"Maintaining some intrigue," says the AskMen Web site, "keeps the spice in dating."

Neil Kramer's wang begs is determined to disagree:

Geez, and I feel uneasy about padding out a mere résumé.

What I don't know for sure is whether the organ in question is serious about these suggestions or is simply dicking around.

(Via Michael Blowhard. Really.)

No argument from me:

And they're floral-scented, too.

It's called the Stable Marriage Problem, and it goes like this:

It would appear that the answer, at least theoretically, is Yes:

Suddenly I find myself, um, disengaged.

Here's a Java-based scenario to illustrate how this is supposed to work.

The online-dating service OkCupid has developed something called "The Stranger Arranger", which ostensibly works along these principles:

The list (which, I need hardly mention, never has included me) actually links to the methodology, based upon the number of questions they've answered and the conclusions that can be reached therefrom. (There are 2300 questions in the pool; I don't know if anyone has answered all of them. I've answered 190.) I suppose it's possible for people to fib, but they say it doesn't help to do so:

And, well, at least it isn't government cheese.

Rebecca Traister reports in Salon.com's Broadsheet:

Wait a minute. PMS is a joke?

On the off-chance that they actually might find some medical basis for the term, it seems only fair that there be devised a term applicable to males exhibiting roughly-comparable symptoms, with the same suggestion of reproductive-system origin.

I vote for "testiness," which is a condition with which I am familiar; for instance, I attain a certain level of it when someone mysspells "misogyny."

I think I've made something like this argument once or twice:

I hope he's more successful with it than I.

(WSJ via Pratie Place.)

Though seldom this much:

Like writing $14,400 worth of checks a year wasn't enough of an annoyance in itself.

I don't know Florida (or anybody's) law for certain, but I'd bet that the former Mrs Roach's transition to manhood does not invalidate the existing divorce decree. And this could open up a whole new can of worms: if Rhonda Ron [sample name used only for illustration] is still attracted to men, there won't be a remarriage (which presumably would end the alimony payments) under existing law.

The operative word here, of course, is "existing."

(Via Bitter Bitch.)

I admit to being a sucker for off-kilter love stories — even off-kilter teenage love stories, if they're done with some degree of finesse. Laura Whitcomb's A Certain Slant of Light has so much finesse it nearly slipped away from me, but I was able to maintain some semblance of a grip right up until the only possible ending that made any sense.

"Someone was looking at me, a disturbing sensation if you're dead." And so she was, her own life having run out a century before, bound to a succession of "hosts" who are never aware of her existence, final disposition of her case evidently still pending. While looking after "her" English teacher, she's somehow seen by one of his students, and she must find out more.

He, like her, is Light, assigned to this in-between world. Yet he somehow has a body:

This seemed more plausible to me than I thought it would. And eventually the want overwhelms the rules, and she finds an "empty" body of her own:

Two people, both long dead, now pretending to be the teenagers whose bodies they inhabit. It's not hard to see where this is going, but it's difficult not to feel something for them, so long deprived — or for the departed youngsters who had no idea what they were giving up. It's a fascinating story, more than a little bit creepy in spots, and, I'd say, worth the extra effort it demands of the "young-adult" audience to whom it's pitched. How did I wind up with this book? I wish I knew.

A chap from Edmond is, says Cosmopolitan, one of the "hottest guys in the U.S.", and he'd like your vote in their Bachelor Blowout, as it were.

Josh Walters, 23, who teaches at Summit Middle School in Edmond, represents Oklahoma in the magazine's list of 50 studmuffins, and he looks, well, like this.

And he admits to one bit of puzzlement about women:

This, sir, is why you're teaching geography. Mountains and streams don't do things like that.

(Those of you who may be seeking the very antithesis of hot — oh, wait, you're already reading me.)

Someone, I forget the name, once said that the essence of rock and roll was "happy songs about sad things," and I filed that away with "jumbo shrimp" and all the other oxymoronic things I'd heard — until the day I realized that those premises weren't contradictory at all.

