Maybe it won’t surprise any of you to find out that roughly 50% of Canadians — reputed to be the politest people in the Northern hemisphere (the Minnesotans being too polite to challenge them) — break up in private places, mainly their own homes, so as not to embarrass the other person. (Or, um, because it’s cold outside?)

The Vancover Sun article bearing the news — based on a recent poll by Ipsos Reid — quotes psychology professor Guy Grenier as saying, “I suppose that’s probably a good indication of relationship etiquette.” I suppose. But just because a breakup happens in private doesn’t mean it feels private. I mean, the most humiliating place I was ever broken up with was in my own bedroom. Would have been private, I guess, if there hadn’t been a PARTY going on downstairs. I’ll cry if I want to, thanks!

By the way, call me an impolite New Yorker, but aren’t they focusing on the wrong half of the respondents? I mean, where are all those other people breaking up? Gretzky’s?

(By the way #2, the comments section here would be a good place to share your own good/bad/ugly breakup-location stories. Especially you, our neighbors to the north.)

If only someone had managed to convince Shanta Dargbeh. Oh, dear.

The New York Times ran a piece last week about the 1967 court case aptly named Loving v. Virginia, and indeed, it was obvious the state in question (“Virginia is for CERTAIN lovers”?) was trying to control whom its citizens could and could not love — or, at least, whom they could or could not marry.

The case centered on Mildred and Richard Loving, a black woman and a white man arrested and banished (like Romeo in Act III!) from Virginia for the “crime” of being married. It’s odd to think a country that may very well elect its first black president once — not that long ago — had laws prohibiting interracial marriage in 40 states. The Supreme Court ruling in the Loving case, according to the Times, “underscored the stupidity and unfairness of segregation” and “drew back the curtain on the secret history of race in the South.” Mildred Loving, who died this month, maintained that the two were married because they were in love, and chose not to fight a civil rights battle. Looks like their love ultimately won the war.

Having once seriously dated a fantastic, and fantastically ugly, guy, I have developed the following fugly-guy philosophy: You have to feel in your lusty places that your man is, like, the hottest guy in the world. In your head, however, you may acknowledge that he is perhaps the hottest guy in the world only according to you.

A recent study about the relative physical attractiveness of spouses seems, at first glance, to bolster my theory, stating that hot-wife/not-so-hot hubby couples often feature the most mutual encouragement and support.

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Via Broadsheet:

You know how teens have oral (or, wow, anal) sex instead of SEX sex in order to maintain that they are “technical” virgins? (As in, “I did not have sex with that hockey player”?)

Well, turns out the grown-ups had it wrong. Again.

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BG loves David Archuleta, but she LURRRVVES David Cook! Yeehaw!

Oh, that’s a GREAT idea. I assume the prom theme is not “Self-Esteem.”

Wondering if you should take the plunge and move in together? Sounds daunting enough as it is. Now try this: you and your beloved are in a spiritual partnership rooted in a commitment to always stay within 15 feet of each other — and your love nest is a 22-foot-wide yurt in the middle of the Arizona desert.

Oh, and you’ve both taken a vow of celibacy.

According to a recent feature in the New York Times, the relationship between acclaimed Buddhist teachers Michael Roach (also a monk) and Christie McNally — which includes eating off the same plate (to allow for a smaller drying rack, I’m guessing) and non-sexual touching (some don’t buy it) — has aroused both praise from their followers and fury from the Tibetan Buddhist community (wherein monks are prohibited from having partners). Their “insistence that they share both purity and intimacy drives traditionalists to distraction,” according to the Times. The Dalai Lama himself: not a fan.

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I mean, we would be.

Break out the Barolo! According to Italy’s new minister for equal opportunities, gays in that country no longer suffer discrimination. Well then! What will she do for the rest of the day?

From yesterday’s International Herald Tribune:

Italy’s new minister for equal opportunities has angered rights groups by refusing to back a “gay pride” march because, she said, gays no longer suffer discrimination in Italy.

The appointment of Mara Carfagna, a 32-year-old former Miss Italy contestant and television showgirl, to the equal opportunities post was seen by some rights groups as a deliberate provocation by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Carfagna said in comments published Monday that she would not back the June gay pride event in Bologna because “gay prides are pointless.”

“Homosexuality is no longer a problem, at least not the way the organizers of these demonstrations would have us believe,” Carfagna said. “Gay pride’s only aim is official recognition for homosexual couples, on the same level with marriage. I cannot agree to that.”