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Dating Should Be Done In Parallel, Not In Serial

by Len Neighbors
02/14/2007

We saw this on Boing Boing, but it should be repeated as loudly and to as many people as possible. And it is appropriate to St. Valentine's Day, to boot. Benjamin Pollack, a blogger from NY, was complaining to his tech-adjusted father about his relationship issues:

So a few days ago, I was on the phone, whining to my dad about throwing a Fifth Annual F*** Valentine's Day party and trying to figure out my personal life. My dad listened thoughtfully, and then began explaining to me what I was doing wrong.

The problem, he said, is that I date girls serially.

His father proceeds to explain, in electrical engineering detail, what he meant:

Let's let V be potential difference between dating girls and doing something productive, I be current of love, and R be resistance to current flow. The problem with serial dating is the same as with serial circuits. If resistance starts to increase, you're stuck: because V = IR, and R is increasing, I must decrease to hold the equality. Worse still, because P = IV, you're just not going to have as much power with the increased resistance. Note on the above diagram that current is a lousy 214 mA, and we're only able to get 1.93 "jewels" from our relationships. This is even worse than it seems: because there's only one path - through all relationships - you'll end up spending the majority of your energy on the relationship with the greatest resistance, which is exactly the opposite of what you want to do.

The best part are the diagrams, dating as circuitry schematics generated by Pollack to illustrate his father's advice. After viewing them, you'll feel as if the wool has been pulled from your eyes, a New World revealed. Then you will realize one of two things:

A) It is too simple to be true.

B) It is true, but you lack the skills to put the information into good practice.

And you'll end up buying flowers and chocolate for your high-resistor anyway.