Embarking upon a Romantic Science

So, you'd like to know more about Cindy Lu's Four-Man Plan, eh? (Oh, you didn't? Well... you're kind of in the wrong spot at the moment... But, really, stay... have a listen. It's interesting at least.)

So, this is the thing about The Four-Man Plan: A Romantic Science... It's a plan. With rules. And a graph. And I don't think I'm at liberty to give all of it away (Ms. Lu might actually, yanno, like to sell some books or something), but I want to share what's needed for you, dear readers, to understand what it is I'm doing, exactly.

First, like I said, there are rules. And a graph. For starters, you're supposed to fill up the damned graph with damned menfolk. You pretty much do this by accepting all social invitations and date invitations. (I am, of course, vetting dudes online, for the most part and for the sake of speeding this graph-filling along.)

Witness, Belle's current Mantis Graph:


(Not very impressive, you say? Give a girl some time, geez!)

Essentially, the Four Man Plan allows room for, well (duh) four men. But the tricky part comes in when deciding what classifies some dude as a bona fide man. Already proving herself much more discerning than yours truly, Ms. Lu doesn't give just any human of a certain age and possessing testicles that distinction on face value. (Luckily, she has some pretty straightforward guidelines to help ne'er-do-well daters, such as myself, figure that part out.)

First and second dates are considered Quarter Men. (See Boy Blue, above, all by his lonesome.) If I only wanted to see first and second dates in my chart, there would need to be 16 of them to fill all those other squares and satisfy Ms. Lu's demands. (Quite a lot to ask, no?)

Upon a third date and the revelation that you're dating other people, said Quarter Man moves up to the Half Man territory. (Thereby taking up one half of one quadrant, see?) And there are more steps to the moving up (Whole Men and Two and a Half Men, oh my!), which I'll get into when they become relevant.

For now, I've got to get to work on those other 15 quadrants...

I have two more first dates slated this week (and a couple more to come next week). I'm going to be a naughty girl and meet Boy Blue for lunch today (moving right along on his way to a Half Man, seeing as date #3 is already scheduled...), then I have coffee plans with another schmo* tonight, and ice cream plans with another tomorrow.


* I can't even believe I'm doing this, but I'm going to go ahead and justify before my lovely commenters get in on the action... He seems to be a perfectly nice guy, and I really don't consider him a schmo at all... it's a word of the moment, at best. Geez... give a girl a break...