Speed dating may seem like a waste of (tiny microcosms of) time, but some researchers at Indiana University recently found a way to put it to good use: By having subjects (male and female) watch tapes of numerous speed-dating interactions (male-female), they measured which gender seems to be more adept at picking up on flirting cues, both come-hither and get-outta-here.

Turns out, it’s a draw.

“… [M]en and women were shown to be equally good at gauging men’s interest,” says the study, “and equally bad at judging women’s interest.”

So apparently it’s hard to get when women are playing hard-to-get. Score one for feminine mystique!

“‘The hardest-to-read women were being misperceived at a much higher rate than the hardest-to-read men. Those women were being flirtatious, but it turned out they weren’t interested at all,’ said lead author Skyler Place, a doctoral student in IU’s Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences working with cognitive science Professor Peter Todd. ‘Nobody could really read what these deceptive females were doing, including other women.’ ” (“These deceptive females?” Sounds either coldly anthro-scientific, or the opposite, like he’s gonna go on to say, “YOU made me do this study, Linda, YOU did!”)

Here’s something else I’m having a hard time getting. Behold this little nugget:

“Researchers expected women to have a leg up in judging romantic interest, because theoretically they have more to lose from a bad relationship [ital mine], but no such edge was found.”

An icky amount of such cavalier sexism has been coursing through the “scientific” studies I’ve read of late. This one’s so broad I’m not even sure which presumptions are being referred to: That women don’t have time on their side? That they often wind up financially lesser-off post-divorce? That they’re all just, y’know, thisclose to tripping over the line into full-blown nutso?

If you’re as worked up as me, unwind by playing your own Meta Match Game.

Now coming to a close is Psychology Today’s three-part Q&A between author/interviewer Bella DePaulo and author/interviewee Jaclyn Geller about the singles stigma. And here’s our final rundown of this quite illuminating discussion.

— I swear I did not know that DePaulo was gonna name-check that same baby-shower “SATC” ep as I linked to in my most recent post. All the same, I will take this opportunity to remind you what great minds do.

— In other tried-but-true cliches (including the use of “tried and true,” shame on me), Geller eloquently discusses how those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. (Translation: She recommends all those entering marriage to read up on its history.)

— If a Mormon can decide to take the Sarandon-Robbins alternate route to happiness, then change is inevitable.

Teen loitering is apparently a big problem for the Brits. A few years back, they tried the opposite of a dog whistle:  The Mosquito, a device that emitted a buzzing sound audible, much like The Saturdays, only by those under 30.  be heard by those under 30. In retaliation, kids adopted the “repellent” sound as a cell-phone ringtone inaudible to teachers during class. Ace!

Now I Heart Daily reports that the grups have upped the ante, installing special pink fluorescent lighting said to hinder hanging-out by making acne look especially pronounced and heinous. (They really don’t remember what it was like, do they? Or wait, maybe they do.) Let’s hope, at least, that the technology doens’t fall into even wronger hands.

Last we left our whatevs-to-marriage heroines — authors Bella DePaulo and Jaclyn Geller; the former is running a three-part Q&A with the latter on the Psychology Today blogs — the discussion dwelled on the inequities of wedding registries, “single” v.”married” vocab and the notion that spouses trump friends any day of the week (and, I’m guessing, twice on your anniversary).

And now, our teasers for part deux:

— Singles supplementing couples’ life choices via endless streams of showers should basically just start registering for stuff the day they turn 25.

— Earning one’s M.R.S. degree is, sadly, still a popular college-major choice among coeds.

— Something I’ve never said/written before (not even when I actually was, speaking of, in college): ZOMG I have *GOT* to read me some Plato!

— Double ZOMG: They had road trips in the first century?!?

Gasp! Brenda Starr has been laid off furloughed!

(More here. Sorry we’re a little late. Even superheros get understaffed!)

May all karaoke bars observe a moment of silence for actor Andy Hallett, who played BG’s favorite character on Angel, which is saying a lot.

Of course, we prefer to think he’s gone back to Pylea to open a FANTASTIC club.

