Technology has completely changed how we live our lives, and it’s happening at an ever-increasing rate. Our worlds are completely different from the world of even 10 years ago. This obviously has resulted in differences in the way we work and play, but did you know it’s even changed the way we have sex?

10Netflix Adultery

A new issue causing strife between couples is “Netflix adultery”: watching TV shows and movies alone that they promised their partner they would watch together. Twelve percent of those surveyed said they do it, and 59 percent of cheaters even reveal spoilers, which means that more than 7 percent of us are dating huge jerks.

Netflix’s director of public relations Jenny McCabe says that couples are reporting some serious drama over the phenomenon, commenting “We hear people say, ‘We made a pact, we were going to watch this together.’ ” It’s a real violation of trust and lack of consideration that can cause tension every bit as real as fights over money or other relationship matters.

9Internet Infidelity

The Internet has made actual infidelity easy and guiltless. Cybersex offers a convenience and anonymity that can prove too tempting for many to resist, even if they have someone who is generally willing to have sex with them right there in the other room. There’s no physical contact, so what’s the problem? It’s not like cybersex is really cheating, right?

Wrong: 77 percent of people surveyed said that cybersex infidelity is unacceptable. Despite the many reasons a cheater could use to rationalize their activities, an overwhelming majority of people agree that cheating is cheating, period. This new and puzzling gray area is such a big problem that it was responsible for a full third of divorce cases in 2009.

8We’re All Creepy Stalkers

The Internet has given us unprecedented access to the personal lives of prospective and past partners, and boy are we making use of it. Almost 90 percent of us admit to “stalking” the social networking activities of our ex-partners, and 60 percent of us admit to doing so to a crush.

This can have catastrophic effects on our well-being, because the information often doesn’t fully satisfy our curiosity and causes even more anxiety. Stalking an ex can significantly hamper our recovery from the breakup, and even spur us to make really bad decisions like hopping back into bed with them (yes, scientists actually studied this stuff). It might be best to keep them out of feed, out of mind.

7 Fear Of Intimacy

Harvard professor Craig Malkin has coined the term “cybercelibacy” to describe the increasing number of people who turn to online games and networks to satisfy their social needs without having to face scary real people. It creates a vicious cycle, he explains, where people aren’t forced to face their anxieties about relationships, which makes those anxieties grow and causes them to retreat further.

How bad is the problem, exactly? Well, 28 percent of people surveyed admitted that they spend less time with meatspace friends in favor of online activities, and almost as many (20 percent) say they’re having less sex. It turns out that going outside occasionally is a really important step to taking up residence in someone else’s underpants.

6Facebook Provokes Your Jealousy

Following your partner’s Facebook feed creates needless jealousy, one study says. Even after controlling for other factors (that’s science for “weeding out the crazy people whose unbridled jealousy would exist either way”), the study found that the more time you spend reading your partner’s boring status updates, the more likely you are to turn into a raging psycho.

This happens because a good chunk of your partner’s social interaction becomes visible to you, but you don’t have those in-person cues that gives the exchange context. For example, when your lady’s gay co-worker or the best friend who loves her like a sister leaves an innocent “You look great!” on her picture, they know it’s a harmless compliment—but all you see is some dude hitting on your girlfriend.

5 Too Many Points Of Contact

A lack of communication can be a big problem in a relationship, but one study suggests that communicating too much can be a strain as well. A survey of 24,000 married people found that using more than five channels (such as social media, texting, instant messaging, etc.) to communicate with your partner actually decreases relationship satisfaction.

The stress of never being more than a series of ones and zeroes away from your partner and monitoring so many incoming data streams is a killer. Think about how easy it is to step over that threshold. You follow your partner’s Facebook and Twitter feed, obviously, and of course they have your phone number for calling and texting—if you regularly use even one more communication tool, you’re screwed.

4The Online Pornsplosion

With porn so easily accessible, convenient, and increasingly hardcore, many women are feeling either neglected or pressured to adhere to male-centric sexual scripts that they don’t enjoy. It turns out that many ladies don’t actually enjoy being sprayed in the face or poked in the butt (acts that are simply a matter of course in even mainstream porn nowadays) but feel like they have to if they want to please their man.

That is, if they’re being asked to please them at all: More women are reporting that they can’t compete with the blonde, tanned, and augmented video vixens, and their partners neglect them in favor of prerecorded thrills. It’s never a good thing if one person is unhappy with the naked-time routine, but the problem is so bad that in 2003, it was reported that online porn played a major role in a quarter of all divorce cases that year (and we’re pretty sure the amount of porn available hasn’t decreased any since then).

3 Gadgets

Some people are literally addicted to their smartphones; they can’t even leave the room without carrying them around like a colicky baby. Or maybe you like to bring your laptop to bed for some late-night work, or even just watch a little Letterman before tucking in. Well, all of those things could be wreaking havoc on your sex life, studies show. The mere act of having a phone nearby is so distracting that we can’t focus on the person we’re with, and simply having a TV in the bedroom can cut the amount of sex you have in half.

2 Dubious ‘Matching Algorithms’

Matching algorithms, such as those used by OkCupid and eHarmony, use questionnaire information about users’ personality and interests, which may help the strangers find things to talk about, but won’t in any way guarantee relationship success. Hold on, you say, isn’t it important that my partner likes Star Wars and skydiving as much as I do? If I end up with a scaredy cat who hates sci-fi, how are we even supposed to relate to each other?

Actually, the former has little to do with the latter. The way two individuals interact with each other specifically—i.e., plain ol’ chemistry—is the best indication of a good match, something that can’t be determined until two people meet. Maybe that overly cautious person keeps you grounded without holding you back, or the foreign film nut knows intuitively just what kind of support you need when you’ve had a bad day. Furthermore, the sites encourage users to objectify potential partners, “shopping” for matches based on these superficial and insignificant traits.

1Googling Your Date

There’s really no such thing as a blind date anymore: 48 percent of women will not hesitate to Google you before they agree to go out with you, and just as many are willing to decline if they find unsavory information. Sure, some serious bullets can be dodged this way, like if you find your potential date’s incoherent, violent blog about his serial killer fantasies, but in many cases, you might be rejecting your soulmate based on a false (or at least meaningless) representation.

According to one study, the more information we dig up about our suitors, the more likely we are to reject them. You might think that just saves everyone some time—you’re going to find out about her online shrine to Hanson eventually, right?—but before you judge too harshly, take a minute to Google yourself. Did anything potentially off-putting come up? That embarrassingly naive op-ed piece about Objectivism you wrote for your college newspaper, say, or videos of your misguided attempt at hip-hop superstardom? How representative are those things of you as a person?

The fact is, someone who’s had a chance to get to know all the virtues and quirks that come packed in the you-shaped bundle is probably going to find those things endearing, but someone whose first impression of you has been based on them is going to run away screaming. As study coauthor Joanna Frost, PhD., says, “Your disillusionment with someone during a conversation might take hours, during which your date has the opportunity to explain himself, whereas online that disillusionment can happen almost instantly.” So give that freak a chance to explain herself over a beer—it might just be a charming quirk in an otherwise flawless package.

Manna writes and wrongs from sunny Portland, Oregon. Check her out on Cracked, Twitter, and her blog.