Exhibit A: The Moody Blues, "Your Wildest Dreams," 1986. Full of bright synth bits, decidedly upbeat, and a major downer:

That second line, of course, is "once when you were mine."

The answer to this, oddly, had come out seven years earlier: the Doobie Brothers' "What a Fool Believes," arguably the best thing either Michael McDonald or Kenny Loggins ever had anything to do with. And bouncy and upbeat as it is, the answer is no, she never gives him a second thought:

Still makes me think twice, even today.

Costa Tsiokos remembers a discussion with a fellow with an obsession:

I'm as detail-obsessive as the next guy, but there is such a thing as being a trifle too picky (he said as he mourned the official end of the Sandal Season).

Enough, says Capella:

Then again:

I have often said that if I were any shallower, I would be bas-relief.

I insist, however, that the search for the Sort of Ideal Someone, despite being inestimably more difficult, must take precedence over the search for Anyone Out There, and the suggestion that perhaps my criteria are insufficiently broad, so to speak, annoys me greatly. It's not an itch I seek to scratch; it's a void I seek to fill. Different dynamics (and physics) entirely. Apply whatever Greek letter you like, though I'm partial to σ: it's a very strong bond.

(Thanks to Russell Wardlow.)

"Um, I don't know. I guess I just lost my head."

Which, of course, is inadvisable, not to mention not particularly safe for work.

It's nice to know Alfred Kinsey's work goes on, despite his being dead and all:

I rather suspect that if we were not "bombarded with subconscious erotic images," and if all the men looked like Abe Vigoda and all the women looked like, well, Abe Vigoda, the percentages wouldn't change in the slightest.

(Via someone who looks like McGehee.)

Sometimes I find myself, much as I hate to admit it, thinking things like this:

I'm putting my money on "horny immature idiot," if only because they exist in substantial quantities.

On the other hand, were it possible to live three hundred million miles away, I'd bet Andrea has already done the research on what it's like.

Zimmerman wasn't exactly wroth, but he was definitely perplexed. He didn't mind so much when somebody called "Bobby the Poet" put out a Hardly-Worthit version of "Positively White Christmas" or something like that, and he admitted to a guffaw or two when that Weird Al guy ran backwards and forwards at the same time. In the same song, yet.

But he didn't quite know what to make of Chastity Rome-Sick Blues. Okay, the girl was way cute, if a tad fumble-fingered, and she looked the part. (Johanna? Forget those visions.) Besides, whoever heard of a music video made to promote a book? He shook his head in amazement and pressed the Watch Again button. "Funny," he finally said. "And it beats the hell out of watching parking meters."

Neil Kramer reads Cosmopolitan so you don't have to, and finds stuff like this:

The hottest woman I ever met had a Ph.D. in medieval French literature or some such thing. And you know what? Not once did it ever occur to me that she might be able to correct my misapprehensions (if any) about Molière's Tartuffe, nor would it have bothered me greatly if she had.

I suspect Neilochka is dipping into the Double Secret Irony stash for this:

Either that, or he's letting the wang do the talking again.

Now if you'll excuse me, Michel Houellebecq awaits.

Each issue of The Week has a section called "Good Week For..." and "Bad Week For...", usually with four of each.

This is apparently a Bad Week for Men, and here's why:

Finally, I'm above average at something.

"Can't nag with your mouth full."

I'll have to take her word for it.

(And that of Little Miss Attila, from whom I snagged this link. There is at least a measurable possibility that this may not be safe for work.)

Marriage — at least the old-fashioned, one man/one woman thing — is apparently dead, suggests Moxie:

I demur slightly here. Men have been looking for excuses since long before there ever was an Oval Office.

Which is probably cheaper in the long run.

