Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader saw an interesting little article over on Yahoo. It was an assortment of little (probably unscientific) factoids about American’s attitudes towards breaking up.

Now… Allow him to state for the record, your Maximum Leader is a happily married fellow. He would never “break up” with Mrs Villain. Indeed, he feels very strongly about this. Perhaps it is his Catholic upbringing coming to the fore on this. But your Maximum Leader has been very clear that he would rather live in wedded misery than divorce. Indeed, if it ever came to it, he would dedicate his life to making Mrs Villain’s life as miserable as possible - without getting divorced.

He might consider an annulment. Might… He worries about the bastardization of children…

But this is just idle chatter, because on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being suicidal misery and 10 being perfect bliss; your Maximum Leader is pretty sure his marriage is a 9.3. That is rather exact measurement he knows. But from time to time your Maximum Leader and his lovely (and loving) wife don’t see eye to eye on things… That would account for the .7 deduction.

Anyhoo…

Your Maximum Leader was surprised at some of the Yahoo entry’s factoids…

Before breaking up 31 percent would spend one last night of hurrah together. A night of “hurrah?” Humm… Could this be a coded use of “hurrah” that your Maximum Leader hasn’t seen before? He thinks it is. He’s used all sorts of euphemisms for conjugation - as it were. But “hurrah” has never - ever - been one of them. Your Maximum Leader will also speculate that 92.2 percent of that 31 percent are male.

About 50 percent of daters give people three o five dates before they decide how they feel (though West Coasters tend to judge a little quicker). Humm… Three to five dates? Does that seem like enough? What type of dates are we talking about? Meeting for coffee? Dinner? Movies? Dancing? Your Maximum Leader wonders. If you meet for coffee say you spend an hour together. One imagines that you will be talking for most of that one hour. But let us say you go out dancing… Even if you go out dancing for three hours will you talk with the person for a whole hour? Of course West Coasters are quicker to decided. One wonders if Bobgirrl is giving her future ex-husbands enough time?

Men are quicker than women to consider their date to be their girlfriend/boyfriend. Especially men in their 40s. 16 percent of men vs. 8 percent of women consider their date their boyfriend/girlfriend after three to five dates. Men on the West Coast are significantly more likely than other men to have exclusivity before considering someone their boyfriend/girlfriend. Your Maximum Leader isn’t sure what to to think of this one. 3-5 dates. One supposes that if it takes 3-5 dates to decide if you have “feelings” for someone then it should take 4-6 dates before you declare that your are boyfriend/girlfriend. Don’t you think? Really now… If you make up your mind on date 5 that you have “good feelings” for someone wouldn’t you then require one more date to firm things up?

A disturbing factoid on which to end this post…

After breaking up, 23 percent will cut him/her out of all their photos. Are 23 percent of people that pyscho? Really now… This bit seems a little too OCD for your Maximum Leader to buy. For goodness sakes… If you only had 4-6 dates how many photos could you have? If you dated for years… How long would that take? This seems quite odd in fact. Your Maximum Leader just can’t imagine wanting to take the time to do all the cutting…

Single people are welcome to drop your Maximum Leader a line and describe their favorite break-up stories… If you are single, female, and take a shine to the Maximum Leaderly type - feel free to send photos of you and your ex. Then feel free to go on over to the Naked Villainy store and buy yourself a sexy camisole and matching thong. Then take a photo of yourself wearing your Naked Villainy apparel and e-mail it to the ex. It will empower you and make them feel miserable for having lost such a catch… (Also… Copy your Maximum Leader on that message…)

Carry on.