SCIENCE: Relationships are better if you wait over a month to have sex. Huh. I’m not sure I ever did that. I’m not even sure I know anyone who did that . . . .

UPDATE: Reader Colin Frazier writes: “You don’t know any married people? Oh, you mean wait over a month before the *first* time… Nevermind.” And I guess we’re back to our discussion of “maintenance sex. . .” Or maybe this one.

Meanwhile, though, there’s a question of when the clock starts. If you start with the first official date, the above is true, but most of the women I dated were women I already knew — I’d known Helen for over a decade before our first official “date.” So how does that figure in?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Michael Gebert writes:

Seems to me that the author of this piece, and the scientists involved, misread their own study (not that that ever happens with journalistic reports on, say, the economy).

A bad relationship with sex may plug along for a while just because of the sex, but a bad relationship that doesn’t also have sex going for it is quickly over. Therefore, the body of bad relationships will have fewer sexless relationships in it than the body of good relationships. So all this means is that there is a higher proportion of good relationships which don’t include sex– not that sex leads to better relationships.

Sex, casual yes, causal no!

Hmm.