relationships

Imagine you are somewhat advanced in years. You still get your news from a physical newspaper. You still get your pleasure from a physical person.

Then along comes your wacky nephew, or just some distantly removed acquaintance, who decides that you have to work a little to get to their wedding. This may well be the dilemma facing the invitees to the wedding of a couple of German geeks, Darina and Niko.

According to Offbeat Bride, a place where couples share their propensity to waft away from "beaten aisle," Darina explained in an entirely harmonious way: "We … Read more

I, like many others, am looking for science to control the world. Humans have used their instincts for far too long. They have bungled too much. Now it's time for the scientific to become beatific.

I am therefore leaping as if it were February 29 to discover that scientists in Europe have finally come up with the perfect formula for the ultimate human condition: marriage.

Regular sufferers here will know that this subject fascinates me beyond the usual level of engagement. A little while ago, mathematicians came up with a formula for choosing a wife. Essentially, it involved selecting … Read more

A man is caught red-handed by his blue-bodied wife.

He is in bed with another woman. His wife is not happy. His wife, in fact, begins to assault him. She slaps him, as he and his other woman try to escape.

Is this a scene from "Fatal Attraction"? Is this, perhaps, a cinematic homage to two Oscar-nominated movies, "It's Complicated" and "Avatar"?

No, it is merely a commercial for AshleyMadison.com, the site that helps married people hook up with, well, other married people. AshleyMadison claims to have 4.5 million members and … Read more

This post will have no Tiger Woods jokes.

Tiger Woods has a serious problem. And there is absolutely no reason to encourage cheap laughter just because of an astonishing new iPhone app that makes it easier for you to cheat on your spouse, offer heinously regrettable insults, or employ a hitman--all without worrying that your texts will betray your true self.

So this app is called TigerText. So what? I am sure the golfer's deep and troubling recent past did not enter into the creators' heads when they named this ingenious little technological concoction.

TigerText, you see, erases your texts. It makes them go away. It makes them disappear like the midriff of a magician's assistant. What is so beautiful is that not only do your texts disappear from your own phone records, they also vamoose from the phone of your unfortunate recipient.

You can even decide when they vamoose. After a minute. Or, if you are fond of self-torture, after any time period up to 30 days.

Tiger Text demo from Jason Evans on Vimeo.

This concept seems brilliant on so many levels that my vast and excited arms cannot embrace all of these levels simultaneously.

I am sure you, too, sometimes send texts that you would dearly love to take back. You liken your boss, your lover, or your chiropodist to some human orifice or dubious sexual practice. You allow your fingers to work slightly ahead of your editing skills. Suddenly, words that don't reflect your true, kind, thoughtful self, wing their way across 3G until they stir up emotions in 3D. … Read more

I feel sure you will find the appropriate way to express your love on Valentine's Day.

Maybe you will take your love to dinner. You will buy flowers. You might get a card or lingerie. Perhaps you will even seek out some revolutionary bondage gear. However, I feel sure that not many of you will choose to offer your love a video game experience.

It seems that not everyone is as sure as me--or, for that matter, the wise and wonderful bloggers at Deadspin, who received a most delightfully thoughtful communication from a PR company. This PR company, called … Read more

Some of you might remember Harry Chapin's delightful ditty to parent/child relationships, titled "Cat's in the Cradle." It was all about a child being neglected by his father. He then grows up and neglects him.

Might I bring you, therefore, a modern day tale of a Chapin? This Chapin--Tess is her name--has parents who don't seem to neglect her. However, she has decided to offer a potty-mouthed pout at their discipline in the world's largest whining arena: Facebook.

According to The New York Times, 15-year-old Tess Chapin was grounded by her parents for … Read more

Given that Mark Zuckerberg has explained to you that privacy is no longer a social norm, your first thought this morning was probably, "How can I get more of my information to be public on Facebook?"

Your second might well have been something to do with improving your current relationship with your beloved.

In a heartwarming analysis of Google searches, Dan Ariely, author of the beautifully named "Predictably Irrational," revealed just how different boyfriends and girlfriends are, when it comes to asking the Google oracle for ways to solve their relationship problems.

Taking the search "… Read more

Adultery is a strange word.

As I understand the concept, you make promises in front of a priest, rabbi or, perhaps, a retired bartender in Las Vegas, and then you decide that maybe those promises were made to the wrong person. Or, perhaps, that it was the wrong person making those promises. A little like, well, a recalcitrant 5-year-old.

So I struggle with finding the "adult" part of adultery.

However, I have been enlightened by Reuters that one of the contributory factors to cheating on your betrothed may be snow.

You see, the wire service's Oddly Enough … Read more

This is not your average Danielle Steel tale. But it is one where the reported facts would surely make Nabokov want to immediately finger his keyboard.

It begins with a simple, everyday event: a 16-year-old Canadian boy met an older woman online while playing World of Warcraft.

The Toronto Globe and Mail described in some detail how the youth from Barrie, Ontario, enjoyed an online relationship with a 42-year-old mother of four from Houston. In our modern, socially entangled world, these things happen.

What perhaps happens slightly less often is everything that reportedly followed. Including the rather difficult ending.

The … Read more