When we find ourselves wandering through an art gallery, perusing the many different styles and disciplines on display, we often make snap judgements about what we like and what we don’t like. Those judgements we make, we tell ourselves, are based on our very own tastes. We look, we evaluate and then, confident in our thinking process, we pronounce the painting, drawing or sculpture to be bad, good, great or a masterpiece. It’s a simple, straightforward process. We know art when we see it. Case closed.

Turns out, the process of appreciating art is much more complicated than that. There are numerous strange, subtle forces that make us embrace some art, push other art away or magically transform non-art into art. Here are 10 fascinating examples.

SEE ALSO: 10 Great Easter Eggs Hidden In Works Of Art

10 Being Told

Fact: Simply Being Told That Something Is Art Changes Our Response To It

Recently, a group of Dutch scientists, from Erasmus University in Rotterdam, conducted a series of experiments. A total of 24 student volunteers were hooked up to an EEG—which measures electrical activity in the brain—and asked to evaluate a series of pictures for likability and attractiveness. Half of these pictures were of something nice and half were of something awful. The students were also told that some of the pictures were art and some were pictures of actual events.^[1]

What the scientists found was that when the students were told that a picture was a work of art, their emotional response was, “…subdued on a neural level.” In other words, when confronted with what we are told is a work of art, we distance ourselves from it to be able to, as lead researcher Noah Van Dongen puts it, “…appreciate or scrutinize its shapes, colors and composition…”

9 Where It’s Shown

Fact: Where The Art Is Displayed Affects Our Appreciation Of It

A work of art is a work of art. Observed up on a gallery wall or in somebody’s garage, that same painting should be able to be appreciated in the same way in either environment, right?^[2]

In 2014, a simple experiment was conducted by a team at the University of Vienna. In that experiment, two groups of volunteers took in an art exhibition—one in a museum and one in a laboratory. A Mobile eye tracking device captured each participant’s viewing time in both places. Afterwards, they were asked to rate each artwork based on, “…liking, interest, understanding, and ambiguity scales.”

The results showed that galleries and museums do matter. Participants in the museum environment viewed each of the individual works of art for a longer time, liked them more and found them more interesting.

Summing up, the team from the University of Vienna concluded that, “…art museums foster an enduring and focused aesthetic experience and demonstrate that context modulates the relation between art experience and viewing behavior.”

8 Hunter-Gatherer Instincts

Fact: The Hunter-Gatherer Era Differentiated What Men And Women Find Aesthetically Pleasing

Next time you disagree with a member of the opposite sex on the aesthetic value of a painting it might just be because, once, long, long ago, men hunted animals and women gathered nuts and berries.^[3]

So says Camilo J. Cela-Conde and his colleagues. They hooked up 10 female students and 10 male students to a MEG—which measures the brain’s electrical currents and the magnetic fields it creates—and showed them each hundreds of pictures of artistic paintings, natural objects, landscapes and urban scenes.

They found that when visually evaluating a work of art, men’s brains show stimulation on the right side only, while women’s brains show stimulation on both sides.

From the data they collected, the authors of the study concluded that male and female differences in the appreciation of aesthetic beauty might be tied to the different roles each had during the time of the hunter-gatherer society.

Men hunting needed to “…process a large landscape” and because of this are, “…more comfortable in open configurations and larger art works.” On the contrary, women gathering would, “…seek out nuts and berries and find the same static patch each day” and because of this, “…would be more comfortable and would like small spatial configurations…”

7 Exposure

Fact: We Prefer The Art That We Are Exposed To More Often

Ever dislike a song, the first time you hear it, but grow to like it after listening to it a few more times? That experience has a name.^[4]

The “mere-exposure effect” is the experience one has when one begins to like things merely because they are repeatedly exposed to it.

James Cutting, a psychologist at Cornell University, showed his students artistic examples of impressionism for a very brief blip of time—2 seconds. Some of those works of art were considered classics and some were not—though, qualitatively, they were very close. The works of art that were not considered classics were shown 4 times as much.

The results were surprising. The students preferred the non-classics to the classic works of art. A control group still gave the edge to the classics.

6 Electroshock Therapy

Fact: Jolting Your Brain With Electricity Enhances Our Love Of Classic Art

Zaira Cattaneo at the University of Milan Bicocca and her team took 12 people and asked them their opinion of a series of paintings. The twist was that they asked these people before and after they either zapped their brain with a small amount of current or merely pretended to zap them.^[5]

The part of the brain that received the jolt, in this experiment, is known as the DLPFC or the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. This part of the brain processes emotions.

Surprisingly, the people who received the zap rated paintings that contained regular everyday moments more highly.

Neurologist Anjan Chatterjee, at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, believes that zapping the DLPFC may, “…improve your mood.”

This is why Zaira hopes that, someday, this method may help those suffering from anhedonia—a condition in which people are incapable of experiencing pleasure.

5 Ambiguity

Fact: The More Ambiguous A Work Of Art The More We Like It

We crave clarity. When we shop, we want to see a clearly printed price tag for the item we wish to purchase. When we drive, we want to see clearly printed signs that tell us how fast we can go and when to stop.^[6]

When it comes to art, though, we ache for ambiguity.

A study was conducted featuring 29 people who ranged in age from 18-41 and had zero art or art history training. They were shown photos of ambiguous works of art done by Rene Magritte and Hans Bellmer.

The results were fascinating, “The higher the participants assessed the ambiguity of a stimulus, the more they appreciated it.”

What the participants found was that the ambiguous art triggered, “…flashes of understanding as they studied the work, which they found enjoyable even if it didn’t unlock all of its secrets.”

Echoing those comments, researchers also found that, “…subjective solvability of ambiguity was not significantly linked to liking, and was even negatively linked to interest and (emotional involvement).”

4 No Info Please

Fact: Providing Information About A Work Of Art Diminishes Our Appreciation Of It

More information does not lead to more enjoyment—at least when it comes to art.^[7]

Psychologist Kenneth Bordens of Indiana University-Purdue University, Fort Wayne, recently wrote about a study where 172 undergraduate students—with little to no art smarts—looked at two paintings and two sculptures in one of four styles. Those styles were—Impressionist, Renaissance, Dada and Outsider.

Initially, each student was handed a broad definition of art and a card indicating the style a particular work represented. Then, half of them were handed even more information, including: a definition of that style, a short look at where that style came from and what artists who worked in that style set out to achieve.

Then, using a scale from 1-7, Students had to rate how much they liked each work and how closely it lined up with their personal idea of art.

The study showed that, “Providing contextual information led to participants perceiving examples of the various styles of art as matching less well with their internal standards than when no contextual information was presented,”

Bordens thinks that the extra information provided about some of the works of art may have led to “greater conscious processing” on the part of the participants which may have made them, “more critical.”

3 Abstraction? Sacré Bleu!

Fact: We Appreciate Abstract Art More In A Foreign Language Context

There is a term in psychology called Psychological Distancing. It refers to the, “…subjective space that we perceive between ourselves and things.”^[8]

Elena Stephan, Department of Psychology, Bar-ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel and her colleagues studied psychological distancing and how it related to the appreciation of art.

