Flowchart.

Social situations can be confusing and unpleasant; like brushing your teeth with what appears to be toothpaste and tastes like mint, but then actually turns out to be numbing menthol body rub.

In order to help you navigate the stormy seas of social interaction and sense the mood during a date, I have created this flowchart to help you determine when it is the right time to throw your drink.

Rage.

For some, there is something intoxicating about getting behind the wheel of a car. It does strange things to the minds of otherwise rational people; they become invincible mavericks consumed by rage and overcome with the desire to wreak havoc on the roads that try to constrain them.

This driving delirium is the reason I hate going anywhere by car; particularly in Atlanta where the majority of the population seems to have been dosed with that hysteria drug from Gotham City (remember, the one Scarecrow uses in Arkham Asylum to induce fear?).

On Friday, I was coerced into leaving my safe living-cave to venture forth into the mayhem of the outside world; dragged into the burning light of day to be suffocated by the smothering exhaust fumes of Atlanta's infamous 4 o'clock traffic. Peter, my primary arm candy, had invited me to join his family for dinner in North Georgia.

We set off and encountered surprisingly little road rage for the first thirty minutes or so. We even had time to strike up a discussion about the importance of active optimism to control the creeping tendrils of depression that often work their way into the minds of those who think too much.

Perhaps the universe opposed our topic of conversation, as we suddenly found ourselves the unwitting victims of motorist mania. During his discourse on the finer points of maintaining a positive outlook, Peter needed to merge as the end of our lane was approaching. Signaling to get over, he realized that the car next to us was speeding up to deny us entry.

Unperturbed, Peter continued his speech and attempted to merge behind the car. We were partially into the new lane when the car behind our first nemesis decided that this was unacceptable and also sped up to block our entrance. A terrifying game of chicken ensued, as Peter was forced to abandon his discourse on optimism to focus all of his energies towards not being run off of the road.

The driver in the car next to us refused to make eye-contact, but forced his way beside us with only inches to spare between our two vehicles. I could tell Peter was weighing the value of our lives against the satisfaction from slamming our car into the villain beside us.

In the end, pragmatism won out and we successfully merged behind the two deranged drivers who had chosen to risk all of our lives in order to save literally no time at all. In fact, we ended up spending the next twenty minutes driving behind the same two cars, who were surprisingly abiding of the speed limit and crosswalk laws.

Suffice to say, the duration of our drive after that debacle did not involve any more discussion on the nature of positivity, but did feature rather heavily on the many ways Peter hoped both of those people would die painful and drawn-out deaths.

This experience, like so many before it, adds to the mounting evidence I have collected that driving is a social experiment being conducted to determine the effects of prolonged anxiety and frustration on the human psyche. The alternative is that the universe is actively responding to our pretentiously optimistic thoughts with the intention of crushing any lingering idealism.

Thus, the only wise course of action is to maintain a relentlessly negative outlook when in public. With this in mind, perhaps the aforementioned "driving delirium" is actually the embodiment of such an anti-enlightenment?