Mind Scalpel

Because relentless Valentine’s Day advertising by DeBeers (subtle hidden message to him: “if you buy her a diamond, she’ll sleep with you!”; subtle hidden message to her: “if he doesn’t buy you a diamond, you shouldn’t sleep with him!”) doesn’t make people insecure enough this time of year, now comes the Wall Street Journal to report that, through advanced brain imaging technology, it is now possible to scientifically confirm the existence of true, unending love.

This immediately eliminates the comfortable illusion clung to by much of the populace that people who claim they still feel like teenagers towards each other are either 1) mentally deranged or 2) lying through their teeth. It’s about as cruel as scientifically proving that billionaires really are ecstatically happy, leading deeply fulfilling lives, and regarding less-wealthy people as substantially inferior to themselves, rather than, say, walking around with fake smiles while they’re screaming inside.

However, given tomorrow’s date, I realized that if you’re someone who is still madly, deeply in love/infatuated with your significant other, then this really is the ultimate Valentine’s Day gift. The heck with flowers, dinners out, jewelry, and those other cliched gifts — just give your love a copy of a functional MRI of your ventral tegmental area fluorescing wildly whenever you’re exposed to a picture of him/her: scientific proof of your true love!

Then I realized that I might be too romantic, here - I started thinking about some potentially awkward results of this type of gift, especially given the noticeable omission from the WSJ article of any mention that the other person in each of the couples they profiled had allowed an fMRI to be taken of his skull while looking at photos of his truly-madly-deeply-in-love spouse. So one likely scenario follows:

Elderly Billionaire: “Oh, honey, I love you so much!”

Billionaire’s Substantially Younger Spouse: “Oh, sweetie, I love you so much, too!”

Billionaire: “Happy Valentine’s Day!”

Spouse: “Oh, thank you, my big teddy bear!”

[rustle of gift opening]

Spouse: “Um, what the heck is this, my silvery darling?”

Billionaire: “It’s a functional magnetic resonance image scan of my ventral tegmental area activating whenever whenever I look at a picture of you, my little love morsel!”

[pause]

Spouse: “What?”

Billionaire: “It’s proof that I’m still madly in love with you! And as a bonus, you can also see my ventral pallidum going crazy too, which proves my long-term devotion to you is truly vole-like!”

Spouse: “Oh. Gee. Well, I’m totally in love with you as well, my honey bunch! But…I was kind of hoping for…well, you know, a Lamborghini, and maybe some diamonds…”

Billionaire: “Of course, my darling. Look out the back window!”

Spouse [squeals in delight]: “Oh, my snugaboo! A matched pair of Murcielagos in complementary colors! I knew you wouldn’t forget! Where are the keys?”

Billionaire: “I have them right here, my little wiggle muffin! And I only have one little thing to ask of you before I give them to you.”

Spouse [giggling]: “Oh, anything, my gray stallion! Let your imagination go wild!”

Billionaire: “Wonderful, my little hug pumpkin. I’ve made an appointment for an hour from now with the imaging center so you can give me a copy of your brain fMRI while you’re looking at photos of me. Isn’t that just wonderful? We can make a matched set!”

[long pause]

Spouse: “…Uh, you know, I’d be happy just to get flowers.”

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