I love these studies. Really I do.

It appears, according to the Pew Research Center, based on Census Data, “men are increasingly likely to marry women with more education and income than they have.”

That is, for the 30 to 44 year old crowd.

So then, the study goes on to report, younger women, better educated, earn good money, marry, have a lower divorce rate and happier unions. And this survey was not done in Stepford land.

Another study, had decidely different statistics. How’s this, to make you sit up and take notice, men live longer if they marry a younger woman. “His chances of dying early are cut by a fifth if their bride is between 15 and 17 years their junior. Premature death is reduced by 11 percent.”

Women, the study suggests, don’t seem to fair as well. She has a 30 percent chance of dying early when wedded to a guy 15 to 17 years her junior.

The moral to this story?

If she hasn’t met her honey baby sweetie by the time she’s in her 40’s she can choose one of these second time around older guys. The diaper duty she thought she might have missed will, sooner than later, be part of her daily activity. Too bad.

If, however, she waits a decade or so longer, she can find herself a sweet young thing. While possibly shortening her life expectancy somewhat, she, arguably, will be prepared to meet her maker with a huge smile on her face.

Alrighty then…ready for a quiz?

Can you quote a Confucian analect?

Who or what might Occam refer to?

Which author wrote …” but in contentment I still feel the need for some imperishable bliss”?

Stumped? Googled for clues? Swore you’d never need to know the answers to stuff like this after your SAT’s or GMAT’s?

Want to know where I got these ditties from?

I’ve come across them on the meet your honey, baby, sweetie on line dating sites. You had thought, perhaps, that the one and only reason you are meandering through the myriad of profiles is to find your soul mate.

That used to be the reason.

A more sensible, practical and, it appears, an ultimately more satisfying reason is the opportunity to test your intellectual mettle …You read a particular profile, they have made a literary reference, can you figure it out, remember who might have said it, retrieve the information as to “where do I know that from…??”

And furthermore, once you retrieve the information, can you, demonstrating wit and style, write a pithy comeback acknowledging that you, perhaps one of the few, got the reference?

Or do as both Emily and I do… Immortalize them and their questions on a blog.

A British humorist, Howard Jacobson, is my new favorite pundit. Wickedly irreverant and funny. My two favorite flavors.

It is his contention that “Love You, Love You” should be said only “in the arms of the person you love romantically, erotically, madly, deeply. And even then not quite so often as it would seem from watching bed scenes on television and in movies…”

He goes on to tell the macabre tale of “Laura Lundquist and Elizabeth Barrow, aged 98 and 100 respectively, who were residents of Brandon Woods nursing home situated near Bliss Corner-I kid you not- Massachusetts. They had shared a room for a year. According to nursing home staff they acted like sisters, walking everywhere together, taking lunch together, and each saying to the other, “Goodnight, I love you” before turning out the lights and going beddy bye-byes. Love you. Love you. And then guess what happened? In the tradition of the best macabre story-telling, but here’s a hint-It involves a plastic bag.”

Okay, so maybe that’s a tad on the “c’mon, she was a crazy old coot” register. Agreed. But the idea that we utter these words, on a daily basis, to one another does not guarantee that we actually might really, deeply, and honestly mean them.

What to do?  Should “love you” be met with, “are you sure?” Not a recipe for hearing further sweet murmuring words anytime soon.

And I, at this particular moment in time, being devoid of a truly, madly, passionately romantic interest, would miss hearing those words. So, as long as you’re not slightly unhinged, I just want to tell you, love you.

At least that seems to be Nancy Meyer's intention in most of her more recent films.

Something's Gotta Give, Baby Boom, The remake of Father of The Bride, It's Complicated, all have the requisite successful female, love on the loose, love reworked, happilyish ever after. The women, Diane Keaton (clearly the poster girl for these roles) and Meryl Streep (who came to her age appropriate senses, after her romp in Mamma Mia) are the women we want to be.

I particularly admire that Nancy's heroines appear to be unbotoxed, uncollagened, and nonliposucked. Or, alternatively, the magic of filters is at work. 

But the real thing I covet in her films is not the homage to the middle aged, or how happy the endings end, it's wanting to have, as my very own, her set designer.

The near perfect (out there on the east end) beach house. The Vermont money pit, (but it does come with Sam Shepard), the perfect Californian home for Steve Martin and Diane Keaton to hold the wedding of their daughters' dreams. Want to take a wild stab at the budget for, oh I don't know, the flowers? Think about it, those kleig lights give off an enormous amount of heat during filming. Could they have been fake? Horrors ! Never.

I imagine if there was a citywide blackout, I would manage to root around and find, oh I don't know, maybe a dozen misshapen nubby looking candles. Never quite clear why I save them after having them burn down to half their beginning size, they are dutifully put back into drawers never to be seen again. 

So how come, when the blackout (or some semblance of prolonged darkness) occurred in Diane Keaton's beach house, she was able to light her entire (possibly 300 to 400 sq foot) kitchen with perfect, assorted sized white candles. I ask you, where does one keep such a stash?

If there is a sequel, and I really hope there is, it isn't to find out whether or not Meryl Streep and Steve Martin become a dynamic duo. It's to see what the extension and renovation of her kitchen looks like. 

Agree?