Love is scarce. When making romantic investments, try to remember what you learned in econ.

Via The Daily Bedpost: Go-gal advice for single women from an editor at Vogue, in 1936. About Miss S., a teacher in the New York public schools, she writes: “In spite of living by one of the most underpaid professions in the world, Miss S. has been to Europe three times and to Mexico once, and three years ago she paid for the care of a tubercular pupil. She feels very sorry for her friends in Maine whose lives are limited to husbands and a trip to Portland.” Swell! Read more here.

From our tipster (Colin!): “This BBC article is just flat-out cool. Basement tapes (from the attic, actually) from the woman who made the Doctor Who* theme sound like the Doctor Who theme.”

* birth-show of dashing intergalactic omnisexual Captain Jack Harkness (BBC exec: “How ridiculous would it be that you would travel through time and space and only ever find heterosexual men?”) and source of such flirtatious introductions as “Nice to meet you, Rose Tyler. Now run for your life.”

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.

Here, your weekly installment of Ask Lynn, the advice column penned by BG’s alter ego at MSN.com (powered by Match.com). This week, we meet Bewildered Brittany, who says she keeps meeting men, finding flaws, and breaking up with them. Hmm! Is she having commitment issues, or is she … dating? Find out what Lynn says, and come back here to comment!

Finally: Episode 1 of Joss Whedon’s (second) long-awaited supervillain musical is live today…and available for one week only! Run, don’t walk! While singing, of course.