They argued that a foreign language may create enough of a psychological distance to move an individual, “…away from the pragmatic everyday perception style and enhance appreciation of paintings.”

In the end, they found that abstract art was appreciated more deeply in a foreign language context than in a native language context.

2 Patterns

Fact: Seeing Patterns In A Work Of Art Is Our Sweet Spot

Our brain loves patterns. An ability to recognize patterns is so important that it played a big role in helping our Neanderthal ancestors survive.^[9]

Not surprisingly then, recognizing patterns actually gives us a pop of pleasure via our brain’s opioid system.

Jim Davies, a professor at Carelton’s Institute of Cognitive Science, says patterns are crucial in our appreciation of art. “If we don’t see a pattern…we rapidly get bored with it.”

1 Mona Lisa . . . Yawn

Fact: The Mona Lisa Only Became A Masterpiece After It Was Stolen

Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Whether true or not, absence certainly helped boost the profile and popularity of a certain Leonardo Da Vinci painting.

Though difficult to imagine now, there was a time when interest in the “Mona Lisa” was, “…relatively minimal.” So, what accounts for its now legendary status? The tireless work of art historians? Re-evaluation by art critics of the early 1900s? Da Vinci’s ancestors? No, all it took was a construction worker and a few of his buddies.^[10]

Sleeping overnight in the Louvre, Vincenzo and his friends awoke the next morning, Monday August 21, 1911, dressed themselves in workman’s smocks, grabbed the painting and then split via a back stairwell.

The “Mona Lisa” was so uncelebrated that it took 26 hours before someone noticed the painting was missing.

Newspapers around the world announced the theft with big front page headlines. The walls of Paris became crowded with wanted posters. People flocked to police headquarters. Songs were written about it. Through this process, high art became mass art and the people fell in love with Da Vinci’s now universally adored masterpiece.

So, the “Mona Lisa” owes much of its renown and appreciation to an obscure 5′ 3″ Italian construction worker whose brothers called a nut. Strange but true.

Anyone can upload pretty much anything on Youtube, and as such it is so massive and unwieldy that it can be hard to sift through all of the mostly pointless or absurd content to find the few true gems. As such, we have gone through Youtube and found some of the best cooking and food channels for your viewing pleasure. From the international, to the historical, from comedy, to prison cooking, and everything in between, we will guide you through some of the best channels on the site.

SEE ALSO: 10 Pieces Of Celebrity Gold Hiding On YouTube

10 Grandpa Kitchen

Why you’ll love it: The Channel Grandpa Kitchen Feeds Indian Orphans, And Cooks In The Open Air

Grandpa Kitchen is a more recent addition to Youtube, only joining in late 2017, but they have already amassed almost 200 videos, and they have over 5 million subscribers. Based in a village in Telangana, India, the channel is run by a father and son who are local to the area. The channel always starts off with gentle, caring music, showing you the orphans they are going to feed. It then cuts to the elder of the two, Narayana Reddy, who is 73 years old, and introduces himself as “your grandpa” and gives a light, loving and friendly chuckle. He explains what he will be preparing today, and then him and his son Shrikant Reddy, who manages his Youtube channel, set to work.

Out in the open air, using giant pots, they make meals of every kind imaginable. From traditional Indian recipes like butter chicken, to international favorites like cheeseburgers and lasagna, grandpa Reddy cooks it all in a huge pot, enough to feed a whole village of orphans. And, when it comes to the international recipes, they add spices to give it an Indian sensibility, such as coriander powder, cumin, red chili sauce, ginger garlic paste, black pepper and others. His recipe variations are fascinating, and the video is done mostly without music, which has given it some qualities that people compare to ASMR videos. At the end, the payoff is about as good as it gets, as you see him literally handing the food to orphaned children, and watching as they eat it with a satisfied and happy expression on their faces. Grandpa doesn’t really ask directly for donations, instead, he just asks you to like, subscribe, and share, so that he can use more of his own money to feed hungry people.^[1]

9 Townsend

Why you’ll love it: The Channel Townsends Experiments With 18th Century (And Sometimes Older) Recipes

Townsends is a Youtube channel that was founded by John Townsend, a man originally known mostly for the brick and mortar store he runs with his dad in Pierceton Indiana, that had for years sold gear for historical reenactors who were looking to interpret history from roughly around American colonial times. However, the Youtube channel is what has really given him fame, and blown up his business into something huge. His channel started out mostly featuring 18th century recipes, and has been incredibly authentic from the start. They use historically accurate methods and try to follow the recipes from old cookbooks as much as is possible; although sometimes the instructions are unclear and they have to experiment or make guesses.

As his channel has grown, he has also made it even more about life in the 18th century in general. He has shown all sorts of survival tips, and other methods of how things were done back in the day, and interviewed various historical reenactors in character, in order to teach people more about the time period. One of his most controversial, but successful interviews was with a black woman who interprets the life of an enslaved woman from the 18th century. Her interpretation of the time period was uncomfortable for some, but it was extremely accurate, and both portrayed the enslaved people of the time in a positive light, while highlighting at the same time, in frank terms, how difficult and awful things were for them.^[2]

8 Kitchen Nightmares

Why you’ll love it: Kitchen Nightmares Has A Channel To Give You Your Fix Of Angry Gordon Ramsay

The vast majority of you are already familiar with the two hit shows, Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, which was set in the United Kingdom, and Kitchen Nightmares, a similar but more bombastic show that was set in the United States of America, both starring known food expert and rage queen Gordon Ramsay. However, while some people don’t enjoy the rollercoaster of the entire show, most people enjoy angry people shouting at others about making bad food. If you are one of these people, you will likely immensely enjoy the Kitchen Nightmares Youtube channel.

It has all of the best clips and moments of Gordon Ramsay berating bad chefs and going off about disgusting food, and an incredible amount of excellent compilations. If you are the type to watch Kitchen Nightmares just for the part where he bashes food they understand you completely. Most of the compilations are overwhelming negative in nature, and filled to the brim with Ramsay going off on incompetent chefs and or restaurant owners for one reason or another. For some people this may be a bit too much negativity to stomach, but if just find it hilarious to watch Ramsay lose his temper, or spit out disgusting food over and over, you will find almost endless amusement on this channel.^[3]

7 Great Depression Cooking

Why you’ll love it: Great Depression Cooking Gives You An Authentic Look At Food From That Era In America

The Youtube Channel Great Depression Cooking is no longer posting new videos, but that is because the series star, unfortunately, is dead. The channel’s star was Clara Cannucciari, who wrote the cooking book “Great Depression Cooking With Clara” and has had some of her individual videos viewed by millions of people. She was born in 1915, but sadly passed away in 2013, at the tender age of 98 years old. Several years before she died, her grandson Christopher started filming her recipes and commentary for posterity, and uploaded them to Youtube, in order to bring her knowledge to the world.