I should point out here that while I do have something of a conservative bent, I have no reason to think myself any less selfish and/or superficial than the next guy. (It's that whole humility thing, and I am persuaded that, as Francis W. Porretto once noted, it's "the virtue least practiced or appreciated in our time." God forbid anything should interfere with the propping up of one's self-esteem, I suppose.)

Besides, the Mox is gorgeous and smart, which means that I wouldn't have much of a shot at her even if she lived around the corner instead of across the country. I mention these things in the unlikely event that anyone should think I'm trying to position myself as a Potential Partner.

Update, 8 pm, 29 November: The aforementioned Mr Porretto tells me to get off my ass.

As if finding the marriage of true minds hadn't already proven difficult enough, here comes another impediment:

I note here that I closed on this place the day after my 50th birthday — and that someone would have to be just this side of Beyond My Wildest Dreams to get me to give it up.

Beauty, like every other form of currency on the planet, is unequally distributed, and being a fan of going for what you really want, and not being a fan of what passes for egalitarianism these days, I find myself sort of endorsing this manifestly unfair enterprise:

Inasmuch as it would take plastic surgery, or metallurgy, or cosmic radiation, or something, to bring me up to a 3, I'm obviously not a candidate for this service. On the other hand, it won't have any effect on my own activities, or lack thereof — those who do qualify are not likely to have been looking my way otherwise — and I persist in believing that if you're looking for a trophy, the most logical approach is to go to, well, a trophy shop.

(Via Fark.com.)

Addendum, 12 December: Rachel notes that this isn't exactly a new concept.

Seen on the Savannah craigslist by Just D:

At this point I was thinking that maybe this was posted under this guy's email address by a former girlfriend as a minor act of vengeance, but the last paragraph doesn't fit well with that scenario:

Then again, this could be just my lack of imagination.

Salon Books turns up this personal ad from the London Review of Books:

I should point out here that I'm not all that shy.

Prompted by this Kathy Shaidle post, I read this Kathy Shaidle poem, and quoted this much of it at the office:

"And you can throw them away in two weeks," came the response.

Well, yes, I did laugh. (My apologies to the poet.)

We've taken this person's concept of love and replaced it with Stendhal's Crystals. Let's see what happens:

I don't think that fear is the single prerequisite, necessarily, but I do believe that all the emotions should be in at least working condition for love to have any functionality; otherwise it's just whistling into the wind. Stendhal, at least, was cognizant of the fact that the emotions tend to travel as a pack: "The pleasures of love," he wrote, "are always in proportion to our fears."

But the path of crystallization deals initially with the process of perception: as minor, even major, imperfections become irrelevant to the lover, the desire for reciprocation increases. Fear first manifests itself when one's feelings are not returned; when fear and hope are intermixed, the romantic attraction is intensified. And the fear doesn't always go away when the feelings are returned: this is where thoughts of abandonment kick in.

Maybe I'm paying more attention to this stuff these days because one of my fears — perhaps the only one that matters in the long run — has to do with getting out of here alive, which of course none of us ever do, at least not in a sense that we understand. Stendhal anticipated this too:

I didn't die at twenty-three, obviously, but I have this sinking feeling that I won't find someone until the day after I discover I've come down with something terminal.

And that's the thing about crystals: incredibly beautiful they may be, but inevitably they have an edge.

Stuff (2/07) popped this question to some guys: "What song did you lose your virginity to?" Most of the answers didn't seem that interesting, but these two did. First, Teller:

Penn Jillette, unsurprisingly, has a vastly different tale to tell:

"It don't matter to me," reply my remaining readers.

One of the more exasperating aspects of contemporary culture is its occasional insistence on credentials of dubious utility. Reb offers this example:

Yea, verily. I have a slight tendency toward geekiness, a greater one toward nerdity, and I cherish the few geek/nerd girls I know, but as a general rule, I'm not about to ask one of them to prove herself, as it were: if they have the spirit, it shows easily enough. (And besides, I'm more Marvel than DC; I'd have missed the Robin question.)

