Seeing your ex on 20/20

So, the other day I got a bunch of messages that all said something to the effect of;

caller: "Uh, I think I just saw Nacole on 20/20, in a piece about dating. You should check it out."

So, I went online the next day, and sure enough, they did a special on finding the right person, and Nacole was in it. The special featured Dr. Helen Fisher, who has divided all people into 4 types: Directors, Explorers, Negotiators, and... something else that I can't remember. Whatever. It's the usual completely arbitrary classification scheme. I took her little test online, using the hypothesis that I would be classified as an explorer, and I was.

It's not clear at all, either from the special, or from Dr. Fisher herself, how the heck this classification helps you find the "right" person, probably because "finding the right person" is inherently an exercise in futility. But hey, it's a very monetizable exercise in futility.

My advice: meet lots of people. Eventually you'll meet one you like enough to want to do the hard work it takes to make a relationship work over the long run. Unfortunately, the first time you hit upon that person, it's unlikely they'll view you precisely the same way, so you have to iterate this process until you find someone you like enough to want to do the hard work it takes to make a relationship work over the long run, AND they like you enough to want to do the hard work it takes to make a relationship work over the long run. At that point, you get married/cohabitate until one of you dies/Thelma&Louise it off a cliff, whatever.

Of course, I'm more or less the last one of my friends to get married, so it's entirely possible that there's no one on earth less qualified to be dispensing dating advice than I am. I mean, my exes are going on dates on national TV, for Chrissake.

Anyway, apparently she went to some big singles mixer that Dr. Fisher hosted, and was one of 4 women and 4 men picked to go on a series of camera dates, in order to see if "something special" would develop. Dr. Fisher cleverly avoided saying that her algorithm for matching the men and women would have any success in predicting this.

Sure enough, only 1 of the 4 couples were still together at the time of the airing of the special, and it wasn't Nacole and Jason. Though, they went on a nice date to a cooking class. There was a funny (for me) moment during it...

Nacole: "This is fun! I've never made breaded chicken before."

[Side note: for the first 5 years I dated Nacole, she was on this super extreme diet where chicken was one of like half a dozen things she could eat. One or the other of us cooked chicken about 400 different ways. In retrospect, none of them were "breaded".]

Jason (affecting shock, as if he has, ever in his life, made breaded chicken): "Really??"

Nacole (pausing in her vigorous stirring): "No." (whipping around to face him) "Have YOU ever made breaded chicken?"

Jason (clearly caught off guard that Nacole has challenged his authority): "Uh, yeah" (quickly turns away and goes back to stirring)

I laughed and laughed. "Dude," I thought, "You better learn quickly that she's not gonna let you get away with that kind of bullshit."

Sadly, the spark apparently just wasn't there for them. Presumably Jason is out there right now looking for some doe-eyed blond who'll just gaze at him adoringly and believe him when he says he's made breaded chicken. Though, I guess next time he uses that line it'll actually be true.

So, if you feel you might be amused watching such things, you can see it online on the 20/20 website, under the special "Why Him, Why Her?", which aired on 1/30. The bit I wrote about is in "Part 2: Love is in the Air: Creating Chemistry".

One of the many reasons I lean toward theism over atheism is that life is so utterly ridiculous, it just has to be the product of some higher intelligence. A higher intelligence with a really impish sense of humor.