Clara calmly told stories from the era explaining just how poor people really were, and what they used to make hearty recipes back then, in order to feed as many people as possible with so little. She was never that interested in being filmed, but she turned out to be really good on camera, and she maintained a down home authenticity by always filming in her own kitchen with all of her own old tools, which she had managed with for a very long time. While it may be depressing to some, watching her channel can be good not just for historical purposes. The world economy is in a somewhat unstable state right now, so knowing how to make cheap, healthy meals that can feed a lot of people may be very important knowledge again very soon. If nothing else, we all could have individual times of want, so we could all use knowledge of this kind.^[4]

6 Rasta Kitch

Why you’ll love it: Rasta Kitchen Gives You An Authentic Look At Ital Cooking Straight From Jamaica

Rasta Kitchen is a rare gem on Youtube that was started roughly four years ago. The show takes place in Jamaica, in a riverside cottage owned by a Rasta named Mokko who lives there with his entire family. The cottage had been on the World’s Together Travel Network and caught the attention of a few aspiring filmmakers from Canada who contacted Mokko. Since then, with a small film crew, a young man named Matthew has worked with Mokko to produce videos of his cooking to showcase on Youtube. They even hope, with enough attention, to one day turn Rasta Kitchen into a feature length show on network television.

Some of the videos from Rasta Kitchen have garnered millions of views, likely because of Mokko’s laid back style and the way he talks to Matthew and the camera crew as if they are just friends over for lunch. He slowly, but surely, makes his way through authentic Ital recipes, giving detailed commentary throughout on his entire process, and the meals are always clearly delicious and healthy. The laid back style of the channel, instead of the faster, cut pacing of many cooking channels today, is a welcome change, and makes you feel like you are right there with him in Jamaica, listening to him dispense cooking advice in person, in his own, charismatic manner.^[5]

5 Kali Muscle

Why you’ll love it: Kali Muscle Will Show You How To Make Prison Food, And Bulk On A Budget

Now known as Kali Muscle, he was once simply known as Chuck Kirkendall. He grew up in Oakland and in his early college years was struggling financially and often surrounded by violence. As a young man he made a huge mistake and committed armed robbery to try to make ends meet. He was caught and went to prison for eleven years. He decided he would make something of himself, and spent the next eleven years bulking up as a bodybuilder, so that he could be something when he got out.

After getting out of prison, he managed to star in a handful of commercials due to his physique, which helped him get a little bit of a start. Now, he has a Youtube channel where he gives kids tips on how to lift weights as a positive outlift, and how to bulk up on a budget. He has become a motivational speaker and a husband, convinced it is his mission to help as many kids as possible avoid the time in jail he went through. He shows fascinating recipes that he used in prison to bulk up, as well as healthier foods he eats now for bodybuilding, many of which can still be done on a budget. All of his recipes have a very charismatic delivery and it draws you in as you feel like he is speaking directly to you, as your friend, showing you his favorite tips and giving you advice. His passion to show off everything he has learned in life, after all he went through, is infectious.^[6]

4 You Suck At Cooking

Why you’ll love it: The Channel You Suck At Cooking Gives A Comedic, But Delicious Take On Cooking

If you haven’t heard of the channel “You Suck At Cooking” and you enjoy sarcastic, satirical humor, then you don’t know what you have been missing. Hosted by a mysterious person somewhere in Canada, the channel showcases healthy, homemade recipes, with an extremely comedic bent, utilizing a lot of slightly insulting jokes, and various puns or other effects. While the channel is extremely comedic and played for laughs, he uses fresh ingredients, and if you already know a decent amount about cooking, you can actually glean some pretty useful ideas and recipes from it.

However, most people just watch it because of a charismatic comedian who has put together entire skits around fake girlfriends, a sentient robot that he built as a kid, an entire storyline about sentient eggs involving murder, and so many other hilarious gags. On top of that, he will sometimes end videos with his own original songs, backed by guitar, with funny lyrics relevant to the situation at hand. It may sound personally insulting, but You Suck At Cooking is really just meant to amuse you, and maybe educate you just a little bit about healthy, and affordable cooking along the way.^[7]

3 First We Feast

Why you’ll love it: First We Feast Doesn’t Do Much Cooking, But Hot Ones Is Must See TV

The Youtube Channel First We Feast is an offshoot of a food blog started back in 2014, which still has a website to this day. The channel features shows such as the Burger Shop, and the Curry Shop, where they talk about food making guides, occasionally showcase recipes, but mostly eat and review a lot of interesting and delicious food. However, by far the show they are most known for is Hot Ones, hosted by Sean Evans.

This show has celebrities sit down and have an interview with the host, while the host and the interviewee eat progressively hotter wings, and become progressively more miserable. The interviews usually range from about 20-30 minutes long, but they are well worth the length. Many A list celebrities and musicians have been on the show, and something about the experience seems to break down people’s vulnerabilities in such a way that they give really human answers, and not the scripted sounding stuff you are used to hearing in TV interviews. The host and his team also do a really good job on research to ask a lot of interesting questions they might not hear elsewhere, and it can also just be fun to watch rich people suffer eating insanely hot wings.^[8]

2 ReportOfTheWeek

Why you’ll love it: ReportOfTheWeek Reviews Fast Food In A Suit And Tie — It Doesn’t Get Much More Unique

The ReportOTheWeek is a Youtube channel that has been running since 2011, and started out mostly with food reviews. The host, at the start, was a kid of only 13 who got people’s attention because he would review greasy fast food while wearing a suit and tie. He also does drink reviews, and has his own radio style show where he interacts with listeners in a more intimate way than he can do on Youtube.

While his real name is John Jurasek, his is affectionately known as Reviewbrah by his fans, and has gained great notoriety since his appearance on an episode of the hit Comedy Central Show Tosh. Despite the setback of temporary demonetization of food review videos, he kept going strong with patreon contributions, and has never really stopped giving regular, and quality content over the years. He somehow never makes a mess on his suits, and his sophisticated bearing gives a strange vibe to the videos that draws people in. Also, while people may find it strange to review fast food so seriously, he believes that as fast food is what people eat most, it makes sense to review it in all seriousness, as it has the most relevance to the average person’s life.^[9]

1 TheWolfePit

Why you’ll love it: TheWolfePit Will Test The Strangest Dollar Store Foods For You, The People

The WolfePit is hosted by a middle aged dad from Texas, known as Larry, who uses his channel to cook a lot of down home, delicious Texas comfort food and his recipes are good quality, if not always the most lean options. However, it is his reviews of the most insane, processed food products, that he is probably best known for.

His favorite place to shop is the Dollar Tree, but he will try strange foods from around the world, or almost anything processed (especially if it is sold at a discount). From whole chicken in a can, to steaks from the Dollar Tree, he will prepare it according to the package instructions, and dutifully give it a try for you, the people. His soothing delivery, as he reads the nutritional content and explains anything strange in the ingredients list, manages to draw people in, in an almost hypnotic way. He also makes a lot of dad jokes, and other silly puns, but in such a way that you don’t really groan, but just enjoy it as part of the overall charm.^[10]

It can be hard to find that special someone. Fortunately, history is here to help. Whether you are looking for “the one” or want to become a real Casanova, these dating tips are guaranteed to help you out. (Disclaimer: Not actually a guarantee.)

10 Use A Fan For Subtle Flirting

Fans have been around for thousands of years but became a hot fashion accessory in 18th-century Europe. Ever resourceful, women realized that the fan could be used for more than just appearances, and soon enough, they started using a secret “fan language” to flirt with their male admirers.