My immediate reaction, I must confess, was not so measured; it was more like "So who died and left them in charge of Geek Points?" The very definition of geekitude provides that sooner or later, more likely sooner, it comes out; it's about as useful as asking nuns if they ever thought about, you know, God and stuff. And I am quite vigorously opposed to grilling a possible date, unless you plan to pop the question that very night, in which case may I suggest that maybe you're going a little too fast for your own good.

Apparently, though, Reb's experience is not universal — at least, I hope it's not. For instance:

Nor should she have. True geek, like other positive characteristics, will present itself on its own schedule.

I go to the dentist for three cleanings a year: this is a smidgen more than the usual recommendation, but given the generally uninspiring condition of the infrastructure — it's a toss-up as to which is receding faster, my hairline or my gums — I consider it necessary, and I would continue to consider it necessary even if said dentist did not employ a hygienist of considerable charm and only-slightly-muted hotness.

It would, of course, never occur to me to make a move: she's spoken for. And I don't even live in Washington state:

Hmmm. I probably wouldn't even be allowed to post this from Washington.

And yes, I understand why they have rules like this:

But the Washington rules not only throw out the bathwater, they require you to abort the baby.

(Via Dan Collins at protein wisdom.)

"Not tonight, darling, I have a haddock."

Nice guys finish ... um, less dramatically:

And if they could, they'd probably complain about their salaries being cut.

Notes:

• Don't bring up M2F transsexuals. They were women all along; it was just a hardware mismatch. (Or so I am informed.)

• I have this sudden urge for a Theta Burger.
  

(Via Fark.)

Believe me, I know from this:

It is not a fate worse than death, though it pretty much guarantees you an empty bed, which some people consider the practical equivalent thereof. Me, I am unwilling to be led around by glandular secretions.

I look at it this way: without this particular complication, I am managing to keep my emotional curve just slightly above the X-axis. Why would I want to drop back into the bottom of the graph in the hopes of an occasional half-hearted caress?

Many years ago, for the OAQ File, I wrote that "I will encounter someone of prodigious desirability who wouldn't have me on a bet." I consider this a hazard of life, an unavoidable hazard at that, and indeed I was correct in this prediction. If anything, I underestimated the number of such encounters; if there is any contentment to be derived from having known it all along, I herewith lay claim to that contentment.

I suspect I'll be addressing similar subjects a number of times this month, inasmuch as this month is February, which contemporary culture has inexplicably chosen to dedicate to lovers. By the mercy of the Almighty and the wisdom of the Caesars, it is the shortest month.

This is perhaps an oversimplification of things, though it does reflect the expected bell-curve distribution. Presenting PDB's Five Levels of Attraction:

Of course, there's always that eye-of-the-beholder factor to consider, which tends to skew results. But I've got a hunch that no one is going to pay any attention to anyone below 2.

I've covered this before, but I admit I didn't think of this angle:

Do I admit that I do look? (Not that it makes the slightest bit of difference, of course.)

And are there any statistics on the success rate of public-transit romances?

Excuse me while I whimper in the corner:

Dr Charlat was actually talking about butterflies, but this still spooks me.

(Via Lip Schtick.)

The insistence of Forrest Gump's mother notwithstanding, there's rather a lot more to life than a box of chocolates, especially this time of year:

Inasmuch as this adds up to 128.8 percent, you have to figure that some of these fellows are hedging their bets.

I'm slightly suspicious of that $154 figure, if only because it's far too low to include any meaningful amount of therapy.

Heavens to Betsy (not her real name), can this be true? A virtual valentine?

(Found on a blog. In an effort to minimize total embarrassment, I am not providing a link.)

Philip Stanhope, Lord Chesterfield, sneered at sex: "The pleasure is momentary, the position is ridiculous, and the expense is damnable." I might suggest that his lordship might have been happier had he tried other positions, but his other two premises are well-nigh unassailable.

