John --

You said if you were happily married, you would not mind if your wife were to go out bowling with a male friend. I think this would be a mistake. For some reason, bowling often brings out the worst in people, and I think you should protect your wife from bowling.

For one thing, people say some really stupid things in bowling alleys, especially when they're winning. Things like "Yabba-dabba-doo!" Would you want to take a chance on your wife starting to talk like this at home?

I had what will hopefully be my last unfortunate experience with bowling a few weeks ago. I've been going out with a research scientist from Lockheed, which I only believe because I've seen it on his business card. Although he seems pleasant enough, this man just isn't much of a talker. All I know about him so far is that he likes to eat and he likes to bowl. Fortunately, or maybe not, I'm quite good at talking about absolutely nothing with authority for long periods of time.

On our last date he took me to a Thai restaurant. There was a bowling alley next door. Realizing this was no coincidence, I tried to explain that there was something he needed to know about me, which was that I hated bowling, I'd experienced some of the worst moments of my life in bowling alleys. "Aw, c'mon," he said, "nobody hates bowling."

So we ended up in this lane next to a fat guy who kept yelling "Go, Mama!," and my feet were swimming around in my rented bowling shoes because they didn't have the right size, and the guy I was with kept saying "This time try to aim for the middle. Just try, that's all I'm asking."

Somehow through all of this, I ended up getting two strikes in a row, immediately followed by five gutter balls. My date proceeded to fool around with the digital scoreboard with each successive ball of mine to show me what score I would have gotten if I hadn't bowled those five gutter balls. The guy in the next alley over who'd been yelling "Go, Mama!" leaned over to talk to him, and before long both of them were trying to tell me how to bowl. I kept telling myself it would all be over soon, I'd be able to go home by myself and read.

At the end of it I felt ravaged, but this date of mine looked more animated than I'd ever seen him look before, he said he'd really had a lot of fun, we'd have to do it again.

There are many productive things people can do with their time. Certainly, bowling isn't one of them. So my advice is to keep your future wife away from bowling alleys, regardless of who she's with. You just never know what can happen to a person in a bowling alley.