While you might think that using a fan to communicate would be rather limited, there were actually over 30 messages that women could convey to the men fortunate enough to learn this “language.” For example, hiding the eyes behind an open fan simply said, “I love you.” Carrying the open fan in the left hand expressed a desire to talk while twirling the fan in the left hand warned the man that they were being watched.

9 Find A Partner At The Marriage Market

In the Histories, Herodotus writes of an ancient custom in Babylonian villages which ensured that everyone found a partner, including the poorest men and the ugliest women. They went to the marriage market, where men would bid for their new wives.

It started off as a regular auction. The best-looking women would go first, as they got the highest bids, meaning that they typically married the wealthiest men. Things switched when the auction got to the women who were considered ugly, crippled, or too old. The auctioneer would pay participants to take them as wives. Each bid got lower, and the winner was the man who accepted the lowest bid. The money was paid from the profits from auctioning off the beautiful girls. This way, every woman found a husband, and the poorer couples also gained a dowry.

The market was open to all, even people from other villages. Fathers weren’t allowed to marry their daughters to the people they wanted, and bidders had to provide a backer who would guarantee their intention to marry. In case things didn’t work out, every sale came with a money-back guarantee.

8 Share A Secret Language

Privacy has always been an issue for new lovers. In the olden days, it was even harder for lovebirds to evade the watchful eyes of their parents, who were always there to make sure no funny business was going on prior to marriage. A clever way to continue saying sweet nothings to each other, even with the parents in the room, was to learn Morse code.

This tip comes courtesy of Thomas Edison, who employed this strategy to woo his second wife, Mina Miller. The couple met soon after the death of Edison’s first wife, Mary. Mina’s father, Lewis Miller, was also a renowned inventor. He developed the first front-mounted combine harvester.

Even though Mina was 20 years old when her relationship with Thomas began, and Edison was 39, the two were still wary of public displays of affection around her parents. That’s why Edison taught her Morse code, and according to him, he also proposed to her using Morse code.

7 Don’t Get Drunk In Front Of The In-Laws

Impressing the parents of your beloved might not be that important nowadays, but it used to be vital, since historically, the bride needed her father’s permission to marry. That being said, a good suggestion might be to not make a drunken fool of yourself in front of your would-be in-laws.

Nobody knew that better than Hippocleides of Attica. Back in the sixth century BC, Cleisthenes, the tyrant of Sicyon, wanted to marry off his daughter, Agariste. Instead of simply accepting a bride price, he organized a competition to find the best suitor. His call was answered by 12 of the most eligible bachelors in the Greek world.

The suitors went through challenges such as chariot racing and wrestling to prove their worth. By the end of the competition, Hippocleides became Cleisthenes’s favorite to win his daughter’s hand in marriage. However, at a banquet in the suitors’ honor, Hippocleides got very drunk and started acting like an idiot. At one point, he did a handstand and started kicking his legs in the air in rhythm with the music. An angered Cleisthenes told Hippocleides that he “danced away his wife.” Agariste married Megacles, instead.

6 Be Practical

Sometimes, you get better results by showing your practical side. That’s a lesson we can learn from the ancient Egyptians, who, as far as we can tell, did away with fancy courtship rituals and complicated ceremonies. If a woman moved her stuff from her parents’ house into a man’s house, that meant they were married. There was typically a prenuptial agreement in place between the husband and the wife’s father, which outlined who got what in the event of a breakup.

Divorces also seemed to be a straightforward affair, particularly for that time period. Couples were expected to stay together for life (and beyond), but in the event of a split, they divided their possessions, and the children went with the mother. This didn’t apply in the case of adultery, which was heavily frowned upon and carried severe punishments (even death).

None of this is to say that a practical marriage had no room for love or romance. Vizier Ptahhotep wrote The Maxims of Ptahhotep, a collection of wisdom to be passed down to newer generations. In it, he advised husbands to “love [their] wife; feed her and clothe her well; make her happy.” Some of the earliest examples of romantic literature came from Egyptian inscriptions in which men praised the beauty of their wives.

5 Spend Some Quality Time Together

History has never been shy about making it clear that a woman’s place was at home, taking care of the household while the man went out and did things. However, Teutonic women firmly believed their place was next to their husbands, even during war. They followed the men from skirmish to skirmish. They would perform tasks such as feeding the men and tending to the wounded but would not hesitate to take up arms when the need arose.

Plutarch writes of Roman legionaries invading a Teutonic camp and being pushed back by women wielding swords and axes, who endured wounds and slashes with “undaunted resolution.” This kind of determination led to the rise of the Latin phrase furor Teutonicus, a ferocity in battle shared by both Teutonic men and women.

The chastity and devotion of Teutonic women was another trait evoked by historians. The Teutons were virtually wiped out by Romans at the Battle of Aquae Sextiae in 102 BC. Valerius Maximus wrote that the women pleaded to become sacred servants of Vesta instead of slaves. When their request was refused, they committed mass suicide.

4 Try Love In A Bottle

People who hadn’t managed to snag that special someone could resort to a little chemical assistance in the form of a love potion. Almost every culture in existence has its own food or drink or behavior which is meant to increase libido, make people fall in love, or even cure impotence. There are valid reasons for this: Some of the ingredients used in aphrodisiacs genuinely have positive effects. Even those that don’t work could still cause some improvement thanks to the power of the placebo effect.

In a medieval book on plants and animals, Albertus Magnus informs us that a concoction of periwinkle mixed with leeks and earthworms, pulverized and sprinkled over food, can strengthen the love between a man and his wife. He also warns us that the same mixture thrown into a pond would kill the fish.

Marigolds were a popular ingredient during the Middle Ages and were used in many love potions. Certain Native American tribes preferred wild columbine. Jimsonweed was used throughout parts of India, which was especially dangerous, as it is a toxic plant, part of the nightshade family.

3 Write Your Feelings Down

Some people might have problems expressing themselves and would be better suited to writing their feelings down in a love poem. For inspiration, they could turn to the most romantic civilization in history: the Vikings.

We might think of the Vikings as having been all about the pillaging, but their poems and sagas are filled with stories of true love, particularly love that follows the couple into death. Njal’s Saga is an example. Njal’s wife is offered amnesty, but she chooses to die by his side to keep the promise she made when they got married.

In the Gesta Danorum, Saxo Grammaticus records the passionate song of Hagbaror before being hanged and after learning that his wife killed herself so that they could be together in the afterlife: “So let the encircling bonds grip my throat in the midst; the final anguish shall bring with it pleasure only, since the certain hope remains of renewed love.”

While the sagas exalted the love between husband and wife, courting an unmarried girl was downright dangerous. Salacious poems suggesting that the writer had intimate knowledge of a girl would greatly tarnish her honor and diminish her value as a wife. These practices could result in death, as the girl’s father or brothers would feel obligated to defend her name.

2 Exchange Gifts

One of the best ways to grab someone’s attention is with a thoughtful gift. Throughout history, material possessions have almost always been at the heart of marriages. Some cultures had a bride price or bridewealth: The groom had to pay money, land, or wealth to his future wife’s family. Other cultures had a dowry: The bride’s father had to contribute toward the groom’s family.

