When the Days of Love Begin – The American Spectator | USA News and PoliticsThe American Spectator

Love is as inconvenient as an ex showing up on your doorstep in the middle of the night. It never arrives when you’d want it to and never leaves when it should — namely, when spring starts, which is when you’d rather be single and not have some beefy, dumb-faced guy following you around the house, sweating with his dumbbells and asking if you’ll play Fortnite with him, while you’re watching a show.

The sun comes out, the birds start singing, serotonin and dopamine go wild, and suddenly we crave everything we didn’t want in the fall, including flirting and eating cold salads. With the hot spring sun comes my favorite time of year as a chronicler: the season of love. (RELATED: Diary Entry for a Perfect Spring Day)

Most birds have begun their mating rituals. Pigeons make so much noise it’s impossible to tell if they’re mating or arguing about Trump’s tariffs, while seagulls breed after performing complicated acrobatics where the male has to balance on the female’s back. To make it more thrilling, they often do it atop a thirty- or forty-story rooftop, which I suppose is why so many seagull chicks are born fatherless. Nature is wise and keeps showing us why men live shorter lives than women.

Now is the time that the streets start filling up with beauties flaunting their casual singleness, which sometimes leads us guys to strut around like pigeons trying to impress them. Guys walk tall, flexing their gym muscles under their shirts, while girls pass by, checking if any of those prominent abs are located anywhere near a brain. Usually, they’re not.

A study by David McCandless on social media found a spike in new relationships between April and May. I didn’t need a study to notice that myself. It confirms my theory, as a sociologist, that sociology is the most dispensable science.

Meanwhile, Randy Thornhill and Steven W. Gangestad discovered that spring brings a surge in human mating signals, similar to what happens in other species. They confirmed that our ability to pair up isn’t static — it’s shaped by biological and environmental context. That’s why it’s easier to fall in love at a nightclub after 15 drinks than in a prostate specialist’s waiting room.

They say people who enter this springtime single enjoy it more than those who are coupled up. My theory, though, is that singles enjoy it more than those who are badly coupled. It’s a tough call. Imagine you’re dating an idiot, say, someone who’d vote for Joe Biden again, or something equally awful. April rolls around, the streets fill with gorgeous people, and you’re still trudging through life with the wrong guy. It’s the perfect time to dump him, but breaking up is always a hassle.

The other day, a friend of mine dumped her boyfriend after three months. Not knowing how to break it off, she asked an AI to write her a breakup script. The result was a choice between three options (proving that ChatGPT’s closest brush with a relationship was when a Tesla winked its headlight at it): “I’m out… like a good Instagram filter: forever,” “I want someone who looks at me the way I look at chips, you look at me like I’m a salad,” or “Our love was like an eclipse… beautiful but brief, and better not to stare at it directly.”

She ended up dumping him over WhatsApp with this one: “I think I’m allergic to your zodiac sign.” It backfired. He replied, “We’re both Cancer,” and they got into an endless argument because, let’s be real, a guy never, ever, ever picks up on a woman’s hints. He thought the key was to get her some antihistamines instead of packing his bags and leaving.

That’s another classic male trait: a man’s always ready to fix a problem, while a woman just wants to describe it — fixing it feels rude to her.

Guys never get it. You could grab the guy you like by the ears, kiss his cheek softly, and whisper, “take me out for a romantic dinner,” and after all that, he’d think you’re just hungry and order a burger takeout. Maybe that’s why, with his usual wisdom, Dave Barry advised girls: “Never assume that the guy understands that you and he have a relationship.”

It’s the season of love, in short, and my advice is not to turn to Cupid for help; he’s one of those mythological gods of questionable effectiveness and even more questionable sexual leanings, plus he doesn’t exist.

If you want a real saint of love, talk to Saint Paul. Think about it: Cupid played the harp and shot silly heart-tipped arrows. Saint Paul fell off a horse and nearly cracked his skull, and, as a result, you and I are Christians despite being thousands of miles apart. I’m convinced he had dating in mind when he said, “Endure hardship with me, like a good soldier of Christ.”

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