Dear Should I Tell in Telluride,

No. Under no circumstances should you tell him your real number—a random lowball number yes, but an accurate number? NO! For God’s sake, NO! You will be safe if you hover around six, but don’t dare flit above ten! No man wants to think they are dating or possibly thinking about marrying and having children with the city slut. It does not even matter if the number is believable. If you repeat it enough, they will believe you because they will want to believe you. If you think, “It is unhealthy to start a relationship based on a lie, whaa whaa whaa,” grow up and ask yourself: Is it better to have a relationship based on a lie or no relationship at all? And just in case you were wondering, it is a good policy to not discuss or point out old crushes, hookups, or boyfriends, even if they are sitting right next to you at dinner. The less he knows about your sexual past, the better. Trust me: Neither of you want him to have visuals of your sex history. So purge most of that history—one by one, erase the notches on your lipstick case. This is definitely a situation where you don’t want to look like a battle-scarred war veteran covered in medals.

MY BROTHER THE COCKBLOCKER

Dear Delphi,

I am a 39-year-old man who has never been married, and I am finally dating a girl that I really think could be the one. My problem is my brother, whose opinion I really respect. He already has a successful marriage and two great children that I love spending a lot of time with. But he is telling me she is leading me on and that she will never take me seriously and I should walk away now before I get hurt. I love and trust my brother, but I really think he is wrong. We have been dating for about a year and I really have no idea where he is getting the idea she is not really into me, even when he tries to explain it with examples of comments he has heard her make. He is like a dog with a bone and just will not stop nagging me to get out now.

—Protesting Brother in Toronto

Dear Protesting Brother in Toronto,

There could be a few reasons your brother is behaving like this: 1. Your brother knows something about this girl that you don’t—something damaging that he doesn’t want to tell you directly, such as he slept with her on multiple occasions while you were dating, or she has a criminal record for trafficking children. 2. He is a little bit jealous and afraid of losing you as part of his own family circle. The minute you have a wife and children of your own, he is not going to be able to depend on you as much as he does now. Nobody with children ever really wants to have to share or outright lose the friendly and helpful uncle. 3. He is simply a disagreeable SOB. 4. He loves you and is being over-protective and you are going to have to muddle through. However, when somebody that close to you has alarm bells going off, it is always a good policy to do a little investigating and not stick your head in the sand like a panicky ostrich.