I've culled nearly 30 years of "Tales from the Front" columns to find those comments that really seem to sum up what relationships are all about ...

— "He can call me in the middle of the night, come over at 3 a.m., tell me he loves me and how empty his life would be without me. But if I call him on a Sunday and say, 'I'm lonely. What are you doing?' — that's pressuring him."

— "One of the first things I thought of when I got divorced was, 'Who am I going to be buried next to?'"

— "I got the Crate & Barrel summer catalogue in the mail and the first thing I thought was, 'I wish I were married.'"

— "I call divorced women with kids who still live in the suburbs 'housewives without husbands.' They've got a married mentality and they live a married lifestyle. It's the worst of all possible worlds."

— "I've locked myself in a stall in the ladies room at work more times than I care to remember. Then I come out with my eyes red-rimmed from crying and say, ' ... and how many thousands of dollars did you say you'd like to invest?'"

— "A friend who just got divorced excitedly asked me, 'What's the best part of dating?' I said, 'It's when the date's over, and I'm on one side of the door, and he's on the other.'"

— "A lot of women have this problem that if they're not feeling loved every minute, they don't feel loved at all."

— "You don't date the men you think you deserve, you date the men you think you can get."

— "I like the idea of being with him more than being with him."

—"The greatest line I ever heard came from a mortician I once dated. He hugged me and said, 'You're so warm!'"

— "The best parts of being single are less laundry and I can read for hours and not feel I'm neglecting someone else's needs."

— "Even the end of a lousy relationship hurts. I've grieved over guys I never even cared about. It's loneliness and having to start all over again."

— "I know this is dating me, but I've got to say it: She pulled a 'Starsky and Hutch.' The car was still moving when she jumped out."

— "When I meet a man, I determine in the first 10 seconds if I want to kiss him, marry him, bear his children. I walk into every party and look around to see if my future husband is there."

— "Relationships are like shopping. If you expect to go to a supermarket and get whatever you want ready-made, you can't. You have to get the raw materials and cook them."

—"I've been married, divorced, lived with a woman and lived alone. And whatever I'm doing, eventually something else looks better."

— "I've never talked with my friends about sex — mine, theirs or anybody's. But in my bachelor years I could have written a book about male sexual habits. Not from talking to the men, but from talking to women. They tell everything."

— "Dating around is just like a series of job interviews."

How would you sum up relationships in a sentence or two? Send your reply, along with your questions, problems and rants to cheryllavinrapp@gmail.com. And check out my new website askcheryl.net.