R=4r

This is the fabric hanging on one of the walls in my apartment.

I'm aware it might look a little crazy taken out of the context of the rest of my apartment, but I like to think it goes well with the rest of the interior decorating.

But anyway, to the point of my story ...

Remember the friends with whom my boyfriend and I went camping at the Grand Canyon? While they were here, they stayed with us. Stayed, in fact, in very close proximity to this wall hanging.

While they were here, it somehow came up that my friend's husband, who is a geologist, had been going nuts staring at this thing. Why?

Because it irked him that the black circles do not continue in straight lines, but instead curve in toward the center.

When he brought this up, my boyfriend quickly chimed in, "I know! It's been driving me crazy for months, too!" And then the two of them frenetically began discussing the geometrical shapes' finer points. "I know, and you see how that line should be here..." "And the radius there..." "I'd say it's a parabola..." "Yeah, that's what it is..."

Meanwhile, my friend and I are looking at each other like, "Aren't boys such special creatures?"

Especially ones who are obsessed with math.


My friend and her husband eventually had to return home. A week or two went by. And then, one day, I walked into that same room and my boyfriend had taped this next to the fabric.

Me: "Um, what is this?"

Boyfriend: "Oh. I had to find the radius of the big red circle."

Me: "You what?" Pause. "Why?"

Boyfriend: [Jumps off the couch, runs over and points at his calculations.] "Look! Can you believe that the radius of this big circle is four times the radius of the little black circle? This is great. I figured it out. Man, that was gonna bother me."

Talk about a piece of home decor that's a conversation-starter ...

Photos: Sway Sovay

I'm Pretty Sure I Won That One

Me: Could you try to wipe off the mirror after you brush your teeth? Sometimes you splash a lot of water around and it leaves spots on the mirror.

Boyfriend: Fine. But you get your makeup all over the sink and the counter.

Me: I clean that stuff off. Probably a lot more often than you clean off the mirror, anyway.

Boyfriend: Hey, I clean! I clean plenty of things around here.

Me: Please. Rinsing toothpaste down the sink?

Boyfriend: I clean all the dishes!

Me: I clean all the laundry!

Boyfriend: I clean out all the trash!

Me: Well I clean the toilet, which probably includes wiping your urine off the toilet seat!

Boyfriend: [Silence + disgusted face.]

Me: What else you got?

Need vs. Want

I think healthy relationships are the kind where you don't need to be with the other person, you want to be with the other person.

Men's Best Guess Yet

Men know we're up to something, they just don't know what that something is.

Over at Themorningnews.org, the Non-Expert takes a stab at unlocking they mysteries.

Image:  "Mona Lisa" by Leonardo Da Vinci, courtesy of commons.wikimedia.org

Something I Don't Understand About the Human Race

Are you familiar with that rhetorical question, "Why do we always hurt the ones we love?"

It's a question for which there is an answer ... but it's an answer that doesn't happen to be good, and it's definitely not an answer which provides any justification.

The answer to the question is this: We hurt the ones we love because we take them and their feelings for granted.

But here's the really twisted part ...

When we do or say something that disappoints or angers or deeply frustrates a person we love, although it's definitely not a reflection of the love we have for them, it often is a reflection of the love they have for us.

This is because somewhere along the way they have proven to us -- whether it's by a grand gesture, a selfless gift or just by being there for the past x,xxx number of days -- that they love us regardless of who we are or what we may do, or any other peripheral factors. And in fact, it is because of our feelings of security in their love for us that, whether consciously or subconsciously, we feel confident that they won't walk away, even when we falter for a moment and unfairly take out all our grievances upon them.

We make the assumption that they can take it. In those moments when we might otherwise be with an acquaintance or a coworker or a perfect stranger, we have the maturity to not let our emotions get the best of us -- we can still walk the line between rational and irrational behavior. But then we come home on a bad day, and we snap at our moms, dads, wives, husbands for an unfair reason, we start a fight over something they had no control over. We brazenly act with no control, because we are so certain that it doesn't matter what we say or what we do to them today, they will still love us tomorrow and all will be forgiven.

Why do human beings do this to one another? I understand, but I don't understand.

Ladies: Run!

Go here, listen to the guy's voicemail and be amazed by his level of arrogance and self-importance. This is the absolute worst way to convince a girl to go out with you.

Under Pressure, Part 2

I think that it must be awfully hard for some guys to live with the idea that they should be the ones to put the first foot forward. A lot of girls like for guys to step up and make the first move, and I can see how that would be hard for someone a little more introverted. I mean, first the guy has to get up the courage to say something or do something (and hope that it's the "right" thing), and then he has to wait and see if it's going to be followed up with a rejection. He has to continually put himself out there and run the risk of being completely embarrassed or looking like a total jerk.

But I think girls have to go through a lot of the same thing, just in a different form. Girls may have the luxury of waiting for and expecting the guy to be the one to make the first move, but we have to live the with the idea that no guy is even going to bother unless we can keep their attention. I think girls can say all day long that they don't care what they look like, but come on, every girl cares at least a little on some level. And every girl worries that she may not be "pretty enough" to get whatever kind of guy she's looking for.