As marriage customs loosened up a bit, gifts between lovers became more common and more sensual, even without a commitment to marriage. Renaissance Italy was a period where such gift exchanges were common. Woven belts or girdles were given to young women, and they often featured provocative or romantic imagery, as they were associated with fertility. Brooches, pendants, and combs were also frequent choices for gifts.

1 Dissect A Woman To Learn Her Anatomy

This helpful tip comes from 19th-century French novelist Honore de Balzac. One of his lesser-known works was a treatise named The Physiology of Marriage, which uncovered the secrets of a loving, successful marriage. Among the many useful pieces of advice offered in the book, Balzac cautions us that marriage is a science and that a proper man should dissect at least one woman prior to marriage in order to study her anatomy.

Balzac believed that we all have a certain amount of energy. While most men used that energy for their jobs, women didn’t know what to do with theirs. Therefore, the husband would be well-advised to tire out his wife with constant work so that she didn’t fall prey to her passions or caprices. Balzac also warned men against letting women drink plain water, for some reason. He recommended water lightly tinged with Burgundy wine.

Despite his keen insights into marriage, Balzac married late in life, aged 50. This was 20 years after he wrote The Physiology of Marriage. He died five months later.

There’s a difference between the person we show to the world and the person we show to the people who love us. There’s a whole other side of a person that comes out in love letters. In letters to those who care for us, the real self comes through because we know we’re writing words that will only be seen by the one person who truly understands us.

Unless, of course, you’re famous. Because if you get famous and die, you can pretty much count on some hack writer somewhere gathering up every private word you’ve ever written and getting everyone in the world to make fun of you by publishing them in a book.

Or, sometimes, in a top 10 list.

10 Mozart’s Weird Poop Letters To His Cousin

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart left behind more than just music. He also left behind a whole series of flirtatious love letters written to his younger cousin, Maria Anna Thekla. But it’s not flirting with his cousin that’s weird—it’s his weird obsession with poop.

“I now wish you goodnight,” Mozart signed one of his letters to his cousin. It would be a normal enough way to end a letter if he’d stopped there. But he didn’t. “Shit in your bed with all your might,” he added, “sleep with peace on your mind and try to kiss your own behind.”

“Oh my ass burns like fire!” Mozart wrote in another letter. “What on Earth is the meaning of this! Maybe muck wants to come out? Yes, yes, muck.”

Even the flirtation involved poop. Mozart, apparently, was convinced that talking poop was what drove women wild. When he wrote his cousin begging her to visit, he worded it, “Come for a bit or else I’ll shit.” Then he promised to “kiss your hands, my dear, shoot off a gun in the rear.”

Strangest of all, Mozart didn’t just start doing this on his own—he seems to have picked it up from his mother. Her letters are pretty much the same as her son’s. In one letter to her husband, Mozart’s mother wrote, “Keep well, my love. Into your mouth your arse you’ll shove. I wish you goodnight, my dear, but first shit in your bed and make it burst.”

9 Warren G. Harding’s Letters About His Penis

Just before he became president, Warren G. Harding carried on a torrid love affair with a woman named Carrie Fulton Phillips. Each wrote some absolutely scandalous letters—but Harding was a senator, vying for the presidency. They couldn’t afford to get caught. So to keep things confidential, Harding nicknamed his penis, “Jerry.”

“Wish I could take you to Mount Jerry,” the 29th president of the United States of America wrote. “Wonderful spot.” It wasn’t the only time he wrote her about his Jerry. In another letter, he told her, “Jerry came and will not go.” Then he warned her, “I fear you would find a fierce enthusiast today.”

He didn’t just have a nickname for his own genitals—he called Carrie’s, “Mrs. Pouterson.” In one letter, he reproached her for not being more affectionate: “When I saw Mrs. Pouterson a month ago, she persuaded me you still loved. I had a really happy day with her.”

8 Albert Einstein’s Letters About His Mistresses

Albert Einstein wasn’t really one for monogamy. He had dozens of mistresses behind his wives’ backs, and his letters make it pretty clear that he didn’t feel the slightest bit bad about it.

When his affairs split apart him and his first wife, Mileva Maric, Einstein wrote her a letter offering his suggestion on how to keep their marriage together. He would stay with her, he promised, as long as she would “make sure that my clothes and laundry are kept in good order.” Apparently, Mileva wasn’t wooed.

Remarrying didn’t change him. When his second wife got mad, Einstein wrote a letter to his stepdaughter, Margot, asking her to pass the message on. His wife, he explained, was too crazy to talk to directly.

“It is true that M. followed me and her chasing after me is getting out of control,” he told Margot about one of his mistresses. “But, first of all, there was nothing I could do to prevent it.”

Still, he had some concern about his wife’s feelings. “For mother,” he told Margot, he would try to make sure that “not every Tom, Dick, and Harry gossip about it.”

For her sake, he was going to try to only sleep with women who could keep their mouths shut. “Out of all the dames,” Einstein promised his stepdaughter, “I am in fact attached only to Mrs. L., who is absolutely harmless and decent.”

7 Jimmy Savile’s Love Letter To Margaret Thatcher

Jimmy Savile wanted to be remembered as a great radio DJ. But when you sexually assault hundreds of children, it tends to eclipse whatever you did at work. Today, he’s remembered as one of the world’s worst pedophiles—and that makes a love letter he wrote to the prime minister of the United Kingdom deeply unnerving.

Savile thanked Margaret Thatcher for their lunch date and then told her, “My girl patients pretended to be madly jealous + wanted to know what you wore + what you ate.” Those “girl patients” were sick girls at a hospital whom Jimmy Savile was sexually assaulting. Some of them were as young as eight. In Saville’s mind, these girls were jealous of his affections for Margaret Thatcher.

“They all love you,” Savile told Thatcher. “Me, too!!”

It wasn’t their last date. A little after, Thatcher and Savile met for lunch again. Thatcher’s secretary, going over her papers, wrote Thatcher a deeply worried letter.

“Can you kindly let me know if you made any promises to Jimmy Savile when he lunched with you yesterday?” she asked the prime minister. “Did you offer him any money?” Thatcher may have been wooed. The only record of Thatcher’s reply just reads, “Will tell you in detail. MT.”

6 Herman Melville’s Love Letters To Nathaniel Hawthorne

Two of America’s most celebrated authors just might have been in love. Herman Melville, the author of Moby-Dick, left behind some letters he wrote to Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author of The Scarlet Letter. According to some scholars, they’re more than just friendly.

“Your heart beat in my ribs and mine in yours,” Melville wrote to Hawthorne. “Whence come you, Hawthorne? By what right do you drink from my flagon of life? And when I put it to my lips—lo, they are yours and not mine.”

It might have just been a declaration of friendship, but it’s hard not to read a little sexuality into some of Melville’s word choices. In a letter to a friend in which Melville gushes about Hawthorne, Melville wrote, “Hawthorne has dropped germinous seeds into my soul. He expands and deepens down, the more I contemplate him; and further and further, shoots his strong New England roots in the hot soil of my Southern soul.”

According to some scholars, the letters reveal a story of unrequited love. “Through the remaining 40 years of Melville’s life,” a scholar named Arlin Turner wrote, “he thought he had been rebuffed by Hawthorne.”