Now Terry comes forth to assail one of them, and right on time, too:

It probably wouldn't hurt if a few more women had this insight, either, if you know what I mean.

Now does anybody have any ideas to stretch out the "momentary pleasure"?

There's a technique to this?

Actually, I usually avoid looking in that direction, ostensibly as a safety precaution, but mostly because I figure it's just so much wasted effort, and I'm too tired for that sort of thing.

The good thing is: it's over for another year. And it's just as well: for the last two days it's been colder than Maureen Dowd's heart around here.

I did, however, inadvertently hit on a line that actually sort of worked (though your mileage may vary): "Hey, you want to go for a ride in a G35?"

I mean, the ones we didn't vote for. Nina wants to know, and she directs her query skyward:

There are, I am told, women who are wired like men. Are they any happier? I don't know, but I suspect they'd never admit it if they weren't.

And I can relate to this:

I seem to have followed, quite unintentionally, Plan C: my libido is somewhere between vague and nonexistent. And since that's probably the only place where I can deal with it on a consistent basis — but never mind that.

Sometimes I think we're all just thrown into the ocean: mostly, we're ships that pass in the night, but some of us eventually drown.

Around lunchtime (Whataburger, thank you very much), it finally dawned on me, and while the Fates (Bob and Wendy Fate, of Great Neck, New York) weren't addressing me directly, it sounded like their voices:

"Here's the deal. You've got your own house, you've got better wheels than some billionaires, and your waistline is diminishing week by week. Be content with that."

Which, when you get right down to it, is probably a hair kinder than "No, you can't have a girlfriend."

I persist in believing that some things simply cannot be quantified — too many intangibles — but who listens to me? Not these folks:

Well, okay. I will stipulate, for the purpose of argument, that Naomi Campbell looks good. These are the criteria, say the researchers:

So: just under 5-foot-9, somewhere around 34-24-35, legs that go on for hours, if not necessarily days.

Not that I would look askance at someone meeting these criteria, but I'd like to think I am slightly less superficial than that, and unlike, say, your average Stuff reader, I do not presume that I am somehow entitled to someone with supermodel looks. Of course, if Naomi calls, all bets are off.

Your perfect guy is a Christian Bale type:

I match one of these, anyway.

(Via Fark.)

Let it be said at the top that I'm inclined to believe that there may be at least as many definitions of "feminism" as there are women, and I don't feel qualified to cough up one of my own, what with (1) this Y chromosome of mine and (2) the fact that I have spent very little of my adult life in the company of women and therefore have scant experience upon which to draw.

That said, I'm wondering if there's an answer for this:

Okay, it doesn't sound, you know, independent, but how many of us are really in a position to provide for all of our own needs?

And no, I'm not upset with anyone; I'm just playing darts.

Let's see if I have this straight:

1. Buy girlfriend lots of underpants and such online.
2. ????
3. Debit!

That's how it looks to me, anyway.

A reader, not of this site, writes to Aunt Fugly:

Aunt Fugly's response is here, and there's really nothing that I can add to it, except this: should this mythical spouse turn out to exist after all, consider this a call of dibs.

Remember the 19th century? It refuses to go away:

In hardcover, Forever in Blue: The Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood runs 400 pages, maybe two-thirds the length of Harry Potter stories, and no one complains about their thickness.

The horror, though, is that this sort of notion is still being bandied about in two thousand seven, fercrissake. As Syaffolee, who can probably turn 400 pages by breakfast, says:

And they probably don't even read the celeb gossip mags.

Jeff Jarvis embeds a YouTube appearance by Elizabeth Kucinich, spouse of Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, and describes her as "[Kucinich's] magnificently mismatched wife."

Um, what?

Is there some compelling reason why in 2005 Kucinich, then 58, should not have married Elizabeth Harper, then about 27? I mean, yeah, I'm sure I'd creep out women in their twenties were I to express any interest, but far be it from me to snicker at May-December romances. And Jarvis is younger than I am, fercryingoutloud. Scratch a Web 2.0 pioneer, find an old fogy at heart.

