will give women as much respect as they demand they be given. If they care about you, they will meet those demands. If they don’t, they won’t. Simple as that.

I know I was way too nice to him, and he played me like I was a saxophone. I know I shouldn’t have submitted to the situation of not being his priority, I shouldn’t have pretended like it didn’t bother me when he wasn’t consistent, I shouldn’t have stayed in the game when he was making then changing the rules. I shouldn’t have answered his texts because he didn’t pick up the phone and call. And I should’ve said, “Fuck you very much,” rather than thank him when he pulled a make-up sample kit out of a goody bag he got for free from an event, which was two shades lighter than my skin and said, “I got you a Christmas present.”

By caring about a person too much you give them leverage not to care. There's a thin line between nice and naive, and when walking it, it's easy to lose your balance — just try not to lose your dignity while you're at it.

You don’t have to be mean in order to show strength, but you can be more selective about who you’re kind to — only people who are kind to you. So no more giving more than you get, especially from someone who is selfish with your selflessness. So no more Miss Nice Girl! … but I’m still not going to be a bitch.

After holding out for 15 seasons, I broke down and started watching The Bachelor for the first time this season, merely because I know two of the girls on it – Kim and Emily, both from Charlotte. And after DVR’ing the season thus far and even attending a Bachelor viewing party for the first episode to support Team Kim and Emily, I am still rather confused. Can someone please explain this show to me?

So let me get this straight … There are 25 girls living in a house like sorority sisters, but are all fighting over the same guy? And he goes around making out with each of them until he decides which one he wants to marry?

Since when has winning a man’s affection become an audition where you vie to make the cut? Do we like a challenge so much that we’re willing to make dating into a game show, literally?

A harem of women competing for one man on national television gives him the power to say, “Any many miny mo, catch a ho with a rose.”

The Bachelor is everything that is wrong with the world of dating.

So, I kinda freaked about turning 30 when it occurred to me that not only was I 30 years old … my skin was, too. And it was showing its age far more so than my attitude.

I bought into the whole commercialized “beauty is youth” cultural confusion and started fearing age like it was a terrorist ready to attack. And I got brainwashed into thinking I needed to combat it.

When a commercial came on TV and asked, “Are you tired? … of having big bag under your eyes?” I said yes. And then it told me to “Stop the signs of aging!” And I said OK, how much?

So I went to Sephora in SouthPark Mall to gift myself some magical youth creams. I convinced the woman at Sephora to give me like five sample tubes of the various eye creams laid out like tools in a chemistry lab, settling on a $75 five-ounce bottle of eye cream that I got because it made my eyes tingle. “That means it’s working,” assured the sales clerk.

I also got some Loreal AM and PM wrinkle filler and some fancy collagen eye gel while in Jamaica.

I tossed over $200 into the fountain of youth — 2,000 pennies worth of wishes to retain my youthful glow and elastic skin. That was like investing in insecurities. And just like that, my paranoia of aging has turned into vanities.

I have a new-found empathy for bridezillas.

You spend all this money, time and effort into planning the perfect party. You coordinate it like a production, buy a new dress, and even put on fake eyelashes ... and then something goes wrong and your expectations became disappointments. You can’t help but get pissed — and being the center of attention makes it hard to disguise the fact that you are.

Well, my 30th birthday party was like my wedding … and got to be so big it felt like it was, with the pressure of turning 30 bearing down on me like cold feet. I had 90 people joining me to the Bobcats game, and then we took a party bus from the arena to Butter, where I spent a week trying to coordinate everything from decorations and deliveries of party rentals.

My phone blew up the entire dinner from all the people from the game calling and texting asking me where Front Court is — or that they’re running late and to leave their tickets at Will Call versus meet up with me before.

I spent my entire night making sure everyone else was having fun — and then realized, I wasn’t.

Thirty years ago today, I was being squeezed out of my mother’s vagina. Well, actually I was being ripped out of her stomach via emergency C-section. Hence, I woke up this morning the big 3-0.

