Just say no to the dumper - confuses the hell out of them...
The time I have done it to someone was during a row with my then fiancee. She had gotten a bit drunk, seen an innocent conversation with a friend as an attempt to pull someone else, then gone mental. I was rather stoned and when she said "that's it! It's all over - I hate you and never want to see you again", I replied with "No it's not. It's not over, because there's no need for you to be in this state. You've got the wrong end of the stick and you don't want to ruin things and kick yourself when you're seeing things clearly."

She huffed off and passed out on the bed. We got married in December. It's a really useful tool to keep a realtionship alive, because if you say it calmly and reasonably, there's not any really easy comeback that can be flung in the heat of a screaming tantrum - the only thing I can think of that might be as successful at derailing a dumping (which are usually brought about by a girl getting her knickers in a twist and then asking her female friends about how men think - like they know) would be to randomly quote facts:

"I hate you, you don't do anything for me and my friends say I'm crazy to be with you"

"If you take the atomic weight of a molecule and measure out that number of grams of the substance, there will be 1x10^23 Molecules of the substance in it"

"Huh? But anyway, as I was saying - I don't think it's working out..."

"Carrots should really be blue."

"For a while now I've... hang on, BLUE?!"

"Yeah, it's down to the pigments in the carrot, but the most common one reflects blue/green light, so they should appear blue".

Give it a try - after all, at that point it's got to be worth a punt!

Oh, by the way ladies, your female friends don't understand men. Men maybe understand men, women possibly understand women. You credit us with far too much depth of emotion - your female friends will tell you that your chap has done something out of malice, or a convulted plot to damage your self esteem or to derail your plans for the wedding you started planning two weeks after you met him. It's all bollocks.

The truth is, he is genuinely unaware of half the crap you think he's done on purpose and only vaguely aware of the ramification of things he's tried to do for you. Any man who tells you he understands exactly how you feel is either a) Gay or, b) a Liar. We don't understand you - how can we, when you can bleed for a week each month and not die - we cut our finger and want a bandage and a trip to A&E. We love you dearly, but we don't understand you. In the same way, don't attribute female thought processes to a species that will still laugh at it's own flatulence if left in same-sex company and, it has to be said, even go so far as to call other members of the species into the room to witness a particularly fine bouquet... We're nowhere near as complex as you give us credit. After all, when was the last time you saw a man run out of a room crying, floowed by a woman shouting "What? What have I done now?", with a confused look on their face. Reverse the genders and you've got pretty much every couple on the planet at least once... Vive la Difference!
(Chad, Mon 9 Jun 2008, 16:27, 14 replies)

Chad
you make a valid point. Belated congrats on the wedding.

We've stayed happily married for lots of years because I learned early on to never ask two questions,

"What are you thinking?" (answer: invariably something inane to do with football)

"Does my bum look big in this?" (answer: for god's sake woman you're a size eight, your arse doesn't look big in anything)
(TheWeeWitch hasn't been here much recently .., Mon 9 Jun 2008, 16:35, closed)

Won't work if she's a scientist though
Because it's actually 6.022 x 10^23 molecules. And you have to use the molecular weight, not the atomic weight, for molecules.

/pedant

Don't know about the carrots though, as I'm not a biologist. But isn't it the beta carotene that makes them orange?

Otherwise though, I like the story!
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Mon 9 Jun 2008, 16:36, closed)

I thought it
was that they used to be blue, as in the most common carrot species was a sort of blue and yellow colour, but with intensive farming the orange ones were easier to grow and hence thats what everyone says carrots are, even though there are many many different types of carrots.

And virtually all bananas are the same plant as they reproduce asexually.
(Bazongaloid, Mon 9 Jun 2008, 16:38, closed)

Men and women don't understand the same sex, either
Same sex relationships have exactly the same issues as opposite sex ones, except that when you go to the shop you buy two lots of tampons/underpants.

People don't want to understand each because a) it's hard, b) you may not like what you find and c) it will definitely involve some personal changes.
(EssY, Mon 9 Jun 2008, 16:43, closed)

When asked what I'm thinking
I always answer "sex". And the questioning soon dries up.

I once was involved with a woman who managed to attribute everything I said or did to some nefarious plot to hurt her. Which, of course, only got me thinking "If you think I'm capable of dreaming up ridiculous convoluted schemes for no better reason than to upset you, how calculating does that make you?" Anyone who does that to you is either paranoid or just thrives on conflict.
(lolwhites, Mon 9 Jun 2008, 16:43, closed)

Re: Carrots
I'm reliably* informed that they were originally a dark purple - so blue is probably not entirely inaccurate - but some were more of a reddy-purple colour than others. However, I'm told they were selectively bred to be more red, and eventually more orange in honour of William of Orange.

There's an honour: "Here, Your Majesty, we love you so much we bred this root vegetable to be your colour."

*_{May not be all that reliable}
(LongJohnBaldry, Mon 9 Jun 2008, 16:49, closed)

If you go
here

then you get some nice pics of different coloured carrots. Basically, you can get purple blue carrots, and the orange ones were apparently used as a symbol of the house of orange.
(Bazongaloid, Mon 9 Jun 2008, 17:00, closed)

How cute
^^^bless the pretty carrots :)
( SpikeyPickle wishes he was mabazaritchie, Mon 9 Jun 2008, 17:10, closed)

mm
is there anywhere i can buy a blue carrot?
(little lord muthafuckin fauntleroy, Mon 9 Jun 2008, 17:26, closed)

^
I've got a purple parsnip you can borrow

*fnarr*
(Pavlov's Frog figures no-one really reads sigs anyway, Mon 9 Jun 2008, 18:29, closed)

My dad
has at one point grown every single colour carrot on there. We also have had red, yellow, green and black tomatoes. He has also sponsered a rare variety of potato so he could hang the adoption certificate in the downstairs loo.

the potato variety was Bishops Choirboy

I love my dad
( Madam Marlboro wonders if you've found her yet, Mon 9 Jun 2008, 19:31, closed)

I've never understood...
why women ask men 'what are you thinking?' The answer is always something like 'Whether you could make cows play rugby' or 'How long until I can have a pint'. Yes, men are daft. But that's part of what makes them great.
(miffytherabbit, Mon 9 Jun 2008, 22:09, closed)

.
""What are you thinking?""

Reminds me of this.
( mistaspakkaman and the inedible shifting caterpillars, Tue 10 Jun 2008, 10:53, closed)

good for you, man
i just forwarded that to all my girlfriends.
(fai is rocking khaz modan server as of, Tue 10 Jun 2008, 15:34, closed)