Here it is. December. Post Christmas. All the presents have been opened. Gifts have been returned, exchanged or put into a closet to be re-gifted next year. You can pause and give thanks that you didn’t have to kill any of your in-laws. The time has come to reflect upon the past and dream of grand strategies for the future.

Friends, FoCoians, Askies. Lend me your ears. I come to bury 2013 not to praise it. This was the year in which Robyn and I launched our grand plan to dispense our wisdom and opinions to the waiting world. Gather ’round the fire and let’s tell stories of the past and ponder upon the future.

In our very first question ever At A Crossroads was wondering if too many shallow relationships based on sex were going to interfere with her ability to find a husband and delve into romance, emotional connection and children.

I went out on a limb and suggested that in fact a stream of random sex partners isn’t the most efficient way to go about finding a husband. You have to have alignment between your actions and your expectations. I was disappointed by the lack of hate mail I received.

Speaking of sex I was pretty amazed when Flirty McFlirtPants wrote in to ask what to do about her best friend’s husband sexting her. It is a whole new error of “transparency”, “openness” and all the other social media buzzwords.

If we are gonna have a society saturated in social media and sex then people might wanna not be shocked by social media sex. More shocking to me was the fact that Flirty didn’t know if she should tell her friend about this or not. If you have to even think about it I’d say the friendship might be in question. Additionally you always have to look at what you are contributing to any situation.

Steadfast Lover and Suddenly Seeking Closure both wrote in with similar problems. The girl they wanted to wine and dine and romance simply wasn’t so into them. Damn boys. Time to get use to it. There is a line between alpha male and beta male and you need to be aware of which side you are on.

Calling your past failure and dwelling on it isn’t going to help you at all. You must learn and move on. And sometimes the answer is really simple. You need to have more sex.

Another common thread came from At The End Of My Last Nerve and Waiting Awkwardly. What do you do when your friends are behaving in ways which are detrimental to the friendship? I’m a big big fan (you may have noticed) of removing the psychic vampires from your life. The time you have on Earth is limited and you need to be thinking big. Spend your time creating, accomplishing and doing. Spend your time with people who love you, who challenge you and who respect you. Spend your moments with others giving them love and respect.

You can only control yourself. Don’t spend time trying to control or change others. You can’t fix other people but you can control their access to your time and life. Delete them if they deserve it.

Big ending now. I’m wrapping up 2013 with a look back at Unsolicited Advice. I gotta listen to Gen Y going on and on about how hard they’ve got it. The theme is common amongst them. Old people don’t understand them and old people didn’t teach them what they need to succeed.

Being an old person who use to have to walk uphill twenty-five miles in the snow to while about how hard my life is (instead of simply posting on Facebook) I gave them a whole page of links to educational material which would help them navigate their way through life. No one watched any of the videos however as they are all “too long” (that’s what she said) and some of the links required (gasp) reading. I was also disappointed to not receive hate mail for this one. It doesn’t matter if you are Gen Y or not – no matter who you are you should always strive to improve and don’t blame your shortcomings on other people. Only you can fix you. Get to work.

Thanks for reading Ask Us Fort Collins. The end of December means we are now 5 months old. Robyn and I are having a great time. We’ve got some new and fun stuff coming up in 2014 so stick around. As always we welcome your questions, comments, Reader Confessions, ideas for Unsolicited Advice and cat photos.

Skippy wishes you a happy, prosperous and sex filled 2014.