how the west was won. ok everybody, please sit, i'm about to break it down. here we go with another broad generalization. buckle up, this is obvious and heard often but i feel the need to present it here as an epiphany. more dramatic that way. so, drop your jaws and unhinge your hands, let's rock.



there are two kinds of people in relationships... i know, this sounds like the set up for a bad joke, tell me if you've heard this one. laugh along anyway. there are two kinds of people in relationships... forget this, let me just launch into the specifics before gift wrapping for the obtuse. you've seen the ladder theory, you believe in the ladder theory, now welcome to my theory. let us dub it "the slide rules." catchy isn't it? yes it is.



now, the ladder theory states that for a guy, there is only one ladder for ranking the opposite sex. all female constellations are up for gazing (and much much more) consideration, it's just a matter of how dark it is and how desperate the situation. this is nothing new. the breakthrough of the ladder theory was it's ability to divine that girls themselves had TWO ladders. one for platonic guy friends, one for attractive guy friends they might consider something down and dirty with. between the two ladders there was rarely any inter-mixing or jumping. you were either on the friend ladder or the attractive ladder. even if you were really high on the friend ladder, you were not going to be shifted onto the bottom rung of the attractive ladder. it just doesn't work that way, ugly's gotta count for something. girls are superficial. sorry bub.



the slide rules work in a similar two pronged way. i know, i ape my best shit, but so does evolution, so screw you. anyway, to continue. some people in a relationship have one scale for measuring all of their friends, including but not limited to (assuming you are a guy): guy friends, girl friends, girl-friends. note the hyphen, i would not normally use it but i want to clearly define the difference between girl friend (platonic) and girl-friend (romantic). man, i feel like a lawyer, having to spell out everything. anyway, these one slide rule people use the same scale to measure their friends and girl-friends. let's call them the "gunters" (check glossary below for definition and explanation of name). this is the objective point of view pertaining to relationships. a girl-friend is special and higher up on the scale but still clearly on the one slide rule. what you expect out of your hyphen-friend is similar to what you might expect out of a normal friend, if only intensified.



now, the the other group of people, the "oughtreds," have two different scales from which to judge their friends and girlboyfriends. hyphen-friends are subjected to a whole set of different standards, which may or may not overlap with the platonic friend standards. the one leading indicator that proves you have a two slide rule ideal? when you catch yourself saying "but you're my boygirlfriend!" this is in response to them asking "nobody else does this for you, you don't get mad at them, why should you get upset at me if i don't do it?" relativity plays a prominent role in the life of a two slide ruler. for example, to qualify as a great friend one must satisfy the expectations on the platonic scale, but those same great platonic traits might not qualify you as a great boyfriend according to the hyphen scale. in fact, sometimes the two scales of qualifications are in direct opposition with each other and engaged in civil war. examples abound.



i think most people are oughtreds, the two slider rule folk. in fact, i don't even know another gunter besides me. although i've heard urban legends of such people. i've also heard that they're beautiful and exclusively attracted to skinny ass asian guys who type and fax for a living. but that could just be a rumor. who knows. so, to wrap it all up, there are two kinds of people in the world, the gunters and the oughtreds. get it got it good. now which one are you?





some slide rules terms

gunters versus oughtreds - on slide rules. in 1614, john napier discovered the logarithm which made it possible to perform multiplications and divisions by addition and subtraction. this was a great time saver but there was still quite a lot of work required. edmund gunter soon reduced the effort by drawing a number line in which the positions of numbers were proportional to their logs. william oughtred simplified things further by taking two gunter's lines and sliding them relative to each other thus eliminating the dividers.



i am aware of the inconsistency involved in my naming procedure since it seems like the oughtreds should be the gunters and vice versa. this is due to the simplification process of the oughtreds, which might mean that they are the one scale people, but i have decided that it makes more sense for the one scale people to be the gunters since gunter himself drew only one number line, which equates to one scale. thanks for trying to point out the incosistencies in my life. i appreciate the effort but rest assured that i'm so far ahead of you that i'm practically behind you, right buddy?



hyphen-friends - friends to whom you are romantically linked, girl-friend, boy-friend.



platonic scale and hyphen scale - the different scales used by oughtreds in order to differentiate what is expected out of platonic friends and hyphen-friends.



calculators - people who are too advanced for this slide rule stuff, they just want to plug in numbers and roll with whatever answer pops out, never wondering how the mechanics of relationship ideals work. look down on these people, who are not caught up in the rules of the game, but just play for the sheer joy of it. shun them, shun them.



no - still means no.