Those dirty rings! As part of their application for the Evil League of Evil, the sly devils over at Boston-based wireless communications provider Mobile Sphere have created a no-cost (if you don’t mind a few ads) service called SlyDial that allows you to call directly into someone’s voice mail — ring-free. It’s being marketed mainly as a tool to help bizzy people who have never heard of email return calls without ever interacting with other humans small-talk time-suck. But according to the “SlyDial Situations” section of the service’s website, it will also help you avoid certain uncomfy conversations in particular: calling in sick when you’re fine; explaining your credit card bill to your parents; wishing a friend a belated (like, 3 AM) birthday. Hmm. If we think really really really hard, could we also come up with some other applications in the area of love (or lack thereof)?

Oh wait! SlyDial beat us to it: “You are dating quite a few people at the same time. You don’t want to leave them all text messages because there is nothing romantic about that. But a nice voicemail to each would score you points.” Mmmm. Now that’s romantic.

… including the terms “elk hunting,” “biological weapon,” and “career brassiere,” plus bonus cameo by BG imaginary boyfriend Adam Baldwin. Both videos, plus other awsm linkage, here.

The wisdom of Greek courts prevailed in a case in which three residents of the isle of Lesbos attempted to ban use of the word “lesbian” to describe gay women, the BBC reports. Those who sought to ban non-geographical use of “lesbian” claimed that the other use “disgraces them around the world” and causes social hardship in the lives of its citizens. Interestingly, neither “it’s all Greek to me” nor Grecian Formula seem to have incited similar protests. ‘Cause obvi, it’s homophobia thatcauses the “disgrace,” not the word itself. “This is a good decision for lesbians everywhere,” Vassilis Chirdaris, lawyer for the Gay and Lesbian Union of Greece, told Reuters. Opa!

Being apart from your honey stings like a bee-atch, and, as Jackie recently reported here, the cost of fuel is making it harder to keep things sweet. Long-distance couples have plenty of keyboardy, computery ways to keep in touch — e-mail, IM, Skype — but those tools can be too task-oriented and disruptive. Over at Wired magazine, Regina Lynn recently explored the budding field of “tele-amore” — a whole new world of technology that may help “intimacy, playfulness and common experiences.” As Lynn writes: “Despite the frenzy around social media applications, we still don’t have sensual devices that extend that functionality beyond virtual space.” The gizmos she describes are all about nonverbal communication (but we’re not talking about “teledildonics”). (more…)

Because you know you’ve always been curious about your neighbors lives, the Binghamton (N.Y.) Press & Sun-Bulletin has created a database called “Why We Divorce”. It uses state Department of Health records to detail county-by-county in New York state the reasons people cite for the demise of their marriage. Mental (and “other”) cruelty was the number one reason people across the state divorced in 2005, which was the last year the numbers appear to be available. Abandonment came in at number two. And apparently only five people in the entire state of New York, pop. 19,306,183, divorced because of adultery that year — which, we assume, is probably a little like when celebrities split citing “irreconcilable differences” (i.e. “We have irreconcilably different opinions of Madonna“).

On a more upbeat note, the site also tracks the most popular wedding month per county in the state. Even if you’re not from New York, you know you’re curious when most Staten Islanders get married (August) and how many January weddings there were in Herkimer County (9). That, or one may learn that come October in Dutchess County, those with wedding fatigue may wish to get the heck outta Dodge.

The more the economy tanks, the more relevant becomes the term “geographically undesirable.” According to the Washington Post, the rising cost of fuel is making long-distance couples reconsider the number of times they see each other, adding some ick to an often already tricky arrangement. Reducing the number of visits, avoiding holiday weekend travel, and flying at off-peak times are just some approaches long-distance loves are taking to cope with the surge in travel-related expenses. “From just talking with people who have been in long-distance relationships…as the prices for flights and gasoline start going up, it makes them all much more stressed,” Greg Guldner, director of the Center for the Study of Long Distance Relationships (they have one of those?!), told CNN.

(more…)

Since life is so often stranger than fiction (people stealing leaves in India, doctors pulling screws and nails from a metal-eating man, the Clapper), the Bush Theatre in England decided to go to the source when conceiving its newest show, “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover,” which opens its run Saturday at the Latitude Festival.

The theater asked people to share their worst (or “best,” depending) breakup experiences, 50 of which found their way into the 50-minute play, performed by two men and two women. The breakup lines uttered range from the classic “Let’s just be friends” to the soon-to-be classic “I’m dumping you by changing my Facebook status.”

I once was dumped by a guy who apparently decided the only was to get rid of me was to drop out of college and drive from Louisiana to Alaska to work on a fishing boat. I got a postcard letting me know. That one’s perhaps better for an epistolary novel, or Discovery Channel reality show, but hey: tell us what vignette would you have offered for inclusion in this real-life art?

Via Broadsheet:

While some of us may stop short of actively mocking pregnant teenagers, current attitudes toward “the problem of teen pregnancy” are in fact stigmatizing and therefore counterproductive. So says sociologist Mike Males (now a researcher for YouthFacts.org, dedicated to reality-checking “the latest teen terror du jour”) in this week’s Los Angeles Times. “In truth, social- and health-policy discussions in this country would profit from abandoning the stigmatizing, prejudicial concept of ‘teenage pregnancy’ altogether,” he writes.

OK, I’ll bite. How come? (more…)

From NPR:

If you have a happy marriage, you might let your kids date more. If you have a bad marriage, you may keep your teenagers closer to home. A new study links parents’ satisfaction in their own relationships to the dating rules they set for their children. Alex Cohen talks to Stephanie Madsen, lead author of the study and professor of psychology at McDaniel College, about what that link says about parents.

Give it a listen and let us know what you think!

Remember the story about Iraq war veteran Marine Sgt. Tyler Ziegel and his post-homecoming wedding? If you don’t remember the story, you likely remember the photo — and not the one at the right: the groom in military dress, bride at his side, his face brutally disfigured by a suicide bomber.

The story, alas, does not have a happy ending, even by depressing TV-movie standards. According to the UK’s Times Online (in a story I, and, it seems, much of the US press, missed until now), Sgt. Ziegel and his wife have divorced after just about a year. What’s lovely here, though, is the Times story itself: respectful, thoughtful, compassionate, clear-eyed in its recognition of reality — and its finding of a silver lining. Read it all, but here’s a highlight (slash, spoiler):

The fairy tale, as we know it, was not meant to be. They were too young to be married. Too young to process the possibility that what led them into a lifelong commitment was a desire for certainty in an uncertain world.
There is no mystery, no implosion, no tragic conclusion. There were factors that added up. Factors that at the time they could not have foreseen. That a marriage would not offset the consequences of Ty’s injuries. That it would not compensate for the loss and the grief felt by a young woman losing her father.
Everyone suspected it was too soon — that maybe it wasn’t right. But nobody spoke out. Others, strangers, projected onto them what they needed to believe.
They were larger than life. When we heard their story, we put ourselves in their shoes, imagining what we would do in the same situation. Renee personified the courage and strength we hoped we would have. But she was 18 years old. And neither is prone to introspection. They weren’t people who asked why. Between the two of them, they had so much life experience, but the emotional narrative of their lives never caught up.
What made us think it would? Why did we have such high hopes for them in the first place? Nobody really ever knew Ty and Renee. Not even Ty and Renee.
But this is not the end. They emerged from the marriage with warmth and affection for each other — not anger and recrimination.
She was there when he needed her most; she showed up and stood by him. That is more than many people will ever have in a marriage. It is something they will always share.