I Am the 70%

I haven’t done any quantitative analyses, but I have recently decided that I am right roughly 70% of the time.  Let me use Kevin’s romantic life to illustrate my point.  I share this information with his permission.  

When I first moved in with Kevin in August he was dating a lovely girl.  She was nice, pretty, had a good job  -- a real catch.  However, as I watched them interact they didn’t seem that into each other.  During my time at BYU about a dozen of my roommates got engaged while I was living with them.  I have seen a lot of people in love so I can recognize love when I see it (and it makes me want to barf!).  I didn’t know Kevin very well at the time and I didn’t want to be a negative Nancy and say, “Kevin, I don’t think your girlfriend’s that into you,” so I didn’t say anything.  A few weeks after I’d moved in Kevin came home one night and announced that he and his girlfriend had broken up.  I felt bad for him and expressed real sympathy, but I wasn’t too surprised.

Two months later Kevin took a girl from church out on few dates.  She came by the house of few times which gave me the opportunity to see them interact.  She was giving all the “I like you” signs: sitting next to him on the couch when other seats were available, sending after date texts, chatting for longer than is required by social etiquette, etc.  I was convinced that she was interested in Kevin.  Kevin, on the other hand, wasn’t so convinced.  He thought that she was into this other guy who I was sure was just her friend.  I kept saying things like, “Kevin, don’t worry about it.  You’re a catch and she totally likes you.”  Still, he wasn’t persuaded. 

Since I was sure I was right I decided to prove my point with an I Love Lucy style bet.  The bet was that if this girl started dating that other guy within a month then I had to clean the entire house (tub and all).  But if she didn’t date that other guy then Kevin had to clean the whole house.  I really hate cleaning the tub (I'd much rather clean the toilet) so I was thrilled with the bet because I was sure I’d win.  And the bet was a great deal for Kevin, too.  Either he had a girl like him or he got a clean house.  It was a win-win.

Much like in the hilarious plots of I Love Lucy I ended up being horribly wrong.  While I was waiting in the Tucson airport for my flight home for Thanksgiving break I got a text from Kevin saying that the girl had gotten engaged to the other guy.  So not only did I lose the bet, but I really couldn’t have been any more wrong.  Luckily for Kevin, after I was done with it that tub had never been cleaner.

Even though he’d won the bet, Kevin was still sad.  To cheer him up I recommended that he Skype with my friend Allison who lives in Houston.  I wasn’t expecting them to fall in love, but I thought they’d have fun talking together.  Kevin thought that that was a terrible idea because long distance relationships never work out.  I didn’t give up, though.  Allison was going to be in Tucson for a week in January to visit relatives so I decided to try and hook them up while she was here.  I made sure to talk them up to each other before Allison’s visit and I orchestrated some things for the three of us to do together.  There were no sparks while Allison was here, but she did confide in me that she thought Kevin was cute.  I, of course, told Kevin this and since he thought she was pretty he decided that maybe Skyping wasn’t such a bad idea.  They Skyped about a week after Allison went back to Houston and they’ve been talking even since.

Kevin is in Houston right now visiting Allison and I’m in Tucson smugly patting myself on the back for being a matchmaking genius.  So if you’d like any relationship advice I’d be happy to give it.  Unfortunately, I’m only right about 70% of the time, but those are still pretty good odds, right?

I'm partially responsible for this