The romance of our age between Kim Kardashian and Reggie Bush has come to an end. Oh, the humanity.

Via Lee Sigelman, a ranking of the best cities for singles with Atlanta at the top. Laredo, no doubt to everyone’s shock and amazement, is unranked.

Via Glenn Reynolds and Costa Tsiokos, I finally connect the dots to obtain a satisfactory explanation of why she* wasn’t that into me.

* Well, at least for the one value of “she” where I know she was on the pill.

Tyler Cowen seeks to explain Pam Beesley.

JMPP explains why she won’t be dating you—yes, you. Me, I know I’m quality… heck, my mom says so, and whose mom would lie to their kid?

Sorta-kinda credit to Amber Taylor, although I saw it in Google Reader before she mentioned it.

Update via Amber’s comments: If you know your SAT or GRE score, find out if you are worthy of JMPP here (broken in Safari, use Firefox instead). Fun for the whole family!

Laura of 11D recommends Consumating to those seeking “a tattooed man from Austin or a 15 year old, bass-playing chick.” I can’t say I’m in the market for either, but I suppose it beats giving fifty bucks to that eHarmony guy.

The key advantages to not having a girlfriend at Valentine’s Day: it’s quite a bit cheaper, and nobody can complain that you’re spending the evening working on job applications and finishing the Veronica Mars Season 1 DVD set.

The key disadvantage: you can’t email any female colleagues (particularly ones from the vaguely-recalled distant past) to ask for favors relating to said job applications because they might think you might be hitting on them on Valentine’s Day.

Serrabee comments on a list of “10 things every single girl must own.” I’m not sure anything on that list (at least, of the things that are supposed to appeal to guys) would really impress me, but then again I may not be typical of the single male population.

Scipio writes:

This is roughly… equivalent… to a job interview and the company saying, You have a great resume, you have all the qualifications we are looking for, but we’re not going to hire you. We will, however, use your resume as the basis for comparison for all other applicants. But, we’re going to hire somebody who is far less qualified and is probably an alcoholic. And if he doesn’t work out, we’ll hire somebody else, but still not you. In fact, we will never hire you. But we will call you from time to time to complain about the person that we hired.

Funnily enough, I think this actually has happened to me on both the job and romantic markets.

Now, ordinarily I’d be highly supportive of evidence supporting my fundamental beliefs, but this New York Daily News piece from yesterday (þ: memeorandum), subtitled “Ready for a real relationship? Ditch the pretty boys and grab yourself a geek,” is stretching credibility just a tad, largely because of the poster children it chooses for this phenomenon:

• Jordan Bratman, a music executive
• David Arquette
• Tiger Woods
• Adam Brody (from The O.C., a show I’m proud to say I’ve never seen)

So, we have two actors (granted, one of them is a low-rent Tom Green, but still…), a media mogul, and one of the richest athletes in the world. Can anyone find another possible causal factor that might explain why attractive women might be interested in these guys?

Sarah Hempel has followed up on our discussion of relationship categories from a couple of weeks ago.

Sarah Hempel wonders why many people classify “committed relationships” as something other than being “single”:

I am not sure what this means exactly. I understand dating exclusively, but since you are not yet married or betrothed, serious dating relationships are still comprised of two single people. Plus, I find the word “committed” to be vague and, quite frankly, rediculous. So, you haven’t pledged life-long fidelity to one another, so “committed” means what? Committed until someone better comes along, until we have a huge blow-out and break up, until we tire of one another? Marriage promises “until death do us part;” what does a “committed relationship” imply?

I’m not sure one can fail to draw the distinction between “single” and “betrothed” and not recognize “committed relationship” in the middle; after all, betrothed (or engaged) means “until death do us part unless I come up with a good reason before the marriage ceremony why we shouldn’t stay together,” which doesn’t seem to be very different from the definitions provided for “committed relationship” except there’s now a slightly stronger promise to keep (and more people get annoyed if you break it).

Nor am I really sure “divorced” is a meaningful separate category either. Single, married, and widowed seem to cover all the bases pretty well, and even “widowed” is troublesome and could easily be lumped in with “single.” So, here are the two types of relationship:

Married: I’ve promised to spend the rest of my life with someone else and am still following through on that commitment.
Single: I’ve done no such thing.

Funny and probably true relationship advice for women:

1. It is important that a man helps you around the house and has a job.
2. It is important that a man makes you laugh.
3. It is important to find a man you can count on and doesn’t lie to you.
4. It is important that a man loves you (and tells you so!) and spoils you.
5. It is important that these four men don’t know each other.

I think I might pull off 3½ of these on a good day… I’m afraid I’m useless at housework, although the last person I had over was under the delusion that my apartment was clean.

Somehow I missed Orgasm Day yesterday (þ: Glenn Reynolds). Amber Taylor claims that this event would be the “polar opposite” of International Kissing Day; I tend to think these events are rather orthogonal, myself.

However, it’s still Masturbation Month, so everyone’s got that to, er, celebrate at least.

While searching for a PBS show on psychology I promised to record for my friend and colleague Suzanne (which I never found), I stumbled across this program listing:

Electric Orgasm: An anesthesiologist uses pain relief technology to trigger the brain’s pleasure zone in three women.

Ah, but will the anesthesiologist remember their birthdays? I think not.

The groom-to-be of the runaway bride still wants to go through with the wedding. I guess this proves both of them are insane. (þ: OTB)

Why Geeks and Nerds Are Worth It…. I need to slap this bad boy up on my office door… except it would look really pathetic, even by my standards. (þ: Joy)