So let me start with something about Math.
The Theory of Relationship
Relativity
After years of devoted research,
I’ve made a shocking discovery about relationships. Love is a
mathematical formula.
Sure, this flies in the face of
thousands of romantics from the past. Shakespeare would reject the theory
outright. Burns would chase me through the streets with a red rose (and a
stick). And I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Dr. Ruth put out a contract
on me. But it’s true.
I finally came to this
conclusion after closely looking at the relationships of movie stars.
After all, aren’t they the modern paradigm of love? Gossip magazines
spend thousands of dollars to snap wedding pictures of Posh Spice and her
soccer man. Everyone at work gathers around the coffee pot to discuss
Madonna’s latest flame. So they are perfect laboratory love rats, no
offense to any rats out there.
The formula is this:
LOVE= amount of time with a person
x the qualities you like about
the person
÷ those pet peeves that drive you
crazy
Let me give you an example.
Mr. Smith has loved his high school sweetheart for 10 years. Ms. Brown
served on the student council and lead the cheers at football games and looks
incredible in a tight Angora sweater. However, she snaps her chewing gum,
hates to cook, cleans her house once every decade and wears perfume from
K-Mart.
For the most part, the qualities
and pet peeves are fairly even. However, because of the length of time
they have been dating, they will enter relationship heaven.
Example B. Gail has dated
Roger for close to a year now. He works for the Shark, Curmudgeon and
Bitter law firm as a junior partner, often gets confused for Brad Pitt and owns
stock in IBM, Exxon and Ben & Jerry’s. However, she’s recently
learned that his favorite pastime is nude, Jell-O wrestling, munches on a whole
onion (uncooked) at lunch and still thinks that “Porky’s” is the best movie
ever produced. This relationship will be joining the Titanic in no time
at all. Because the time factor is so short, and the nasty quirks are
slightly stronger than the qualities, they don’t stand a chance.
How did this formula come about
with the help of movie stars? Well, look at the examples. Bogart
and Bacall spent a lot of time together on the sets of several movies. A lot
of close time together. They both were beautiful, charming and
provocative people. Negative qualities were slight and undiscovered.
Their relationship was so mathematically predictable, even a French Lit major
could solve the equation.
This formula gets repeated over
and over with modern stars with incredible frequency. Almost every week
you can read in one of the paragons of journalistic reportage, like The Enquirer, about two hot stars
falling into a relationship after spending many arduous months together on a
film. The time factor is so strong they can’t resist each other.
Of course, these relationships
also never work out. And it’s mathematical. After a year of
marriage/shacking up, the negative qualities start to appear and grow.
Soon they quickly outweigh time and positive qualities. A break-up
follows to the delight of readers everywhere. This wouldn’t happen with
Mr. Smith and Ms. Brown because the time factor has become so large the pet
peeves could never overcome it. There could almost be an argument made
that to save the relationship, for the first few years you should try to avoid
learning anything bad about your mate. Build up that quality time so that
the math works out.
As with all math formulas there
will be countless tests to validate it. So go ahead and test it to your
heart’s (and relationship’s) content. Plug in your parents. Try out
your sister and that stupid Marine she met at Mardi Gras. And dare you?
Sure, be brave. Plug your own relationship into the formula.
The
numbers don’t lie.
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