jerks on dangerous bridges

Having made a conscious decision to hold out for a 10/10 guy, Pamela, 25, often wonders whether she is likely to spoil her ambitions by falling in love with some jerk.

"I was once very worried when I read about an experiment conducted by psychology students," explains Pamela. "It proved that people are more likely to fall in love with a stranger, and probably a total jerk, when their emotions are heightened - in this case crossing a precariously dangerous bridge - than when they're going about their normal duties."

Because the last thing Pamela needed in her well ordered single life - swank apartment, prestigious job - was the complication of falling in love with some jerk, she carried it around in her head for a long time that she should avoid meeting new members of the opposite sex on 'dangerous bridges' - a euphemism for any emotionally charged situation.

As Pamela’s life turned out to be one 'dangerous bridge' after another - and she couldn't very well lock herself away from society in fear of falling in love with some jerk while she was traversing some wobbly situation - she decided to conduct some experiments of her own.

"I disproved the theory time and time again," says Pamela," and I finally came to the conclusion that it probably only worked in the clinical study because the subjects were actually amenable to falling in love - as we all are when we are at college, just starting out in life and eager to follow the yellow brick road of happy ever afters."

"The subjects in the clinical study were students, not women of the world!"

It seemed perfectly logical to Pamela that these students would be amenable to falling in love whether they were on a dangerous bridge or not.

"Frankly, they didn't even have to be awake in order to fall in love," laughs Pamela. "College students could do it in their sleep!"

For single working women, who have been there and done that, and are just too dog tired most of the time to even think about romance, Pamela maintains that dangerous bridges pose no risk to insane pairings. None whatsoever.

"If anything," says Pamela, "dangerous bridges render us totally disinterested in the opposite sex, and I really cannot imagine any rational woman being susceptible to falling in love when she is going through some life crisis."

"Let's face it," says Pamela, "the adrenalin may be pumping when one's life is in crisis, but its purpose is one of survival not procreation. Can you seriously imagine someone perched precariously on the side of a cliff - having fallen from a vantage point - being distracted by an attractive person down below?"

"No way," says Pamela.

"Similarly, when you're rushing a child to the emergency room at the local hospital, are you more interested in the attractive doctors than the life of your child? Would a couple of strangers sitting next to each other on a plane with a wing on fire be more interested in each other than getting to their destination alive? Of course not," says Pamela.

She wondered why she ever believed this nonsense to start off with. She guessed that when psychology departments are paid heaps to discover things that we are unlikely to discover on our own that we all tend to believe without question what their studies prove.

One of the tests Pamela carried out involved running a mini-marathon and going to a runner’s social function directly afterwards.

"The pounding hearts, blazing eyes and moist bodies that gathered together after the race should have sparked several romances according to the 'dangerous bridge' school of thought, but nary a spark was fired."

"All I wanted to do was get home and get to bed - alone!" laughs Pamela.

This particular test led Pamela to conclude that not only must one be very young and amenable to falling in love on dangerous bridges, but one must also be unfulfilled in one's life.

What Pamela means by this is that a woman who has a focus or a passion in life is so concentrated on that focus or passion that no end of dangerous bridges is likely to cause her to fall in love with a total stranger - especially a jerk.

As a runner, Pamela is already a self-contained person with a focus not only on her sport but also on her job. She is fulfilled in her life and even without her sport she would qualify as being fulfilled.

"Single focused women qualify without reservation," says Pamela, "because we enjoy our own company and we are really way, way past that yearning, unfulfilled state that characterizes teenagers and young adults."

Anyway, the longer Pamela spends observing the rest of society, the more she questions the whole notion of 'falling in love' and 'coupledom'.

"It's like an Emperor's clothes phenomenon," explains Pamela. "I often wonder if anyone else out there can see what I can see, or whether I'm doomed forever to see through the veneer of it all to the miseries that often, but not always, bind two people together."

"Loneliness is an issue that single women face occasionally, but nothing could be more lonely," says Pamela, "than waking up one day next to a jerk for whom - while under the spell of being in love - we once made a vow to love and cherish forever and ever, in sickness and in health, till death do us part."

"In many cases, single woman have been there and done that - when they were very young - and some have children as a result of doing what nature intended them to do, but the experience is often so sobering that they make a conscious decision never to go down that road again," says Pamela. "I got smart earlier than most women. Now, it's 10/10 or nothing for me!"

"And yet, many women do go down that road again and make the same mistake over and over again, often suffering incredible pain. And women with children who take on another jerk for a partner often suffer the most, and so do their kids."

"So, there you go," says Pamela, "it's rather pointless anyone trying to convince me that I can fall in love with a jerk again. Dangerous bridges come and go, attractive members of the opposite sex come and go, but not once have I felt even a glimmer of that insane feeling I once knew as 'falling in love'."

"Now love, on the other hand," says Pamela, "is a totally different kettle of fish and one does not have to subject oneself to dangerous bridges in order to experience it."

"It grows on you, like the guy in the Sales Department - but only if he's 10/10 if I have any say in it!"