Nerd dating: the seasonal nature of relationships
Odds are this would have helped you more a few months ago, but it didn’t occur to me until today that this might be useful.
As I have stated before, while I am decent at meeting and dating women, I have always been pretty mediocre when it comes to maintaining a relationship. A lot of this is on me, but a lot of it is on the women I date as well (it takes two to tango). Of course, since these issues seem to be endemic to the women I am attracted to, I guess it all really falls upon me due to the fact that my selection process pulls in flawed women.
Either that or there are no sane women out there, a premise I find both feasible and depressing.
Anyway, one thing I am an expert at is rejection and short to moderate length relationships. That being said, I have noticed patterns in the whole relationship cycle as it relates to the the seasons and more specifically the holidays. This info may help you on the front end, but if you figure out how to apply it to the back end for god’s sake share it with me.
Here’s how it works. Women hate going into the holidays single. Christmas (or your Winter holiday of choice) is the time when you get together with friends and family to compare lives and try to figure out who is the biggest loser of the year. Women are already struggling under a huge burden of self esteem issues, and not having a boyfriend or husband seriously compounds those issues. Every time they hear from their mother or sister “So when are you going to meet a nice man and marry him?” that is the female equivalent of someone asking a guy “So when is your other ball going to drop?” Nothing is worse for a woman than to go to the company holiday party and have to be the only single woman there.
That is the foundation of the cycle. Women start looking for a relationship in September and early October. The weather starts to suck, and people start to feel lonely. This way they can have the super fun Halloween party date (the onus to be in a relationship is less strong for Halloween, but costume parties are always more fun to go to as a couple when you can coordinate your costumes) and have the relationship be a couple months old when it comes time for Christmas. When the gift giving season comes around it is great to have someone new to buy gifts for (and to buy you gifts) so you can get something different from the same sweater your mom gets you every year. You can bring your new boyfriend to the holiday parties and have all the other women, still stuck with the same guy for 15 years, be totally jealous (new is always more interesting and exciting).
Then, there is the added benefit of having someone to kiss at midnight on New Years Eve while the crowd of single losers look on with palpable jealousy (if you look carefully into that photo you will probably see me). After that you get the post-holiday winter blues that are aggravating by being in the deep, dank, horribly depressing winter months when it’s really nice to have someone to cuddle up to.
Then we come to the one day a year when a boyfriend is more important than air: Valentines Day. If a girl doesn’t have flowers and gifts arriving for her on 
February 14th she will feel like a social pariah for the rest of the year. This is the girl equivalent of Green Lantern recharging his power ring, except that it lasts for exactly one year. Like Green Lantern if she doesn’t recharge she is a mere mortal once again. (Green Lantern logo image courtesy of the DC Comic t-shirts)
However, once you have served your V-Day function, things are likely to change. I’m not saying she will dump you soon, but everything you do that annoys here will no longer have the I’ve-got-to-have-a-man filter and will become glaringly obvious. Also, as the weather warms up she will be wearing less clothing and every other swinging Richard on the planet will be paying a lot more attention to her, assuaging her self esteem issues and stroking her ego. So with your flaws like a paper cut on her brain and a summer of dating and guys to look forward to, you can expect to get dumped sometime in April or May, which by no coincidence is almost always exactly six months.
Again, this is not the pattern 100% of the time, but I have seen it enough times, both personally and through friends, to approach April and May with dread. This info can help a lot when it comes time to determine when you want to focus your dating efforts (Sept-Oct) and also when you want to minimize your flaws (Feb 15th-the rest of your life). Also, women who make a New Years Resolution to loose weight and actually do it are eyeballing the bathing suit months so it might be the time to match her pound for pound.
Anyway, this post is less about actual, applicable dating advice and more about observation and ranting about how my dating life kind of blows. I’ll get back on track next post.
As for the Superman vs Prof. X question, it is my opinion that if Superman as originally written took the time to talk to the Professor he would be mind controlled and eating a Kryptonite sandwich in about three seconds. On the other hand, if he just charged in with super speed and launched Charles’s chair into orbit then Superman would win. Of course, in recent years they have said that Superman has heightened resistance to mind control (because he wasn’t powerful enough, I guess) so who knows.
Today’s question is another battle of the moronic comedy relief characters: Shaka from Land of the Lost versus racially insensitive carbuncle on the ass of the Star Wars universe Jar Jar Binks.
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