Chain Polymers and the Laws of Attraction
Fear not my loyal readers you are indeed in the right place… And for those of you whose hearts just jumped and started to hyperventilate--- relax and calm your mind… There is no need for the panic attack, you are not having an organic chemistry acid flashback (though they told you all of that drinking and drugs would come back to haunt you) nor is this the nightmare about the exam you needed to ace to in order to avoid retaking Organic Chemistry sophomore year… It is neither of those things, but both at the same time…
This is EmoCHEM 101 :Chain Polymerization as a Metaphor for Love and Happiness in the World.* Depending on how you fare in this course you can move on to more advanced classes in the science and philosophies of Love on the Run.
I am really excited to be able to share some time with you chatting about chemistry… I know, AWESOME, right? I know what you’re thinking… “Today is going to be a really great day in the Blogosphere!!” (I promise not use the word Blogosphere without making fun of it ever again, please note the sarcasm implied here as well). I think it will be pretty great as I try to use chemistry to explain the unknown workings of the runner’s heart. I will admit straight off I am not a love advice expert unless your goal is to learn how to rush into it or foul it up immensely (with grace and style of course). I am, however, a student of the game and will do my best to find in chemistry an understanding for the mysteries of simple love (complex love is covered in EmoCHEM 375: Girls: What They Say vs. What They’re Thinking… all male students please note you do get a foreign language credit for this class)
And what better was to learn than a little Socratic method? Of course to do this we’ll need two points of view so today’s lecturers will be colour coded for ease of reading and because I like pretty colors.
In Blue will be “college pessimistic Craig” [CPC] who had to watch a lot of DB’s get the girl while he felt as though he was wronged by society and the world itself.
In ORANGE will be “currently trapped in Nuremberg Craig” [CTNC] who realizes [CPC] had a chip on his shoulder, was a bit insecure and still manages to cause issues with girls to this day.
Both men consider themselves to be experts and both will prove this belief to be false via their life choices and responses herein.
Let us begin…
Gentlemen, welcome and thank you for time today shall we get down to the topics?
[CPC]: Whatever, as long as the jacka$$es in the back don’t drink all of the soda while I’m up here.
[CTNC]: Sounds great… what was the topic again and why isn’t this lecture on Outlook?
College Craig as you are more connected to the academic world we will ask that you respond and relate each step to the world of running romance first.
Chain Growth in Polymers; occurs if there are two general conditions: a motive and opportunity
[CPC]: I guess (note this is CPC’s catch phrase)… I guess this basically how Hooking up works: when you’re kind of you know “lonely” and there are a bunch of hot chicks going to some party that you’d kinda like to hook up with and knowing you kinda wanna hook-up you go to the party. The party has to be during the off season or in between cross-country and indoor track so you can actually stay out past 10pm and not fall asleep at the party, which is not a problem for frat guys as they only take 2 classes a day while getting fat at 21- while spending their parents money and pretending it’s their own.
[CTNC]: Okay bitter Bear!! Though I agree that the motive is the same, boys want sex and getting sex is a pretty good motive. Over time I think the greater motive isn’t sex in and of itself, but rather it is sex with the person you actually like and you don’t have to fake sleep, an early run, or some form of illness to get out of the room after it’s done. Opportunity I think becomes more and more rare over time, amazing ladies you’ll find are fewer and further between the longer you look. And the chances to actually interact with them or rather react with them are the things you spend nights awake thinking about… I think it is a balance between the two factors, but I think opportunity is the harder factor to find.
The reaction first needs an initiator to get things going and get the bifunctional monomers moving.
[CPC]: I don’t know much about ‘bifunctionals’ I am into just chicks, but hey whatever you’re into is your business. basically this is alcohol, alcohol is the initiator. Please note I am not saying I think only A.I.W.’s (alcoholically impaired women) and drunk guys hook-up, but it seems the less you drink the less you hook-up. And just having things in common is not enough, nor is being a decent person, or smart, or funny or pretty much anything other than being rich. SO I would assume that the two initiators to love in the modern world are booze and money.