I didn't have much use for 2.4-GHz cordless phones, especially since I'd just replaced all mine with 5.8-GHz cordless phones, so I didn't read to the bottom of this Woot product description:

Which, if you're familiar with Woot, is not especially unusual for a product description: getting to the point is only occasionally necessary.

But somewhere in the midst of all that feline gossip:

Just then, the cats heard the humans speaking, and:

Even this particular scenario isn't too far out for Woot, but this time there was method to their madness. All is explained in the newsletter:

Oh, and she said yes.

There are dozens, hundreds, thousands of songs about winding up in the sack together. Are there any songs about not winding up in the sack together?

Well, there's at least one:

This is the third of four frames in an animated GIF advertising Schick's Quattro for Women razor, which I spotted today while browsing Popgadget. (That "Energizer" tag might seem odd until you remember that the battery maker acquired Schick and Wilkinson Sword in 2003.) I had to ask myself, "Self, are you that easily distracted by a nice pair of gams?" (Yes.) I suppose it's a good thing they're not taking things too seriously. To make sure they weren't, I wandered over to their Web site and found something called Quattro Lingo, which introduces some new terms into the vernacular. I was most amused by this description: when you "intentionally go without shaving before a date as a way of making yourself behave," you're said to be wearing a "chastity pelt." I have no idea what Dawn Eden thinks of this notion, though I'm sure she'd endorse behaving oneself.

Some of us would consider ourselves fortunate were this to occur:

And, of course, Not Available:

Yeah, there are some serious Thou Shalt Nots involved, and we won't go there. But it gets more complicated:

Were I to adopt this as a policy, I'd never speak to women at all. This is obviously not acceptable, at least to me; the women might feel otherwise.

Once seen on a T-shirt: "Since I gave up hope, I feel much better." Purely in the romantic sense, this has worked rather well for me: I don't have to worry about jeopardizing a future relationship because, well, there isn't any future relationship to jeopardize. Thus freed from the burden of trying to avoid screwing up, I do much better, or at least less horrendously. Okay, there's no obvious payoff at the end: but I feel that I've gained something from the experience, even if it's only the satisfaction of not having bored her to tears.

As regular readers know, I am subject to deep and inexplicable crushes. I used to worry about this. Now it's more like "Enjoy it, what there is to it that can be enjoyed. Just don't be a jerk about it."

Speaking of which:

Complete? No. But I think you should give her a chance to respond to you in some small way. You can't assume that she's interested, or that you could persuade her to become interested; however, she's off to the daily grind just like you are, and if she comes away from that 20-minute stretch thinking that, well, at least somebody appreciates me today, perhaps you've done her a kindness, which needs no justification. And it's a fair trade, since if you're anything like me you're getting memories which will stick with you indefinitely, possibly useful as part of the evaluation should someone actually available show up.

And who knows? Four years from now, you'll meet on the D train, and her divorce will have just become final, and — no, wait, I'm getting ahead of myself here.

We open with See-Dubya of JunkYardBlog quoting Dawn Eden:

Which drew this comment from presumed JYB reader "ck":

Michael Bates weighed in with this response:

This thread, of course, is of maximum interest to yours truly, being as how I am fifty-three years old, and during the last twenty years there has been only one brief entry on my, um, dance card, which mathematically guarantees a ten-year dry spell.

In other words, my mental state right about now, were I to accept ck's assertion, should be positively reeking of Chiroptera residue. It's not. In fairness, though, he's never seen me, and even if he had, he might not know that I have no particular sense of entitlement anyway.

