Math is better

Yesterday I was having lunch with Brian and Kathryn, and Brian mentioned that he had recently sent out a list of 10 reasons why math is better than sex.

"For instance," I asked him, "what's one of them?"

Brian thought for a moment. Kathryn and I are female, and we were having lunch, so he had to censor. "Let's see. Nobody is upset if a man solves a math problem very quickly," he said.

"Um, that's not very funny," I said, "and plus, I do get mad at you if you solve a problem very quickly because maybe I don't understand it yet."

"Okay, okay," Brian said. I am not sure if he actually said "okay, okay," but he says it a lot and it seems like something he would say in this situation. "Okay, here's another one: you can do math in public without getting arrested."

"Come on!" I said. "That's not clever. That's not even funny! I could do better than that."

"Fine!" said Brian.

I thought for a moment. "In math, you can use a rubber more than once."

Brian's eyes exploded. I will have to assume this was because he was astounded at my cleverness.

Thus began my quest to think of 10 clever reasons why math is better than sex. This quest has occupied much of the past 32 hours, but it has been fruitful:

10 reasons why math is better than sex:

1. In math, you can use a rubber more than once.

2. You learn maximization strategies in school.

3. You can be past your prime for sex, but in math you have infinitely many primes.

4. Sometimes people won't have sex with you if you're the wrong gender, but in math, women and men are topologically equivalent.

5. In sex groups are usually just a fantasy, but in math all the geeks get group actions.

6. In sex when two x's come together, you get a baby. In math you just get a parabola.

7. You can usually only sleep with a finite number of people each night, but in math you can have an infinite series.

8. Mathematical satisfaction doesn't put you to sleep.

9: Just because you don't have an open relationship in math doesn't mean it has to be closed.

10. In math, a union of closed balls is sometimes complete. But in sex if your balls are closed, your union will never be complete.

If you don't understand all the terminology, that's okay. Brian added another one:

11. In math, even some of the oddest and most exotic things are still called normal. The same does not hold true for sex.