5 Peter Abelard’s Rapey Letters To Heloise

Peter Abelard was a medieval philosopher who talked about Christian ethics, but he’s probably best known for his secret affair with Heloise d’Argenteuil. There’s a little irony in a Christian philosopher being remembered for having an affair, but it gets a lot worse. Based on the letters he sent her, it doesn’t seem like Heloise was a willing participant.

“Even when you were unwilling, resisted as much as you could, and tried to dissuade me,” he wrote to her, “since your nature was weaker, I often forced you to consent with threats and blows.”

It might explain a lot. When their secret relationship came out, Heloise denied that she’d even been with him. In revenge, Abelard had her sent to a nunnery. He didn’t quite get away with it, though. Furious, Heloise’s uncle had a gang of men break into Abelard’s home and forcibly castrate him.

Even Abelard accepted that he had it coming. He wrote, “It was wholly just and merciful, although by means of the supreme treachery of your uncle, for me to be diminished in that part of my body where the power of lust resided.”

4 Benjamin Franklin’s Call For Free Love

Benjamin Franklin, apparently, was too much man for just one woman. After his wife died, he started playing the field. At age 73, he wrote a letter to one of his mistresses to let her know that she had to deal with an open relationship.

“You find innumerable faults with me, whereas I see only one fault in you,” Franklin told her. That fault, he said, was her attempts to “seek monopoly on all my affection and not allow me any for the agreeable ladies of your country.”

He wasn’t being totally honest, though, when he said that he only found one fault in her. He wasn’t just upset that she wouldn’t let him sleep around—she also didn’t put out.

“You renounce and totally exclude all that might be of the flesh in our affection, allowing me only some kisses,” Franklin complained. “What am I receiving that is so special as to prevent me from giving the same to others, without taking from what belongs to you?”

3 Marlon Brando’s Letter To A Stewardess He Didn’t Know

Marlon Brando was a sex symbol. Any woman would have been thrilled to get a love letter from him—but it would have counted for a bit more if he learned your name first.

After taking a flight in 1966, Brando left a love letter to one of the stewardesses on the plane. He doesn’t seem to have actually spoken to her because he addresses it to “Dear Lady.” But he’d worked out a fantasy about her life just by staring at her.

“There is something not quite definable in your face,” Brando wrote. “You have something graceful and tender and feminine. You seem to be a woman who has been loved in her childhood, or else somehow by the mystery of genetic phenomena, you have been visited by the gifts of refinement, dignity, and poise.”

It starts off nice enough, but Brando threw a few caveats in there to make sure she didn’t get too big of a head. He made sure to let her know that she was “not pretty in a conventionally thought of way” before telling her that she left an impression “irrespective of your gothic aspects.”

2 Kafka’s Kafkaesque Love Letter

As strange as Franz Kafka was, you still might expect him to write normal love letters. But he didn’t. As his private letters make clear, Kafka was exactly the man his writing makes him appear to be.

A love letter from Kafka to a woman named Milena could have been sold as a short story. It starts off deceptively normal: “Last night, I dreamed about you.” Kafka, though, isn’t being cute. He really had a dream, and he was going to tell her every crazy detail.

“We kept merging into one another. I was you, you were me,” Kafka wrote. It seems kind of sweet, but then it takes a turn. “Finally, you somehow caught fire.”

In his dream, Kafka started to beat this woman with his coat. Then he realized that he was on fire and he was beating himself with a coat. But it wasn’t doing any good. “In the meantime, however, the fire brigade arrived and somehow you were saved,” Kafka wrote. “But you were different from before, spectral, as though drawn with chalk against the dark.”

Kafka, it seems, wasn’t too comfortable with being romantic. Their letters reveal that he wasn’t too anxious to share a bed with her. In the end, he called their relationship off by telling her, “I can only love what I can place so high above me that I cannot reach it.”

1 Sigmund Freud’s Cocaine-Fueled Love Note

When Sigmund Freud was a young man, he got engaged to Martha Bernays. His fiancee was still a virgin, but Freud was pretty sure he knew how to fix that. He wrote her a letter encouraging her to take some cocaine.

Freud was at the height of his cocaine enthusiasm. That year, he published a paper called “About Cocaine” that recommended using cocaine for sexual arousal, for fighting headaches, and for pretty much everything else. He also wrote a series of letters arguing with people who said cocaine was habit-forming.

“Woe to you, my Princess, when I come,” Freud wrote his fiancee. “I will kiss you quite red and feed you till you are plump. And if you are forward, you shall see who is the stronger, a gentle little girl who doesn’t eat enough or a big wild man who has cocaine in his body.”

Valentine’s Day is around the corner and for most this is an opportunity to spoil their significant other and have a romantic day celebrating their love. Some even plan their wedding on this day, turning it into a ‘double-up on love’ day. Weddings and Valentine’s Day always conjure up images of flowers, hearts, chocolates, declarations of love and gorgeous wedding dresses. Around the world however, love is celebrated with a variety of customs and traditions when it comes to Valentine’s and wedding ceremonies. On this list are just a few examples of weird celebrations of love from around the globe.

See Also: 10 Creepy Valentine’s Day Mysteries That Are Still Unsolved

10 That’s the spirit

China has a wide variety of wedding customs and traditions. One of the weirder ones that has been around for over 3,000 years is the practise of ghost weddings. When ghost weddings were first performed, they were restricted to a marriage ceremony between two deceased people who were both single while alive.

The deceased ‘bride’s’ family would request a price for the bride and the dowry would include paper tributes such as a large house and expensive jewels. The ‘wedding ceremony’ was then held at the cemetery where the tombstones of the couple were. When the ceremony was completed, the bones of the bride would be dug up and reburied inside the grave of the groom. It was also decided beforehand whether the couple were the right age and whether their family background meant they would be compatible in the afterlife.

In modern times the tradition allows for one of the ‘betrothed’ to be a living person who will then marry a deceased person.^[1]

9 Sponsored weddings

You don’t need to binge-watch Say Yes To The Dress to know that weddings can be incredibly expensive and go way beyond just the dress. There is the transport, venue, flowers, food and music to think about and this can run into thousands of dollars.

The Philippine government started a great custom to help its citizens get married without breaking the bank. Each year on Valentine’s Day couples have the chance to wed in a mass ceremony sponsored by the government. Everything is taken care of including flowers, cake, food, gifts and sometimes even wedding rings. The only thing the engaged couples need to do is get themselves to the venue in their wedding attire and make sure they registered for the event beforehand.^[2]

8 Why so serious?

Weddings are traditionally associated with joy, laughter and happiness and all the other appropriate words that describe the feeling two people have when they finally commit their lives to one another in matrimony.

However, some traditions do not believe in taking weddings lightly. For instance, the Tuijia people in China require the bride to cry for at least one hour every day for a whole month before she gets married. In some parts of India, marriage is a case of life and death as certain girls born under the wrong star (astrologically speaking) are believed to be cursed and would bring death upon their husbands. However, if the girl marries a tree and chops it down before marrying her fiancé, the curse will be broken.