Grrl Genius Cathryn Michon points out this curious fact about fish:

My experience with fish consists mostly of throwing back the little ones (hardly ever caught any big ones) and the occasional trip to Captain D's, so I won't take exception to these findings, but I suspect they differ from humans in this regard: women, almost unanimously, demand men with a "sense of humor," which undoubtedly explains all the girlfriends Gilbert Gottfried has stolen away from Eric Bana.

But the Grrl Genius demurs:

Do we need schooling or something?

Cootie checkers will be installed on the 19th floor:

Which, being a J. W. Marriott, is considerable: expect to pay $250 a night.

I can hear the shouts of "Sexist!" already, with hints that this is some sort of leftist plot. I have my doubts, if only because the hotel is owned by Alticor, the parent company of Amway, which is not exactly known for its slavish adherence to political correctness.

More to the point, $220ish is a bit above my usual room budget.

An ad from Portland craigslist, placed by Katie:

Cue Mike Clifford, "Close to Cathy," United Artists 489, 1962:

Irony Bonus: Mike Clifford is still singing today — with someone else's wife.

(Via Anwyn, who says: "'I've got five bucks says this guy was waiting around for this girl." Make it ten.)

The perennially-inspiring Rachel Lucas puts up a personal ad, and the results are not pretty:

I should point out here that I know rather a lot of women who are both sane and intelligent. I know this because they won't go out with me.

Okay, enough of the self-defecating humor. What Rachel has come up with is a list of twenty ways "not to sound like a total dillwad on the personals," and apparently avoiding clichés like the plague is a priority:

Long walks on the beach, I infer, are something to avoid mentioning.

Michelle Obama is stepping back from her position at the University of Chicago Hospitals to help support her husband's Presidential campaign, and that's so wrong, says Debra Dickerson:

Obviously she needs to dump Moon Doggie while the dumping is good, because, after all, she's going to get second billing. A true tragedy of our times. Damn that patriarchy, anyway:

Yep. Dump him. There's no other way.

After all:

And how horrible it must be to refuse to accept a label in an era desperate for litmus tests.

Mark Nicodemo observes:

Oppression? Maybe. One person believing so strongly in the bill of goods she's been sold that she's compelled to defend it even when one of its inherent contradictions is staring her in the face? Definitely.

A jackboot with a stylish 3½-inch heel is a jackboot still.

Sharon says this is the worst Family Feud question ever, and indeed, it does seem a tad perverse: "Name a reason you think making love in the bathtub might not be so romantic."

Top five answers, with her annotations:

1. Too small (not sure if this means the man, the woman, or the tub)
   
2. Splashes/messy (must have been women saying this since men never care about messes)
   
3. Water gets cold (how long are you taking?!)
   
4. Might slip (that's why you have those little rubber mats in the tub!)
   
5. Might drown (Good grief, how deep IS your tub?!)
   

"Faucet sticking into backside" apparently did not get the two votes required for listing.

Some people can pull this off, but I can't:

This poor leper will hide in his kitchen and dine on finger foods.

I'm not quite sure why this is true. I have less of an issue dining alone when I'm on the road, perhaps because I sense that I have no choice in the matter — but then, I sense that I have no choice in the matter even if I'm just round the corner.

Still, it has to be something of a relief when the wait staff don't immediately brand you as a pariah.

As opening sentences go, this is a grabber:

Yes, boys and girls, it's a World of Warcraft romance, and so far it's working. There's one minor issue, though:

Well, it beats telling them you were out punting gnomes.

This is second mostly because I typed the other one in first. Here's Blythe:

Now she tells me.

I am shocked ... shocked! ... to find that there is deception in the online-dating market:

After a little more poking around, I came up with this survey:

Things I wonder about:

• It seems unlikely that a man would understate his height. But why would a woman fudge this statistic? Would a woman of six feet think she'd stand a better chance at five-ten? Does four-eleven get rounded up to five-one?

• Apparently the likelihood of finding an accurate weight on a dating site is rather low. (I avoid the question myself by not owning a scale.)

