Sublime

nisei

In twenty years, Joel has never been able to figure out why Fawn had liked him when she was overweight and awkward, and why she dislikes him now that she’s slender and pretty. He doesn’t seem to understand everyone has standards—some people just hardly ever get to apply theirs.

In John Tierney’s classic humor article “Picky, Picky, Picky,” he tries nobly to get us to laugh at the impossible situation our culture has put us in. He recounts many of the reasons his single friends told him they had given up on their recent relationships: “She mispronounced ‘Goethe.’” “How could I take him seriously after seeing ‘The Road Less