DEAR SUSAN: I don't know how to go about arranging my personal finances and setting up my will. I know that making significant assets joint with right of survivorship is the easiest way to pass them on, but I don't like the idea of making my assets joint - with anyone. Plus I don't have the foggiest idea of who would make a good executor of my will. What do single people do?

Brian M., Long IslandDEAR BRIAN: Smart singles do exactly what you're about to do: make a will. You MUST - a word I don't use lightly - include an attorney, a legal eagle licensed to practice in your state, a trustworthy humanoid who is easy to talk to and makes you feel comfortable (the same traits you want in a partner, no?). To get a better sense of this professional, schedule one or two preliminary appointments before you get down to the nitty-gritty. Make the first appointment only after thinking this through and talking it over with intimates. Only after all that can you make that list of issues and questions to talk over with your attorney. (Single parents especially need a current will, for obvious reasons.) The need for all these details is to awaken those who are slumbering through this unmarried phase, rationalizing their inertia with the fairy tale that such things as wills are concerns for married folk only. DEAR SUSAN: I liked your column about the genders' treatment in the media. In the movie "The Tempest," the male Prospero is replaced by a woman named Prospera! You said we could shout out 24/7 to you, so I'm shouting: Why don't they leave "The Tempest" alone if they don't want to do it right? From the Internet

DEAR BLOGGER: When even Shakespeare is tampered with, it must give us all pause. I feel like Cassandra, warning this time not of impending war, but of impending surrender; all signs are pointing to the demasculinization of the male. Little by little, media portrayals are painting the man as powerless, dependent, childlike and childish. Yea, verily, the battle of the sexes is winding down, and we females would appear to be victorious. But what have we won? A society in which we are the policymakers, hunters and gatherers and in which men, supposedly the vanquished gender, get to be stay-at-homes? The spoils of war, then, are less assertive men fearful of offending us, loath to oppose us in any way. Men who are soft in nature and physique. Men who aren't manly. Is that what we women want? I am opting out now. I rather like men and all that goes with them, men as they are today.

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