• Do the people who misrepresent their ages invariably do so by shaving off a few years, or are there some who might actually put on a year or two? (I'm imagining a 21-year-old who, fearful of being dismissed as immature, might choose to appear as 23 or 24. And it's probably a guy, since if he's anything like me, he'll be immature until he's 50.)
  

Still, these are comparatively white lies:

I wish to state for the record that I am not a midget.

Evidently I'm out of the mainstream on matters like this:

I suppose this might put off the sort of guy whose ego is fed by being "needed" for various mundane functions, but that's the best place for him: off.

To quote Robert A. Heinlein:

You'll note that at no time does he make any gender reference.

This solstice we have here wears many summery hats, one of which bears the name "All-Couples Day." Lindsay Goodier explains:

Hey, it's cheaper than eHarmony. Success rate?

In my circle, you can get shunned for going to Red Lobster at all.

This is a bad idea for several reasons, and this radio spot doesn't help:

I admit up front that there is a small number of, um, desirables on the premises, but as I said before, fishing in the company pond is a bad idea, and I assure you, were I to do this, I would look plenty chalant.

And another thing: where are the female enhancement drugs? (Beer doesn't count.)

According to this map unearthed by Will Truman, they're on the West Coast waiting.

Meanwhile, all the girls are accumulating east of the Mississippi: in the New York metro, there's a "plurality" (which sounds better than "surplus") of women to the tune of almost 200,000. (I expect CT to come back with "Yeah? Where?")

The big blue blotches in southern California and in Texas can probably be explained by an influx of Migrants Without Papers, though this doesn't explain San Antonio. And analysis of the female distribution might be more difficult; I mean, East Coast girls are hip — I really dig those styles they wear — but there remains the question of whether it's really a surplus of women or a dearth of men. (Feel free to stand this premise on its head with regard to Phoenix and L.A.)

And what's the deal with Tulsa?

This is England, land of presumed mismatches:

Even juries have limits to what they're willing to examine, I suppose.

Nice to know that there exists a capacity for the superficial on the other side of the aisle.

Beauty, after all, is a currency, a medium of exchange. If your assets are in some other coin, you're still in the marketplace, though window-shoppers may pass you by. (And there are those of us for whom the Book of Love stopped at Chapter 7.)

You'll note I ducked my own question about fictional characters I might fancy in more than a literary way, so to speak, and there was a very good reason for that: she was just seventeen, you know what I mean. And the way she looked was largely irrelevant; I think I identified with her too much to want to, um, despoil her.

That said, here's Alex Roumbas of Dollymix on I Capture the Castle:

It has always seemed to me that the romantic and the mundane travel paths mostly parallel, intersecting at infrequent intervals, both ultimately revealing themselves to be ruts in which one might be stuck. Cassandra would have understood.

Perhaps it was a matter of timing: I stumbled across this book while I was turning fifteen, an age where all of this has the seriousness of life or death. But the story has stayed with me, perhaps sustained me, for decades. And if it seems to me that "it will never happen now," that proves only that Cassandra Mortmain set the bar very high indeed.

GreenCanary encounters some Mean Girls:

But the appeal was, so to speak, all on the surface:

Let's hear it for non-instant gratification. (And really, who wants ruly hair?)

Well, it's possible; it just isn't advisable.

Addendum: Should this be considered "undergarments"?

Presumably right after "You may now kiss the bride":

"I can has wife now?"

Single cat is, um, still single.

A slightly-warped feature at a dating site:

I am compelled to point out that I would not be aware of this feature had there been no entries in the list. (Okay, there was one.)

They also have a service called Dead To Me, in which you place names you never, ever want to hear again. From the site, that is; it doesn't work in Real Life, and if it did, I'd pay them a whole bunch.

(Found at Flibbertigibbet!)

Don't get me wrong: irreconcilable differences do exist. But this strikes me as a tad extreme:

Geez. It's a good thing she didn't ask for a Wii.

You are what you drive?