Romance of Angles

With all the angles involved in geometry it is easy to get caught up in the romance of angles. But seriously, angles are the first step in a romance. I was naive to this phenomenon until a couple months ago. At campus I have the unique pleasure of being able to watch the blossoming of freshman love right before my very eyes in virtually every class which I do not sit in the front row for. In other words in my two classes which I occupy a middle range or back seat location I get the wonderful pleasure of watching innocent victims fall for Cupid and his subtle arrow piercings. And believe me I enjoy nothing more than watching the slow process of student relations burgeoning as two complete strangers fall for each other and slowly begin the romance of angles.

As a reader you are probably not actually very interested in anything that I have to say and therefore should probably use your computer rodent to locate the x icon and free yourself from the pain of realizing how much math there is in romance; however, if you insist on reading the rest of this post I can't stop you.

The angles of romance are the best trace for relations. Strangers will initially exhibit certain angles, whereas couples will exhibit starkly different angles. As a qualifier I must first point out the location of angles which I am interested in. I will focus on sitting angles. Sitting angles are the angles created by two individuals who occupy adjacent seats on a row. At first contact two individuals (if they are part of the normal human population) will angle apart from one another. For example when attending a movie theater and when forced to sit in a seat immediate next to a stranger an individual will make a conscious effort to avoid contact with that person. Anyone who has had the misfortune of sitting in a location like the one described above will not that the arm rest between the two sitters becomes no man’s land. I personally would rather die that place my limb on that treacherous location for fear of contact with a human outside of my comfort bubble. Arm placement on that boundary runs the high risk of accidental human contact (AHC). With only one arm rest and two people there is a risk that the other individual will accidentally place his or her arm in contact with you and therefore violate your personal bubble. To avoid this potentially awkward incident of AHC people act like similar magnets and angle their body away from the contact zone. This remains true for some time in most relations, occasionally forever. However in most relations (especially cross-gender) as the level of comfort increases the angles begin to change. This is typically a very slow process, although some individuals who seem to have no shame in bubble violation will rapidly decrease the angle of difference. People are so predictable. I watched several couples slowly trim their angles throughout the semester. The process shifted from angled repulsion to in some cases the lack of angle (human contact). Once lack of angle is reached you have reached the proper time to pursue romance. So perhaps I should rephrase my statement about angles being romance, in reality it is the lack of angles.