Ignoring Menu & Submenu items

I am a newbie WP user, so please be patient.

Secondly, the External links plugin is great ! Thanks guys and gals for your effort.

The plugin solved one problem but created another for me.

My site displays posts as titles, but to see the abbreviated form the viewer clicks on the post title. I want this to be displayed in a new page or tab.

Once there, the viewer can click on a link and be re-directed to the original content in a in a new page or tab. I have this part working !

The behaviour I want is:

1. viewer clicks on a post Title -> post with excerpt opens in new page or tab.
2. viewer clicks on external link ‘field’ -> original content post opens in new page or tab.

All other page navigation remains as normal; i.e. using menus and sub-menus to navigate the site.

Can anyone please help me with this?