Dating Advice

 I was talking with my son this evening.  Somehow we segued to Noam Chomsky (that's the kind of thing I do I guess).  I regaled him of a tale from long ago.  When I was in grad school, there was a girl I wanted to date and so I asked her out to the movies.  She said sure even though it was a documentary.  

Turns out the documentary on Noam, Manufacturing Consent, was four hours long*, pretty dry and academic, and had an intermission.  My date suggested we leave during the intermission and I said "No way, this is fascinating!  MIT linguistic analyzing newspapers for subconscious bias, wow!" (completely serious - one might conclude from the evidence that I have always been a hard-core nerd and one might, indeed, be correct).  

Needless to say, there was no second date.

Seb asks me 'So, the advice is no four hour documentaries for a first date?"

I respond "No, it's a great sorting mechanism.  You need to find out about someone's lack of intellectual stamina right away!"

Apologies to PB for this post.  Also, I would like to dedicate this post to current student PS as he might enjoy (and possibly benefit) from it as well.

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* I haven't told this story in years but I always say 'four hours' - I am disappointed by looking at the actual facts and finding only 167 minutes of the movie actually exist.