People are not always sure there is a science to relatonships until I spend a minute explaining it to them. Everything in the universe is about inductance. Inductance has lots of gobbledy-gook definitions that require you to know what a lot of other words mean, so physics definitions don't always help, but inertia is part of the lexicon and everyone knows what that is.

Inductance is like inertia, except for electricity. You know what inertia means. It takes some effort to get something moving but, once you get going, it is actually easier to keep it going. So it goes with relationships. With inductance, you have more electrons in one place than another and they are induced to go somewhere else, like when I went green by using fruit for all my electricity. There's a metaphor for relationships in that also.

Romantic inertia is obvious for men in statements like "it's always easier to get a girl if you already have one." Romantic inductance is obvious for women because a woman knows that if she goes to a bar full of men the men will be induced toward her until equilibrium is reached.

Sexy Scientist is a rare and powerful card
Seriously, you can make an inductance metaphor for almost anything in life. ⁽¹⁾

Relationships have inductance, and we'll get to that in a minute, but first we have to overcome romantic inertia, which means you need a girl. Science can help here also.

Before you can create romantic inductance with her you need to overcome her inertia about you. Girls love to laugh. There are some spectacular women who have dated some ugly men because women are on a higher intellectual plane than men and will overlook a lot of things for a guy who makes her laugh, including your Star Trek "SET PHASERS FOR FUN" t-shirt with barbecue sauce on it from dinner three nights ago.

Here are some personal favorite opening lines to interest that science chick:

• Oooooh, your IQ is 140? I likes 'em beautiful and dumb!
•  By looking at you I can tell your measurements are 36-25-36 which, by the way, are all perfect squares.
• According to the second law of thermodynamics, you're supposed to share your hotness with me.
• But enough about me, let's talk about mu.
• What do you say we skip this nerd fest and hit an all-night symposium on Maxwell's Equations?

If those don't help you. I don't know what will. They are gold, I tell you.

We discussed additional nuances of finding and keeping your perfect mate in the now legendary Mens Guide To Dating A Geek Girl v 1.0 so I won't duplicate that here but at some point you will go beyond the initial stages and be settled into a comfortable relationship. It's not all balloons and ponies then, my friends. But science can help here as well.

Relationship 2.0

We've covered the introduction to relationships and how romantic inductance and inertia works and now we need to discuss what happens after you have been together for a while.

Every relationship has lulls. People have moods. Sometimes she gets tired of devastatingly perfect sex and just wants some of that Baskins-Robbins Gold Medal Ribbon® ice cream instead. Sometimes you want to play XIII on your Xbox even though you beat it three times. It's a pretty good game.

Those are all okay. It's not the highs and lows that will clobber you, it's the fights. Fights are called 'negative energy' by touchy-feely types because they are not sure what language means yet they have the right idea. The phrase "give a little to get a little" is more electrically correct and, because life is all inductance, they are words to live by.

If both of you are giving up some electrons, a nice flow of elecricity is maintained.

Fights interrupt the flow. No electricity is moving. This means you have to overcome inertia all over again. Fights are a problem because people tend to think in terms of getting reactions instead of in terms of what they actually want. People don't always communicate well in fights and they magically expect the other person to know what they mean.

We're in the world of physics. If you want sorcery, get drunk in the bar at 2AM and see what a combination of alcohol and magic will convince you about the girls still there.

If you want better fights, you have to take the confusion out of it. I talked about making a game out of your relationship once before but, since I am developing that one for Christmas 2007, I won't discuss it here. Instead, we'll stay in our 'magic' theme and use a commercially available game, like MAGIC: The GATHERING.

Sexy Enchantress always smells nice and is mostly hairless. She also bakes a great pie.
Games have rules. Games have numbers. No one can blame the game they can only blame bad luck if they lose, so this takes away a great deal of the emotion. If you don't like the results, get better strategy and rely less on luck.

In MAGIC: THE GATHERING you have some basic colors which, not surprisingly, can correspond to people and emotions in relationships. Green is very earthy and natural. Women are quite good with earthy and natural, even plastic women. White is logical and organized. That sounds like men - plus we like swords. Red is angry and Black is, basically, your dark side.

Barbara Eden is the most magical enchantress ever
Yes, there is even room for a dark side in your relationship at times and when you pull out a Black card, at least she knows what kind of make-up sex you will be having.

I have included two sample cards here and that's all the work you're going to get for free. Knowing the basics you can each make your own deck and go at it the next time you feel like fighting. Trust me, it's better than throwing things. Now go make some magic happen.

NOTES:

⁽¹⁾Try it for yourself with any physicist or electrical engineer. Let them talk for 45 minutes about whatever they want and then, at the end, say "You know, it's all inductance when you get right down to it" and they will take a swig of beer and nod their head, looking forlornly in the distance, convinced you are the smartest person they know.