[QA’s Q&A] #3 spin-off: Why Ph.D. marriage is sexy

A spin-off from the original question: Should girls not attempt a Ph.D. so that she can have a better chance getting married?

Now, after this exhaustive (and exhausting) discussion of the original question, I must caution myself with the wise words of Johnathan Alter: “Logic can convince, but only emotions can motivate”, which is infinitely truer if females are involved.

I do not have any statistics to convince you Ph.D.-aspiring girls out there that not all guys consider it a negative trait, that your worry does nothing but bring wrinkles that neither of us wants to see. But I can, indeed should, draw a picture that is worth 1000 statistics.

Because I think an intelligent girl is the sexiest kind. It escapes me how people can cringe at the wonderful prospect of a Ph.D. marriage, in which both would go to school, come home early, and prepare (together, of course) a dinner with candles and roses and table cloth and wine glasses and Chopin’s Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2 playing in the background.

You’d talk about Truth and Beauty. You’d stand above real-life trivialities. You’d take her hand in yours, playing with the lovely fingers that you know so well, and look deep into her eyes whispering: “If Socrates had known you like I do, he wouldn’t have had so much trouble defining happiness.” Your fiance, actually knowing who Socrates is, would take that as the sweetest thing to say. She’d draw you nearer. You’d only object that it’s not nearly near enough. And you’d trace the contour of her face with both your fingers and your eyes, around the smiling lips, and towards her ears. You’d linger a half-second on her neck, and you would swiftly, swiftly, but gently…gently… lift her face near against yours. So near you can feel her gasping breath so tender that only Monet’s brushstroke can compare, and yet so wild that only inflation after the Asian 1997 crisis can rival.

Then, the moment of touch – and the world just stops making sense.

You’d finally nuzzle up to her ears, smile, and promise her an experience as stimulating as your earlier intellectual conversation, only of a different kind. (Camera refocuses onto the ceiling please. Light down please. Okay good.)

If that’s not Ph.D. love, I don’t know what is.

Either you can have that, or you can have the white-collar employee marriage, which involves hectic morning and spilled coffee and traffic jam and under-appreciative boss and over-compensate peers and traffic jam (again) and exhausted evening and left-overs (or take-outs) and, finally, bed (read: sleeping). All and all to prepare for, you know what, another hectic morning.

Of course the NOGPs can then turn the entire passage above into a scare campaign, featuring the poster below.

Oh well, at least my nuptial qualifications aren’t for you to judge, dudes.

• marriage
• Ph.D.
• QA's Q&A #3
• spin-off