love

You may not have slept lately for worrying what Sean Parker has done for our environment.

Yes, in being one of the originals at Facebook, he helped create a world in which our noses permanently point downward, our friends are permanently virtual and our eyes must watch carefully over every word written by the company in small letters.

But I wasn't thinking about that.

I was thinking about the mounds of kerfuffle created after details were revealed about his wedding.

It was bad enough that he was said to be spending vast numbers on his nuptials. But then the Atlantic suggested … Read more

I have a confession to make.

Please don't tell everyone, but I'd like to kiss someone who's wearing Google Glass.

In fact, if you really push me up against this wall and make me talk, I'd also like to kiss someone while wearing Google Glass.

It's not that I don't think Google Glass is stranger than walking up to a stranger and putting your finger in his or her ear.

It's precisely because of Google Glass's sheer strangeness that I want to know whether it would alter my approach to love.… Read more

Love hurts. To which a logician might reply: "So shouldn't hate feel, really, really good?"

Logic and love have about as intimate a relationship as bread and a calorie-controlled diet.

This, however, didn't stop Peter Backus from attempting to quantify just how great (or small) his chances were of finding that one, true person who can bring meaning to life's absurdity.… Read more

Technology and love have a long relationship.

In recent times, the former has played the dominant role.

We now find partners online and one-night stands on our phones.

However, Samsung would like you to know that the best way to meet the woman of your dreams is to pull out your gadget and stalk her a little.

Perhaps this is already your preferred form of seduction. This new Galaxy S4 ad will be, therefore, a touch redundant for you.

For the rest of us, though, it is an education. Here is a boy who cannot help taking pictures of the … Read more

It hurts when your lover casts you aside.

Especially when you know that he or she is acting out of self-loathing, personal inadequacy, or a complete lack of appreciation for your hidden joys.

And yet, in this world where everything is recorded by a social network (and/or a government), there are parameters that makes the pain more acute.

As a University of California, Santa Cruz study has discovered, Facebook can make a break-up even worse.

It seems that even when we have been kicked to the curb with more unfairness than a Turkmeni election we find it hard to … Read more

We believe in love around here. Equally, we believe that sometimes it goes wrong, through no fault of at least one of the parties concerned.

There is a certain downcast tinge, therefore, on hearing the story of Lee David Clayworth and the woman he left behind -- who didn't want to be left behind.

Clayworth is a Vancouver teacher. Or at least he'd like to be. But, he says, a relationship he had while in Malaysia in 2010 prevents him from even getting a job. His online footprint, you see, reveals all sorts of potentially off-putting (and untrue) … Read more

"Only natural pure-bred lambskin condoms."

This is but one of the requirements on Martha Stewart's "new" Match.com profile.

Perhaps you have been too busy wondering if the world will end this week to focus on its most important news: the fact that Martha Stewart has joined Match.com.

Many will be fascinated to see how the rather fetching 71-year-old doyenne of domesticity will fare when her writing skills are tossed to the hordes of dubious males who wander that site in search of, well, who knows.… Read more

I am told that buying an engagement ring is even more stressful than mustering the gumption to propose.

Choosing the right ring is an expression of who you are and what you feel. It can leave you a wreck, feeling like you should check into a halfway house for spiritual guidance.

An enterprising online jewelry brand called Ocappi would like to give you a chance of survival, an opportunity to finally impress your lover beyond standing next to her at a party and grinning like a stuffed fish.

Ocappi will send six rings of your choice to your home, so … Read more

I fancy some physicists can be overly rational about love.

They analyze before, during, and after every act. They ask for feedback during and after every act.

While a French photographer might be having a post-coital cigarette and looking airily toward a window, a physicist might turn to his lover and offer: "So when your left hand touches my right shoulder, there's a 15 percent greater reaction in my nervous system than when your bottom lip touches my clavicle."

So just imagine what happens when two physicists meet, are together for seven years, and then one asks … Read more