Dating a Boson

Like everyone else, everything changed for me when I read that a bunch of smarties with a few billion dollars worth of kit discovered that the Higgs boson exists. Announced on the otherwise auspicious date of July 4, confirmation that such an animal lives outside mathematical equations is like the dawning of a new era.  

So it was with some disappointment in the following days that I observed little or no difference in the world outside the Large Hadron Collider ie: where you and I live. Drivers on the freeway behaved, as ever, like teenaged children on crack; mainstream media treated us, still, as teenaged children on Xanax; peace and understanding, yet again, failed to break out all over. Men and women sorta did, and sorta didn't, get each other. Everything changed, and it all actually remained the same.

But let's not despair at this, all is not lost. The good news is that TomKat are (is?) divorcing, so there's one more child out of danger, and Suri will be okay too. There is good evidence - from Tom's three exes - that women turning thirty who have children start to see life with more clarity. The gooey love-sauce fame-and-looks obsession of their twenties gives way to the reality of doing the right thing by the children, which in this case amounts to rescuing them from a cult. 

It seems about right to me that no-one should be allowed to marry until their thirtieth birthday. Better still would be if we were helped to understand why not, and chose not to of our own volition. Too many high-school sweethearts marry at twenty-two and find themselves divorced a few years later. How can the children of these unions overcome this model of parenthood?

In that light, I advocate the twenties as the Dating Decade - the more, the better. No marriage, just ten years of figuring out yourself and how you fit with others. It's possible this might have more impact than applied particle physics, as much as atom smashing underground in Switzerland might give you a hard-on.


Bottoms Up, Physicists.

The Date Horizon

Alyssa Miller

Two qualities I observe in my own brain:

1. It looks for patterns of behaviour (in women I date) that might or might not exist.

2. Its imagination leaps to long-term possibilities with women far beyond reality.

They're both manifestations of an inaccurate Date Horizon. The Date Horizon (did I just coin this?) is the natural expectation of what's reasonable from the other person given the current state of the liaison. For instance:

* After a first date, the Date Horizon can really only extend to the possibility of a second.

* After the first sex, the Date Horizon probably includes some number of future sessions. (NOTE: Or none.)

* Once the Fidelity Agreement's in place, the Date Horizon extends out by a few months.

* Marriage takes the Date Horizon at least to the natural horizon.


I imagine that we all get ahead of ourselves when we start out with someone new. Sadly, it's unrealistic and I believe ultimately destructive when the other person fails to live up to our dream (the hide!) or we actually start living in a way that's not reality-based.

So. Note to self: One step at a time. Take each date as it comes. Understand not everyone will work out. Keep a tight rein on the imagination. Watch how nice it is when the Date Horizon really does move beyond tomorrow.



Bottoms Up, Imagineers.

Groupon

Before too long, we won't refer to people as:

This is Amelia - she's from my book club.

It'll be all:

Let me introduce Suzette - we're members of the same swingers' group.

Which has benefits. Instead of ploughing through insufferable Oprah-approved tomes of PC claptrap, we'll be talking about...how that broad likes being ploughed wheelbarrow-style, how that one likes a little suffocation, and how to deal with The Clap. In a mutually supportive and compassionate way, of course. 

Swingers, too, want to make a difference. Or, more accurately, want someone different - a lot of someones different. It's all the same, though, right?

Be careful, however. Not everyone is hip to group sex as the new social networking. Pity Deborah Sherman, who lost her gig with a Denver television station. As the Denver Post delicately asked:

Did her termination have something to do with the story about a prescription-abusing doctor, whom Sherman met on a swinger website? 

Titanic. Debster's been unfairly victimized here, but I sense there's more to the story. Work for an investigative journalist perhaps?



Bottoms Up, Bottoms Uppers.

Proximity Breeds Love

High school is a seething swamp of sexual tension. Conventional thinking has it that it's because every pimply pubescent is a vat of hormones pushing them to rub nasties at any opportunity.

Okay, that's probably true, but there's another overlooked element of high school, which is proximity. In every class, those punks are an arms-length away from the opposite sex. For eight hours a day there are dozens of possible partners around you, close by, sharing the same experience. Everyone's so close.

Workplaces are similar, but not exactly the same. The cubicle stymies contact. Offices with doors separate people. Very few working situations replicate one's teenage years.

But if you want to find a man, find a place with lots of men. If you want a woman, find where the women work. Familiarity breeds interest, not contempt. Being close in an everyday kind of way creates a petri dish in which romance might grow. Like a fungus.




Bottoms Up, Proximates!


Office girl photo from cubicle chic blog [link]