After many years of hanging out in malls and drilling holes in motel room walls, Ask Ken! Industries Unlimited, Ltd., is proud to announce a breakthrough in the study of relationships. Our crack research team has discovered a typical relationship has twelve distinct stages distinguished by the couple’s behavior. Remember, this is an “average” relationship. Your mileage may vary. Do not use while operating heavy machinery. Offer not valid in Florida and Alabama.
| Stage 1: | Polite dating. Dinner in classy restaurants. Secretive lusting. |
| Stage 2: | Comfortable familiarity. The sharing of poorly written poetry. Dinner, movies and concerts. Thinly veiled secretive lusting. |
| Stage 3: | Nothing else exists in the universe except the object of desire. Food and water not necessary to sustain life. Fear that heart will burst from excessive joy. The first awkward sexual groping. |
| Stage 4: | Coupledom. Both quit asking each other out on “dates”; both assume time will be spent together. Dinner and rented movies. More awkward sexual fumbling. Friends begin feeling forgotten. |
| Stage 5: | No dinners, no movies, just a tangled mass of nekkid, sweating, thrusting bodies. Neighbors pounding on ceiling/walls/floor. |
| Stage 6: | Walking around in underwear in front of each other. The beginning stages of the use of the words “honey” and “dear”. Much more hot monkey love. |
| Stage 7: | Raiding the refrigerator or turning on the television after sex. Frequency and timing of sex becomes predictable. Friends begin hearing from you again. The first signs of problems deciding which videos to rent. |
| Stage 8: | Fast food. More arguments about which videos to rent. Fantasizing about others while getting it on. |
| Stage 9: | Mild discontent. Sex not because you want it but because you can have it. Macaroni and cheese from a box. Network television. |
| Stage 10: | Masturbation because sex is too much effort. Arby’s. Constant sniping at each other. |
| Stage 11: | What were cute habits are now driving you insane. Frequent desire to strangle partner in their sleep. Questions as to what attracted the two of you to each other in the first place. |
| Stage 12: | The division of goods, the parting of ways, the promise that this will never happen again |