“They have no music there. It doesn’t exist. Do you know what that’s like? No lullabies, no love songs. All my life I thought I was crazy, that I had ghosts in my head or something… simply because I could hear music. Of course, I didn’t know it was music. All I knew was that it was something… beautiful and… and painful and right. And I was the only one who could hear it. Then I wound up here and heard Aretha for the first time.” — Lorne the Host

Formerly arrow-straight eHarmony.com “has come out of the closet,” the L.A. Times reports. As BreakupGirl.net noted in November, the website, which has eHarmonized only male-female couples since its inception in 2000, is launching a gay matchmaking service. The catch, as the L.A. Times put it: “EHarmony’s new relationship with the gay community is more like a shotgun wedding.” How so? Because the company agreed to start the gay service only as part of a settlement with the New Jersey attorney general in the wake of a discrimination suit.

Which makes BG wonder even harder about the name of the new venture: CompatiblePartners.com. No, yeah. Really. What went on in that meeting? Did no one raise a hand and say, “But wait, aren’t the gays more … sparkly?”  Did that name edge out Meh.com?* Plus: though the L.A. Times reports the site’s up as of yesterday, well, go look. Urrr? As of this posting, anyway, it’s totally still just a placeholder.com.

I mean, does someone over there want this to fail?

* Anyone remember “Lowered Expectations“?

Not exactly sure what I’m s’posed to do with this maple-bacon-flavored lollipop, courtesy of artisanal treats purveyor Das Foods, suggestively dubbed “Man Bait.”

Is the point that if I lick away at one, I’m giving off a seductive visual — kinda like when you’re in a cartoon and your friend is really hungry, and suddenly you look like a pork chop?

Or do the lolly’s “real smoky bacon bits” unleash an irresistible aroma which, with humanlike fingers, lures the object of my confection by the nose toward my swine-scented pucker?

Or or, is it he who is meant to ingest the pop in the first place? (And then I guess he gets the hint, so we go out for pancakes start making out?)

A final conundrum (why must I overcomplicate candy?): Just what kind of man am I baiting here? Because it seems a maple-bacon lollipop’s targeted demographic, as of late, is a manorexic hipster who somehow manages to spend an afternoon sampling bacon while still fitting into his skinny jeans.

This is only the first installment of up-with-singles author* Bella DePaulo’s Q&A trifecta with author Jaclyn Geller, author of Here Comes the Bride: Women, Weddings, and the Marriage Mystique, and already I’ve got releases of hundreds of white doves mini-explosions of consciousness-raising going off in my head. To wit:

1. What’s up with all the wedding presents when — now that folks are marrying later — most spouses-to-be already have two of everything anyway? (Shouldn’t all-Freecycle weddings already be the wave of…right now?)

2. “Matrimaniacs” is the new “bridezillas.” Pass it on.

3. If we are going to reclaim the word “spinster” — Geller notes that it wasn’t always an insult — I vote for “noun: a female DJ.”

There’s much more: linguistics (“I don’t like the “single”/ “married” binary. It implies that any unmarried person is a fragmentary half-self awaiting completion in a spouse”), history (prehistoric prenups!), homosocial poetry!

Cliffhanger: In one of the next installments, Geller tells us what she writes on those medical forms that ask whether we’re single or married. (Perhaps she’ll also tell us how not to feel lame when it asks for “emergency contact” and we have to write in our parents?)

* See: Singled Out: How Singles Are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After

Anybody else game to test this out on their next blind (so to speak!) date? From a study covered in the London Telegraph:

“The longer a man’s gaze rests on a woman when they meet for the first time, the more interested he is. If it lasts just four seconds, he may not be all that impressed. But if it breaks the 8.2 second barrier, he could already be in love they say.”

Women were found to stare for equal lengths of time whether they were attracted to the guy or not. Why? Because, the article explains (“explains”), “… women are more wary of attracting unwanted attention because of the risks of unwanted pregnancy and single parenthood.”

[Charlie Brown confused headshake] Wuzzuh?

And I thought it was just me who mind-jumped ahead too fast on the first date.