Revolutionary new dating paradigms are all very well, but I can't help noticing that the Short Guy is taking a darned long time to reach the punchline. And he says I tell shaggy dog stories! In these ADD times, the only worthwhile solutions come in ten second soundbites. And the Elgin Street Irregulars are all over Attention Deficit Disorder, because... Ooh! Look! Shiny object! Now, where was I? Uh, yeah... instant dating paradigms. We're not talking about high-speed dating - that's something else entirely. As an example of what I mean, Michael Pollan in the New York Times recently managed to reduce the complexities of good nutrition to three stunningly simple sentences: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. That would probably even work for me. If cats count as vegetables.
So what we seek here is a way to measure dating suitability in a nanosecond. The less time you waste in deciding if the person before you is suitable, the more quickly you may proceed toward the decided charms of lolling and fubbing. Normally, the Irregulars would be all over formulating something like this, but, hey, it's sweltering out and we're feeling dopey. Conveniently, somebody's already done the work for us. Mira Kirshenbaum, a relationship therapist who seems to have a nice sideline in self-help books has just released a feel-good opus entitled When Good People Have Affairs, which according to this week's Maclean's is a book "for the decent person who made a mistake and got themselves into a complicated, messy, and dangerous situation."
Sort of off our chosen topic, because an affair presupposes a relationship already, which means that you've already figured out the... Ooh! Look! Shiny object!... However, a short paragraph toward the end of the review describes how Kirshenbaum attempts to do for dating, what Pollan did for food. Here's what she says to look for:
- Not stupid.
- Not crazy.
- Not wierd.
- Not mean.
- Not ugly.
- Not smelly.
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