Letters to the Editor
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Mental masturbation
Last time I checked, "dating" was not something one had to study or dogmatize. The exchange was simple:
Hey, that guy/girl is hot and I want to know more about him/her. So, one asks the other, "What are you doing Friday/Saturday?" If other is interested, we met out somewhere fun and maybe shared a meal, live music, a drink and we actually talked. If the night went well, there would be more fun and more "dates".
So WTF is this? Fisher makes money off people's inadequacies and insecurities. Go back to flirting and just calling it as you see it.
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re: AKA Smith - measuring fingers
According to the "brain sex" test that was posted a while ago on Broadsheet, you measure on the inside, from the crease where your finger bends, with fingers slightly bent.
I find it interesting that my index fingers are considerably longer than my ring fingers, which would indicate that my verbal skills should be good and my math skills poor. However, I won the state math contest as a high school senior. I think most people who know me would say I'm more direct and competitive than otherwise. My husband, who is a professional 3d artist, which is about the most "male brained" activity I can imagine, also has longer index fingers. He's not exactly girly in his interests, either. So neither of us fit the profile which would be indicated by our finger length.
My mother, who is a writer with several books of genre fiction to her credit, a retired literature professor, and has an enormous vocabulary, has longer ring fingers. So she doesn't fit the profile either. My dad, who spent 25 years in the Special Forces, played football in college, and is an engineer and architect, has index and ring fingers of exactly the same length.
I have a feeling that actual scientists would tell me that there's nothing odd about any of this: the finger length represents a statistical tendency, and using it to make predictions about specific individuals makes no sense at all. However, Chemistry.com is doing just this.
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good article
You know the article is good when letter writers start quibbling about which is the ring finger, etc. and feel offended by the suggestion that they may not be normal performers in sex or in romance, (and get a little uncomfortable at the suggestion of a link between sex and love.) What are we going to do?
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Dona Quixote: The "fun class" of antidepressants?
I'm curious--which are the "fun ones?" I have several friends whose lives could be greatly improved with this knowledge!
Thanks.
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I found my soon-to-be wife online
We've been together for nearly two years, and my original ad in Craigslist was written to EXCLUDE virtually everyone who read it. I trashed the other ads, showed my picture (breaking the picture-trading taboo), then said I didn't want to see anyone else's picture, only some well-crafted sentences.
The woman I'm about to marry replied to the ad, but without showing any interest. She was the only response other than two others who obviously didn't read the ad. We started emailing, and then decided to meet for lunch. She said "I'll probably be early, so I'll bring a book." I was a goner. Early AND bringing a book! Be still my heart. I'm always early, and I'm always bringing a book.
We talked for 4 hours, and decided to date. Six months later we moved in together. We currently both work a 12-Step program for relationships (CoDA), and we no longer are the people who wrote and/or responded to the ad. Our growth individually and as a couple has been in quantum leaps, going from being unable to SAY "marriage" to doing it (two weeks from tomorrow - a webcast from the Justice of the Peace's office - wink).
The best dating site would be text-only, in my opinion. But then, I don't give a shit. The ad I wrote was obviously read by the only one who was supposed to read it, and that's enough for me.
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Loved the finger idea but...
My ring finger is slightly longer on one hand and slightly shorter on the other. I always take experts like this with a grain of humor because actual people will defy the stereotypes every time.
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eDisharmony
What a coincidence, this article!
I was sitting around watching TV yesterday and this ad came on for eHarmony and I thought "What the Hell - it's not as though I am doing anything important..." so I filled out the long and exhausting questionaire (luckily, I was watching baseball so time had little meaning) as honestly and as accurately as I could and at the end of it I waited expectantly to see what romantic bounty this would bring (particularly since I choose "The Whole World" option in the search paradigm) and much to my surprise and horror eHarmony returned exactly NONE. Zero matches. Boy, if that doesn't make one feel like a loser, nothing will. And since I am one of those people who suffer from depression and take the libido depressing Prozac the effect of this rejection was doubly, uh, depressing.
So after reading this article I thought I'd try Chemistry.com and after poking around the for a while discovered that it only serves the United States...
I'm a Canadian and it's cold and lonely up here.
What to do?
p.s. one other thing about eHarmony and I bet the rest of these places is they never tell you how much it is going to cost! You spend hours filling out the increasingly detailed forms and then discover they want $60.00 per month! - all without a shred of evidence that their system will actually work.
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Serendipitous?
Wow, imagine my surprise when I saw this article on Salon this morning. Just last night, trying to go to sleep, I randomly pulled a magazine out from under my bed (where I stash my unread material) and came upon this article "How Do I Love Thee?" from a 2006 Atlantic Monthly. It compares a number of online matching sites and covers Helen Fisher more comprehensively. You can read it yourself by clicking on my signature.
I agree that the Salon article just skims the surface of the topic and is misleading in some places.