And I just discovered some new wrinkles under my eyes. Happy Birthday to me.

I don’t really mind exiting my 20s, or physically aging even — what I do mind are the people who put pressure on me to act my age.

“You’re turning 30! You going to get married or become an old maid?” are the birthday sentiments I seem to be getting.

For some reason, the age of 30 is viewed as some sort of relationship deadline … especially in the South where I’m like an endangered single species attending church every weekend — to attend weddings, that is. What is the rush to the altar at 30? Our eggs do not have the shelf-life of dairy… the expiration date extends beyond 30 years. Hell, my mom had me when she was 40 … 30 years ago, before fertility was a scientific experiment.

Turning 30 is such a big deal, apparently it's newsworthy and warrants the cover of the Living Section in the Charlotte Observer: Breaking News: I'm 30 and still single. Even Kim Kardashian did a feature in People Magazine about how she thought she’d be married with kids before 30. But life doesn’t always work out as planned does it, Kim. I figure I’ll just play it by ear … life that is.

Maybe I am missing a few screws, but there is no clock ticking (or eggs rotting) in my body. I’m not going to put the settling in settling down just because I am a few years short of cougar status.

Now that I’ve conquered all my adolescent fears, I’ll do it better in my next 30 years … wait, now I’m just singing a Tim McGraw song. Well, I’m going to enter this new decade with the intelligence and worldliness of a woman who has 30 years of life experiment. The 20s were just practice and the wrinkles on my face are from my laugh lines. They are just proof that I smiled a lot in my first 30 years.

So to me it’s not the dirty 30; it’s the flirty 30. And that means it's merely an excuse to throw a big party.

I was having dinner one evening at my married friends’ house where the entertainment was listening to them argue.

Wife: “YOU DIDN’T FEED THE DOG! You’re so worthless! I went and got dinner for us and you can’t even remember to feed the dog!”

Husband: “I’m so sorry, I forgot. I’ll do it.”

Wife: “I have to do everything around here … (bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch)”

And from there, the argument escalated, until I slyly interjected, “I’ll feed the damn dog!”

I’ve often noticed that some of my girlfriends treat their men in a way that they would never treat me: like a bitch-er. They bitch about the most insignificant things, such as taking out the trash or hoarding the remote — basically that his head isn’t inserted far enough up her ass. What I really want to say is: “You have a man who loves you, and comes home to you every nigh. Who cares if he wanted to feed himself before the dog. By the time you sat there and bitched at him for it, you could have fed the dog yourself!”

Perhaps I’m just jaded from being cheated on and lied to so much that I don’t really see chores as a relationship offense punishable by bitching. Like a survivor of a “heart-attack,” I don’t take anything for granted, especially not a man who’s loyal.

I wouldn’t care if he pees all over the toilet seat, never washes one dish, and farts in his sleep, as long as he doesn’t cheat on me — everything else is compromisable. So here are a few things women should definitely not bitch about …

1. The toilet seat. Men don’t complain about us leaving it down, so therefore, we don’t have the right to complain about them leaving it up.

2. Guy time. Just like you need your folic acid and calcium, he needs his dose of testosterone — and if you trust him (which you should if you’re with him), then why wouldn’t you want some space to hang out with your girlfriends or yourself? Absence makes the heart grow fonder, so let him miss you for a few hours. And who cares if he comes home drunk, as long as he comes home to you (and didn’t drive to get there).

3. What he wears. How he dresses is how he is. You try to change a man and he’s going to change girlfriends. Imagine if he told you that dress made you look fat; same thing.

4. Money. ?If you complain about him not making enough money, well, then why don’t you just cut his balls off while you’re at it. Men often feel like they need to be the provider in the relationship. As long as he’s providing you with love and loyalty, don’t complain about what’s in his wallet.

Remember, he is a guy after all. So we should try and limit our bitchiness to once a month … when we’re menstruating. We’re at least entitled to it then.