Astronauts and deadlines

6 pm on a Thursday really isn't the time of the week for me to be playing around on the internet. For one, I have three stories to finish before I can go home. But you can't really blame me for finding the love triangle of two US astronauts and an Airforce pilot more interesting than Cell C's new target market or the politics at Sentech, can you?

Back to the astronauts. Should we really be wondering why a smart, successful woman like Lisa Nowak would want to put on adult diapers to drive halfway across the States for a "confrontation" with the other woman in her love triangle? I'd say no, but that's probably just because I've done many stupid things in the heat of the madly-in-love-moment.

In primary school, I spent hours and hours staring at a picture of T, a guy who was 3 years (!) younger than me and dated my best friend. (I thought he looked like Tom Cruise at the time; it really boosts my ego to tell you that 15 years on, he is overweight and not worth a second glance.)

I once drove 60 km in a car with hardly any breaks at 3 am to convince an ex to take me back. I spent R800 excluding VAT on a phone call from Singapore in the middle of the night. I've been to the gym at 7:30 on a Sunday morning to impress a guy I could hardly talk to. He wasn't a great kisser either, but of course when he dumped me, I went back to try and convince him otherwise. (Worrying trend, I agree.)

I've taken back boyfriends who cheated on me and broke my heart. I've taken one back twice, simply to get my heart broken twice. Of course I also broke some hearts. I've had two boyfriends at the same time. I've cheated on perfectly good guys. I've peeled potatoes and changed diapers to impress a boyfriend's mother. I've written poems, held picnics on traffic circles, climbed cellphone towers and mountains and even wore a horrible red dress in public once. And I'm blaming it all on being madly in love at the time.

Thankfully it can be justified. According to scientists at the University of Pisa, love and obsessive-compulsive disorder could have a similiar chemical profile. In a study they conducted, serotonin (a neurotransmitter that is altered by medication like Prozac) levels in lovesick couples and people with OCD were on average 40% higher than people who weren't suffering from matters of the mind or heart.

That, apparently, is supposed to explain why you'll phone someone a million times to hear someone's voice and then hang up as soon as he/she picks up the phone. And that's why anti-depressants can help you get over that powerless feeling of being madly in love, obsessing about one person for hours, analysing every word and smile and gesture.

Not that I'd like any Prozac in my anonymous Valentine's day flowers next week. I'm having a perfectly great time being powerlessly, madly in love.