Who's Better, Gays Or Straights? Time Magazine Tells Us!

A fascinating Time magazine article lists the differences, according to a new body of research, between gay and straight relationships. Check it:

• Gays are nicer than straights during arguments as couples. They are "less belligerent, less domineering and less fearful." Gays, particularly lesbians, also use more humor when arguing. (Margaret Cho -- loves ya!)

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• Straights are better than gays at making up, or "repairing," after a fight.

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• Gays are more likely to require tension in a relationship. "Gays conduct their relationships as though they are acting out some cheesy pop song: You have to make my heart beat faster for me to love you."

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• Straight men are more sensitive than gay men to their partners' sadness and anger. In gay couples, according to researcher Robert Levenson, "there's a sense of 'We're angry, but isn't this funny?'"

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So it's a tie, dammit. Possible solution? Triads.

PHOTO: Elmo from Sesame Street. For some reason, it seemed appropriate.

Study: Mawiage Is (Not) What Bwings Us Togever

A new study shows that married people who fight live longer than married people who don't fight. Those that don't fight are just suppressing anger, according to the study. So this assumes that everyone has problems with his or her spouse one way or another -- the only difference is whether you choose to fight it out or not.

Well that's certainly depressing. Even more depressing is that if you are in a miserable marriage where you're constantly combative with each other, you can't even die and get it all over with. You actually live longer to fight longer. Good times.

When The Cat's Away...

...the mouse doesn't do shit.

Schedule For Saturday Afternoon While Wife2Be Is Out of Town:

Noon: Wake-up

12 - 12:10: Staring contest with cat. Aspirin for hangover.

12:10-1:40: Drink two cups of coffee. Check email. Organize iTunes. Watch Royal Tenenbaums on mute (this was confusing). Get OCD on my weekend papers so ads go in recycling and sections are piled in order of reading priority. Read front section of the Saturday New York Times including obituary of anti-Semite chess champ Bobby Fischer, which is odd because I like neither anti-Semites nor chess. Check email.

1:40-2:05: Take shower while singing chorus of "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant" (4x).

2:05: More with the email.

2:25-2:45: Step into daylight for four activities: 1) Rent episodes 1-7 of Season 4 of "The Wire," because I'm considering a career move into the Baltimore drug trade. 2) Drop $2.50 on a turkey-bacon egg-and-cheese sandy from the vendor across the street. 3) Get peer-pressured by friendly, accented vendor man into getting a hug from one of the UPenn hippies with FREE HUG signs on every corner of my block. 4) Get accidentally hit in head with a FREE HUG sign, but follow-up hug makes the pain go away.

2:50-6:15: Watch "The Wire."

This was identical to my Saturdays back in the day, when I was single and lonely, sporting a poofy haircut and a cheesey (but awesome) billboard for my dating column on four South Jersey highways (see above).

Sorry Grandmas and Grandpas!

This, at least according to Maury Povich's babymaker machine, is what your grandson (granddaughter?) will look like. I guess we can rule out fashion model or actor -- hopefully he/she is good at sports!

The proud mother's first words, by the way? "Horrifying."

CREDIT: Maury, keep up the great journalism! And Sugar, thanks for the idea!

On Blawging, Divorcing, And Finding Out Your Wife Is Working At The Local Brothel

William Krasnansky is sort of like my doppelganger: Instead of blawging about getting married, he blawgs about getting unmarried. The Vermont resident has been detailing -- and when I say "detailing," I mean "boring" -- the circumstances around his divorce. He says his account is actually an "autobiographical novel," but that hasn't stopped his ex-wife, Maria Garrido, from taking him to court and having a judge order him to stop blawging.

Fortunately, Krasnansky has continued to write as an act of civil disobedience, and by doing so he is defending the right of blawgers the world over to piss off family members by posting things online. Mr. Krasnansky, you are a true patriot.

Blawging is a fantastic way to complain about your marriage so you don't have to do things like A) Offing yourself with the carbon monoxide in the family garage, or B) Mailing a frozen cow's head to your wife's lover, as Jason Fife of Hunker, Pa., recently did, resulting in a sentence of community service and probation.