The truth is, everyone wants to appeal to the opposite sex and no one likes rejection. So I think that men and women have the same problems, and are under equal amounts of pressure, but we just have to deal with it in different ways.

Under Pressure, Part 1

Which do you think is stronger: the pressure on guys to always be the instigators, or the pressure on women to always be attractive and desirable?

This Isn't Really A Post About Spas

You're just going to have to stay with me on this one and try not to get lost.

Last week I spent my lunch hour looking into a potential trip to the spa. I've never been to one before, and it sounded like a nice way to relax. I quickly uncovered that even a weekend stay at any one of these places is not cheap.

To be truthful, I did always suspect that these places were pretty expensive, but somehow I imagined that I would still be able to find something more in line with say, the Holiday Inns of spas, as opposed to the Hiltons or the Hyatts. And then I was forced to remember that I live in the Phoenix metro area, a.k.a. the Resort and Spa Capital of the Southwest. That's like living in Tiffany's and yet still expecting to find a cheap diamond within arm's reach. (Oh fine, it was lousy, but you get my point anyway, right?)

So, having absolutely no problem whatsoever admitting that I earn nowhere near enough to fund a full-fledged relaxation getaway, but not wanting to abandon all hope just yet, I checked for any special rates and/or packages. And lo and behold, I found some.

But as I read on, it became apparent that the vast number of them were created for couples.

Not just friends.

Couples.

Do people not go to the spa alone?

I think it's interesting that there are so many situations where people are expected to arrive, to enjoy, and to leave with another person.

I go to the movie theater and buy a ticket for myself, and the ticket salesperson will ask the person behind me, "Same movie?" assuming that we came together.

I go to restaurants and the hostesses frequently ask me, "...And will there be two tonight?"

The company plans events and the all-important question is, "Who will you be bringing?"

I don't have a problem with being with someone, and I don't have a problem with being alone. But there are these little things I notice which make me wonder if most of society doesn't expect for a person to either already be in a relationship or be working on being in one. Very interesting.

But my god, who are these couples who are always going to the spa?? Can I be their friend??


Photos, top two: ©2007 The Phoenician, LLC

Photos, bottom two: ©2005 Sanctuary Camelback Mountain

We Actually Know We're Neurotic

Women are neurotic. We are, it’s true, and I can admit this.

And while I’m at it, I’ll go ahead and say this, too: I feel bad for all the decent men, those rare and decent men, who actually have their acts together and who are forced to deal with neurotic behavior they don’t deserve.

I think that as women get older, the intelligent ones – the ones capable of learning from their past mistakes – are able to look back at the women who are some steps behind them and recognize: Oh dear god. I used to be that girl.

I no longer consider myself a novice in the dating and relationship arenas, but by no means would I ever call myself an expert – I’m a long ways from that. And yet, I still feel like it would be fair to say that I’ve gained some useful insights over the past decade or so.

One of the benefits of entering this new phase of wisdom is that now I’m somehow more able to recognize these moments of neurotic behavior. In myself, in my girlfriends, occasionally even in girls I’ve only just met. It’s eye-opening, really. I’ve learned that we get upset (a lot) over things that have… well… nothing to do with anything. But the thing is, to us, this little thing actually does relate to something. See, men are confused because they take us literally; they believe that the problem at hand is the problem at hand, when really, there’s usually so much more under the surface.

When I get irritated at, or pick a fight over, something completely ridiculous, I can almost always see that I’m being unreasonable and unfair. The problem, though, is that whatever the underlying issue happens to be, it’s never something that I think is ridiculous.

Men fight over what is in front of them, over what we (women) have laid on the table, but we (women) fight over what is under the table. What we’ve placed on the table is just something we’re using to bring up our real issues. Do you follow?

Women are neurotic, for sure. And we can’t help it. We will always be this way. This is because we all secretly want a man who can read our minds when we’re upset, a man who’s in tune with what makes us happy and what makes us angry or sad, a man who can learn what we want and need and expect. We want men who can give us what we we’re hoping for without us asking for it. We want men who can look at the tiny and ridiculous matters we bring up and naturally see what it is that’s really bothering us beneath each of them. And why do we want men like this? Because we, as women, are always searching for the “grand gesture,” we are constantly looking for signs from the men that they care enough to make efforts to satisfy and take care of us. Because we hope (against all odds and better judgment) that men exist who are capable of deeper thought and who will care enough to always get to the bottom of things. What makes us neurotic is that there aren’t a lot of men out there who are like this.

I blame the discrepancy in expectations on the genders’ respective wiring. We just think differently, and that will probably never change unless we all become genderless automatons.

So what do men want? If a man isn’t neurotic, what is he? Reckless? Insensitive? Oblivious? I don’t think it’s fair to pass those judgments when I don’t really know what they want. Where are they coming from? What kind of women do they want?