Chaos Theory

Sordid pasts

Oh, the flashbacks.

"A side note: if you ever look around at your friends and think, “Good lord, how did I get involved with such a pack of losers?” it is likely because you are kind of a loser yourself, dude. At the time, we all pretended we had created a friendship based on fate, a shared love of dinner parties, and the practical need to develop contacts with weed dealers. In retrospect, it’s incredibly obvious that the real glue that held us together involved several serious drug problems, misogyny (I gave as good as I got), and a fierce denial of crippling and dangerous personal problems of a looming nature. Oh, we were such friends."

Yay for being bi

Let's make it ok to be out of the bi closet.

Analyzing NYMag's sex diaries

"Are the digital tools that make it easier to find sex compounding the confusion that accompanies it?"

What kind of aircraft are your parents?

"Exhibit A: To my alarm, an urgent call from Doug of the Davis Police Department warned me of my roommate's disappearance the other night. This was about 10 minutes before my "missing" roommate skipped through the door after returning from dinner with her boyfriend. My roommate - we'll just call her Batman for confidentiality sake - had forgotten to contact her mother that day, so it only made sense that she had been kidnapped by the Legion of Doom. The police had to be notified.

To say Batman's mother is a helicopter mom would be like describing the Titanic as a schooner, or comparing KetMoRee to the Silo. Batman's mother is more specifically a Bell 212, a military spy helicopter used to gather detailed information about a specific subject.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, I read this article that compared parents to aircrafts, and now every time I think of someone's mom, I find myself wondering what type of plane they would be. While I convinced myself this rant was coming to some epic point about overbearing parents and how that affects their children, I have only come to realize that people need to stop writing crappy articles that make me ponder what kind of aircraft my parents or my roommate's psycho mother would make."

Um, what?

"Dude, check out that massive loft effect made by Eric, placing his bed up on a loft with a stepladder and having four couches, a fan, and a cardboard cow between the ladder and the door. Girls are never going to be able to leave his room."

The "friend expert" is at it again.

Eh, who CARES if your friend is marrying a dude who doesn't want to have sex wtih her?

Awww.

Strange things happen.

The friend expert makes a limp attempt at apology.

"I know many of us assume we would jump out of bed after that call. But how many of you would actually, honestly get out of bed and get dressed at 4 a.m. and drive to the hospital to keep your close friend company while she recovered?"

Clearly, NOT YOU. Yeah, I don't think this is one.

Other commentary:

"Reportedly, some other Double X staffers are preparing a follow-up post to the initial column. I’ll be watching the site closely for it to post, and when it does, I hope it acknowledges this simple truth: the proper response to a woman who thinks she's been drugged, then left passed out on the sidewalk, then abandoned again by friends who can't be bothered to visit her in the hospital is not "Suck it up, if you're even telling the truth." It's "I'm so sorry." It's "You should get some better BFFs." And maybe it's "Watch your drink—and your drinking—more carefully next time."

Bad Boys vs. Nice Guys Pt. 1: The Lloyd Dobler Effect

"In high school, my friends and I used to say that a romantic gesture had nothing to do with the gesture — it was the guy doing it. If you liked the guy sending you secret notes and flowers, it was romantic. If you didn’t, it was lame and stalkery. If it wasn’t cutie-pie John Cusack — Lloyd Dobler who we were all rooting for — standing out there with the boom box, we’d probably recommend that Diane call the cops."

Charts to help you succeed in online dating

"the worst 6 words you can use in a first message are all stupid slang," such as ur, r, u, ya, cant, and hit. Using ur will drop the response rate from 32 percent to 6 percent! Another mistake is complimenting someone on their looks. If you say someone is "sexy" you'll almost halve your chances of hearing back from them. On the other hand, a greeting of "How's it going?" will boost the response rate to 53%. People also respond well to messages that make it clear  you actually read the person's profile and have something to say about it (using "you mention" in a message increases the response rate to 49%)."