[CTNC]: Wow, pretty amazing that you’re still single, shocking! The initiators over time change only slightly, booze still works, but I think as I grow older the catalyst is more often situational. I won’t lie boredom is a very powerful force and can make things happen. I think the great initiator over time is the fear of more time. More time scared- more time alone- more time thinking about more time. Then something happens to bring those fears to the fore in your life and you reach out to the closest like person or for the heart you most want to be part of and hope for the best because the realization is that what you really fear is not having them.
At this stage free radicals are formed.
[CPC]:I guess this is when single people realize they are horny or bored enough to hook up so they put on their good jeans and best t-shirt (or Sundress if they’re girls) and head out to get drinks and see what the corner bars and frat parties have to offer. They start to drink and get a little crazy.
[CTNC]: I think this is really when you cast off doubt or the fear of failing and rejection gets trumped by the fear of not trying or knowing. When folks get rid of those fears and open themselves up just a bit to the idea that there could be happiness, or love… I guess this is when we for a time suspend our reality and try to believe that fairy tales and romcoms have had it all right all along.
Free radicals then react with other free radicals in the solution to create a growing chain. This step is called propagation
[CPC]: The girls get drunk enough to forget all of the BS about what they are looking for in a guy. ‘I want someone smart, caring, funny –Gosh I mean I’ll take a guy that can make me laugh over some big hunky guy any day’. (pure crap!) Finally they just look for the guy they cannot have or the guy they just think is hot enough or good enough. This is also when the guys stop pretending they are picky and too cool for the chicks that like them and they start making out on the dance floor. Neither party will admit this is how they started dating or that they have ever done anything like that, but this is what happens. Then you see the chick you’ve been walking home from class for two months walk out of your neighbors door at 7:30am on a Sunday as you head out to meet for the team long run.
[CTNC]: I actually agree with the first part two people stop with all of the games, all of the BS and let down their guards long enough to actually let someone in that they known they can trust. I don’t think these walls stay down but for the moments they do, we get the chance to love and be loved.
[CPC]: and hook-up
[CTNC]: Yes… and I suppose the chance to hook-up… but also the chance to wake up next to a person you are not scared is going to kill you in your sleep. Basically I think this is what Walt Disney referred to as being “twitterpated”. Which has birds tweeting and I think could be the foundational concept of the website. As just like in love stories, no one else cares about the details and they are much to short for women to really enjoy, but they keep hoping for more next time.
This continues until no reactive monomers are left. Then the last two radicals react and the when the last one occurs it is called termination.
[CPC]: People keep pairing up on a descending scale of hotness until everyone is with someone else until the last two people look at one another and basically evaluate their drunkenness to desperateness ratio and say “Ah hell NO!!” and walk home. They end up stopping at the White Spot or Little John’s for food they will undoubtedly vomit up later, yet remember as “the greatest sandwich ever!”
[CTNC]: I think, as we get older we certainly start to see our friends “couple-up” for all sorts of reasons. But I do not think the terminal point of the reaction is one that marks the end but rather an opportunity for further growth. A lovely lady once told me the “best case reactions are those that are simplest and most stable.” I think that’s where love and the polymerization chain meet up. We are all connected to our friends, and families, and to those we love and have loved- I think perhaps the polymer chain is really the whole of our lives and our loves. It is a link of all of the experiences and relationships we have had connecting the person we were to the person we are now while gaining growth, strength, and stability. The Termination is the point at which we are out of free radicals. Out of the need to add more links to the chain as we have become the person we’ve needed to be. At that time there really is only one other free radical that makes sense, all of the others disappear and the other reactions are finished but perhaps here is where the chain ends and love begins. Which sounds dreadfully simple… if only we knew which free radical we were waiting for when they’d be by it’d make the whole thing much easier.
Indeed it would… That is about all the time we have today and about all of the fake science and philosophy I think the readers will be able to deal with for a while. I hope this exercise has proven interesting and insightful into the worlds of chain polymerization and the sadly boring life that is the expat existence in the NBG.
Thanks again to all imaginary players I am off to work on my underwater basket weaving Masters…
*(Please note the author and lecturers never took Organic Chemistry, or O-Chem as it was referred to at the University of Virginia… in fact Mr. Vanderoef is mostly Truncating notes from the often overlooked work referred to in many circles as “Pretty Pink Polymers: Notes from CHM5274 on 9/16/11” and poorly doing that.)
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