Consider the case of a guy in Warsaw, Poland, who recently visited the local brothel and found his wife of 14 years working there. As a hooker. What the hell is he supposed to do now? "I was dumbfounded," he told the local newspaper. "I thought I was dreaming." Blawg it out, baby. Just blawg it out.

CREDIT: A screen shot from LOOKATMYPUGS.LIVEJOURNAL.COM

Ewwwwwwwww

Twins Separated At Birth Married Each Other (The Guardian)

Gross, right? But isn't it somewhat sweet that after being torn apart at birth they found each other once again -- even if the terms of the reunion are somewhat vomit-inducing?

No? Okay. Maybe not.

Credit: IMDB

And You Thought Transgender Bobblehead Dolls Would Be Weird On A Wedding Cake

Meet Chidi Ogbuta of Allen, Tex., who had her childhood dream fulfilled when her wedding cake was created in her life-size image. It took a week for the cake to be eaten.

'Nuff said.


CREDIT: CNN

BREAKING: Groom (Possibly) Dying

At the last moment, a mere nine months before I'm to walk down the aisle, I have been threatened by the same evil doer that took the life of Susan Biddle Ross in 1996: Toxic glue on wedding-related stationery.

We're sitting here stuffing save-the-date envelopes and, suspiciously, the wife2be gives me the job of sealing the envelopes. But the envelopes refused to close. I try a sponge, but nothing. So I try filtered water with a paint brush. Again, no dice. I try Cisco and Shmelvis and binger H20 -- all the same results.

"Just lick them," the wife2be tells me, again with the suspiciously. And so I did. And it worked. Which is great.

On the other hand, this is envelope glue, and I'm EATING it. Certainly I'm about to die.

Yes, when George's fiance Susan died on Seinfeld, that was the genius of Larry David and not reality. But I do have a shitty taste in my mouth right now, and my stomach feels even more off than normal, so I'm left asking a few questions: Isn't it barbaric that we still lick our mail? Isn't it weird that we seal all snail-mail correspondence with our tongues? Why isn't there a Netflix-like adhesive for envelopes already? And would the wife2be immediately go to the diner for a cup of coffee if I died from a glue overdose?

CREDIT: NBC ... please don't sue me

UPDATE: Groom Confusion; Bobblehead To Appear On Cake, Not Tables

The bobblehead dolls, contrary to my previous belief, is actually planned for the cake, not the centerpieces of the tables. We're actually having plants on the tables. This means three things:

A) I'm an idiot.

B) Planning a wedding is above my pay grade.

C) Our wedding cake will have what all other wedding cakes will have -- a mini-statue of the bride and groom -- except the heads will rock back and forth, all night long.

Credit: mybobblehead.blogspot.com

A Gender Bender Centerpiece: Totally Inappropriate? Or Perfectly Appropriate?

This a big day in American politics. Iowans are deciding who makes it to the second-round of the presidential playoffs so the rest of America doesn't have to. Also, we are announcing the winner of the latest awkwardly-worded Engaged Guy poll:

What kind of bobblehead dolls of ourselves should we put on our wedding cake?

The winner? Narrowly beating out "groom in tie and undies and bride in pants suit" is "groom's head with bridal dress and bride's head with tux." Concocted by the bride2be because she's hilarious, the more we think about it the happier we are that voters decided to put our actual faces on the body of the opposite sex.

It just seems appropriate. I once wrote a column called "Gender Lines" -- the only syndicated gender column ever*, by the way -- where I basically just talked about how girlie I am, mostly because it's an easy attempt at a laugh but also because I have done stereotypically female acts (letting my gf handle my battles) while the bride2be has adopted traditionally male traits (supporting my broke-ass).

So I sent this email to headbobble.com last night: "We were interested in purchasing the bride and groom bobbleheads for our wedding centerpieces. But we were wondering if it would be possible to switch the heads of the bobblehead dolls so the groom's body is on the bride's head, and vice versa? Thought it might add a twist...Thanks! Sorry for the weird question..."

The response: "Matt, the heads are not glued on, you can switch them yourself any time you want or switch back after you get bored. thanks, Ken"

Sweet victory! Weird centerpieces at our wedding it will be! And by switching the heads whenever we want, we'll never be "bored" again!

* - this may or may not be true

CREDIT: Headbobble.com; Whoever shot that picture of me on Halloween 2006