The Hamster's Predicament

by Brandon Adamson

Have you ever heard of the hedgehog's dilemma? they talk about it in the Evangelion anime series. This is unrelated, but I got to thinking about this hypothesis of mine which I'm going to call "The hamster's predicament", and how it relates to modern relationships. You see I learned in science, that if you take any two hamsters, a male and a female and put them in a cage together, they'll mate. However, when you take away the male hamster, and then put a new male hamster in the cage, the female will actually DESTROY the fetus and then mate with the new male. The same thing applies to humans, and they don't even realize it. That's why long distance relationships don't work, because if they're not together, the female will find another mate at some point as a part of survival. Now the male may find another mate as well, but it's different. Because that's his job. He's supposed to try mate with as many females as possible in his lifetime anyway. It's only those of us "intelligent rats" with the sophistication and self discipline to not do that and remain loyal. Having said that, some long distance relationships can work, thanks to modern technology like cellphones(free long distance, phone cards etc) email, AIM, frequent flier miles, you can really go all out if you're determined. The hamster's predicament can also manifest itself on a smaller scale. Like if you work different schedules, or your girlfriend goes to school, and starts to spend time with other guys in other aspects of life she will develop interest in them regardless how ugly or dorky they are. In the old days, wives just stayed at home all day, and spent the vast majority of time with their husbands, so the hamster predicament was much less of an issue in everyday life (except in the case of husbands/boyfriends going off to war and often having to receive painful letters in the field or nasty surprises upon returning home). Nowadays, where people are always traveling, working late with their boss, going to school, have opposite schedules, girls night out, basically putting themselves in dozens of circumstances or situations where they won't be together, and it's only a matter of time before disaster strikes. It's like how when you work somewhere or you're in class, and there's not really any hot girls, so you start to develop a crush on the only "remotely attractive girl". People are so perfectly predictable. The only thing I haven't figured out is a successful way to overcome the hamster's predicament, but you can bet that I will keep trying.