Relationships and Statistics

I just realised that statistics and relationships can be very funny in an absurd sort of way. Let me elaborate.+/-

Nameless Girl called me today and that always leaves me excited. It has been ages since we last talked for hours and it almost felt like forever since she went on her trip Down Under. And like usual she went on and on with short pauses.

This time she went on and on about the Opera House in Sydney (LINK1 LINK2) and the magnificent hotels like Palazzo Versace (LINK) and of the Hamilton Islands (LINK). Then finally when she came up from her snorkelling to catch her breath, she gave me her mind on what she thinks about relationships.

She is of the view that for a relationship to succeed there should be fire from the very beginning - its either love at first sight or just close the book and say goodnight. In plain truth if the ostriches do not jump in the belly - there is no happily ever after. Then she just went on about her eyebrows...

Sitting back, I am not sure that I would agree with her. Frankly speaking I think relationships are a bit over rated and if I were to give a monkey a banana, I would suggest that relationships are like just statistics - you make up what you want them to be (LINK). Love or whatever you want to call those chemical imbalances in your body can truly be a magical experience if you find the right person to share it with and I hope that everyone find their true soul mates. But sadly if statistics has anything to do with it and Russia too, 80% of marriages will end up in a divorce (LINK)! I am not sure where they have got their statistics from, but:

More and more Russians who got married, come back to the registry office to divorce. The current ratio of marriages to divorces in Russia is 1000:800. Less number of children are born: there were 36 million children in Russia in 1989, currently we have only 26.3 million children.

I am not sure what the declining number of children being born has to with marriages (come on its Russia we are talking about here!) Anyhow my point was that even though 8 marriages end up in a divorce I still believe Nameless Girl is wrong. There is no way I am going to believe that just because no fireworks happened in the beginning, its time to go to the court house tomorrow and just spill it out: Talak , Talak and Talak (LINK)! (I can see the scorn in her eyes...)

In my defence and the point I was trying to make to the Nameless Girl was that you have to work on your relationships sometimes. And also in reply to a post by the famous (LINK) Rebellious Arab Girl (LINK) sure you might get bored, but try to jump start your relationships whenever it stops working for you. Give some take some and I think life will just breeze through. Everyday is not a Sunday, and if all else fails, Nameless Girl there is always an extra air ticket to the Kiwi land!

And to end on a favourable note, The New York Times agrees with me that divorce rate is not as high as you think (LINK)! Like I said statistics is what you want to make it.

Tags: MARRIAGES, DIVORCES, RELATIONSHIPS, STATISTICS

Sexual Harassment

No matter what Harry or Susan says, there is always an element of sexual tension whenever the opposite sexes work together - no matter how big a hermit you claim to be. But where do we draw the line where it is not flirting and just plain Sexual Harassment as Michael Douglas found the hard way in Disclosure? +/-

UK recently passed new laws (LINK LINK2) to protect employees from sexual harassment. According to the amendments, the employers are now responsible to protect the welfare employees sexuality. What does that mean? Bring in the Marshall Law and put on the Big Brother policy at work? So is the employer supposed to be putting his energies to make the firm profitable or babysitting horny adults?

Interestingly, The Employment Equality (Sex Discrimination) Regulations 2005 amend the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 to provide that a person subjects a woman to harassment, including sexual harassment, if:

(a) on the ground of her sex, he engages in unwanted conduct that has the purpose or effect –

(i) of violating her dignity, or

(ii) of creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for her,

(b) he engages in any form of unwanted verbal, non-verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature that has the purpose or effect—

(i) of violating her dignity, or

(ii) of creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for her, or

(c) on the ground of her rejection of or submission to unwanted conduct of a kind mentioned in paragraph (a) or (b), he treats her less favourably than he would treat her had she not rejected, or submitted to, the conduct.

But that is just my argument. The laws are there to protect the female gender. In this world of equality and all (LINK), who is there to protect the males, as we see in this clip:

Tags: SEXUAL HARASSMENT