DEFINE THE RELATIONSHIP.

In just a few minutes, after I jot down these few lines, I'm going to crawl into bed beside my sleeping wife. She'll turn in her sleep, and lift her leg over my hips before settling back into deep sleep. Sometimes she'll mumble drowsily, and I'll forever interpret those faint utterances as declarations of love.

My career path has offered us little security financially, and out of necessity we move around a lot, often back and forth across the Atlantic into tiny apartments for a month or two at a time. But our bed is our bed, and my wife is my family. And it's with her leg resting up on my hip that I feel security. She loves me.

And more than a committed partner to sigh in my ear softly as I fall asleep, what could I want? Or better, what would I trade her for? That's the real question, isn't it?

Once you find that perfect pretty girl -- The one that will stay up late playing video games. The one that reminds you to wear deodorant. The one that bakes cupcakes for you for no reason. -- Once you find that girl, and after she falls in love with you...

What would you trade her for?

At this moment, ten years after the advice on page 149, Porter Collins is sitting in a backpacker hostel in Ireland his shoulders draped with a lithe French beauty while he picks at his guitar. And he thinks that he's found something worth trading for. He thinks that a lifetime of exchangeable European beauties just might make him happy.

I laugh to myself, because here's what I know that he doesn't: I've sat in that backpacker hostel. I've dated that French girl. And it's exciting enough once or twice. But eventually, Porter will probably learn what we all learn. The triviality of new conquest ultimately pales against familiar sheets, a dying Nintendo DS, and a snoring girl's leg thrown up over your hip.

I've got ten pages to make him realize that.