In the Congo, smiling is frowned upon at some weddings. Instead, it is preferred that the bride and groom keep a straight face through proceedings because if they break into laughter or even just grin, it means they are not taking their wedding seriously enough. Only when they leave for their honeymoon do they get to take a break from being stony-faced.^[3]

7 Bloody Valentine

What is Valentine’s Day without a little blood right? For those who love to get their horror-fest on, the London Dungeon likes to put on a display during special holidays and Valentine’s Day is no exception. In 2011, the Dungeon had human heart cupcakes on sale for those who wanted a gross treat while watching a surgical procedure in the Blood and Guts exhibit.

In 2017 however, the Dungeon went too far with its outlandish ideas and was accused of ‘demeaning women and sex workers’ after a series of promotional social media posts for their ‘Dark Valentine’ campaign rubbed people up the wrong way. The posts included “Jack The Ripper just messaged. He wants to Netflix and kill” and “I love a girl that’s a good eater. Female translation: You’re fat.”

A spokesperson for the museum responded via social media and apologized for any offence caused.^[4]

6 Shooting the br(ide)

In general, grooms like to protect their brides at all cost and show her how much she’s appreciated. However, in the Yugur culture grooms get to shoot their future bride with a bow and arrow. But it’s not as awful as it sounds. The grooms cut off the arrow heads beforehand. After shooting the blunt arrows at their bride, the groom then breaks the arrows to ensure that the couple’s love lasts a lifetime.

In Scotland, brides don’t get shot at, but they do get sour milk, dead fish, rotten food and feathers thrown at them. As if that weren’t enough, she then must be willingly tied to a tree for some time. Once released, the bride then join her friends for a night out on the town. The thinking behind this custom is that if the bride can deal with this type of harsh treatment, she will be able to effectively deal with obstacles in her marriage.^[5]

5 Nail in the coffin

For most people, lying in a coffin while alive would freak them out to no end. Others are willing to risk it for the sake of love. On Valentine’s Day 2015, 10 couples participated in a wedding ceremony at Wat Ta Kien in the Bang Kruay district.

Before the ceremony began, the couples had to make offerings to the monks and then proceed to lay down in a pink coffin. They were then draped with a white sheet and the monks chanted over them as they would over a deceased couple. When the chanting ceased, the monks prayed over the couples and blessed them for their new lives together. It is believed that laying down in the coffin and being prayed over sends all approaching bad luck packing before it has a chance to land.^[6]

4 Symbols all over the place

Symbolism plays a big part in wedding celebrations worldwide and Africa is no exception. Some couples who live there include the 12 symbols of life in wedding ceremonies to remind them of what their expectations should be once married and how to overcome those inevitable arguments.

Wheat represents fertility while wine symbolizes the uniting of two families. Pepper is included to represent arguments and salt for healing and preservation. Additionally, water indicates purity and the dissolving of bad feelings, bitter herbs symbolize the ‘growing pains’ of a new marriage and a pot and spoon symbolizes good food to sustain a healthy family. A shield is added to the mix to represent the pride of the home as well as a spear for protection. The last three symbols are honey that should remind the couple of the sweetness of their love for one another, a broom to ensure a clean home and a holy book to represent the truth and power of God.^[7]

3 Unrequited love

Valentine’s Day may stir up feelings of love worldwide, but some countries don’t share the sentiment. In fact, in Saudi Arabia, PDAs are strictly forbidden, and Valentine’s Day has been banned for fear of citizens becoming influenced and led astray by Western Christian customs. They take this rule so seriously, that the government imposed a 39-year prison sentence on 5 men in 2012 who dared to be out in public drinking and dancing with women. This is not to mention the 4,500 lashes they received between them.

Pakistan joined the party in 2017 and banned the day of love after the High Court ruled that Valentine’s Celebrations were not in keeping with Muslim tradition. Belgorod in Russia too clamped down on Valentine’s Day celebrations claiming that the ungodly atmosphere of the holiday does not encourage the formation of spiritual and moral values, especially in the youth.^[8]

2 Keep the fire burning

It is said that love is as random as lottery numbers. You get it when you least expect it and may just run out after a couple of years. In France, people tried to make the finding of true love more of a sure thing on Valentine’s Day. To this end they came up with the custom of single people lining up in houses facing each other. Once each person was settled, they’d call through the windows until everyone had found a partner.

Now of course in every game there must be winners and losers. The women who didn’t find their partners in the above-mentioned way were given license to start a huge bonfire in which they burned photos of all the single men who rejected them while yelling insults at them. As you might imagine, the bonfires soon got out of hand, and the French government stepped in to ban the custom.^[9]

1 The luck of the Irish

In Ireland exists quite a few wedding customs that are initiated before, during and after the ceremony as part of the celebrations. These include putting a sixpence in one of the bride’s shoes and incorporating a horseshoe in the bouquet. Some Irish couples toast to their honeymoon with honey wine while others include a traditional fruit cake as their wedding cake.

A very beautiful celebration however comes in the form of a lace handkerchief. An Irish bride would carry the handkerchief with her down the aisle (the handkerchief is usually handed down through generations). Some couples have their name embroidered on it along with the date of the wedding. Once the wedding is over, the handkerchief is made into a bonnet for the christening of the couple’s first child.^[10]

It is frequently said that “love makes the world go round.” Unlike most Hallmark greeting card aphorisms, this one is surprisingly accurate. Love permeates every facet of our lives—from movies and books to possibly our very existence. This is not a recent phenomenon. Plenty of people throughout history have shaped the world just to impress a girl.

10 Two Divorces Created The PG-13 Rating

A look at the box office will show how influential the PG-13 rating has become. Eight of the 10 past highest-grossing movies of the year were rated PG-13. This rating has been blamed for drastically reshaping Hollywood by dumbing down films for adults and children alike.

However, the movie that inspired the creation of the PG-13 rating was not really child-friendly. 1984’s Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom featured graphic scenes of monkey brains, child slaves, and a beating heart ripped out of someone’s chest.

Behind the scenes, the hearts of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg were ripped out of their chests, too. The darker tone of the movie was caused by Spielberg’s divorce from Amy Irving and Lucas’s from his film editor wife, Marcia.

The two men used the movie to vent about their divorces. Looking back, Lucas said that “we certainly took it to the extreme.” He was right. After seeing the violence and gore, the MPAA thought it was not appropriate for children. In response, they created the PG-13 rating.^[1]

9 Adolf Eichmann Was Captured Because His Son Bragged To His Jewish Girlfriend

Responsible for sending millions to their deaths in the Holocaust, Adolf Eichmann was one of the most wanted war criminals for more than a decade. Like all Nazis, he was hiding somewhere in South America.

He would have evaded capture if it wasn’t for his son. Nicholas Eichmann started dating the Argentinian Sylvia Hermann. Not knowing she was Jewish, Nicholas boasted about his father’s role in the Holocaust. He even mentioned that he wished the Nazis had “finished the job.”^[2]

Unsurprisingly, this caused a rift between the two. The stupidest thing Nicholas did was sometimes use the name Eichmann. Sylvia Hermann’s dad, a Holocaust survivor himself, had read about Adolf Eichmann in the papers. He called Mossad, which eventually captured Adolf and put him on trial.

The 1961–62 Adolf Eichmann trial was a watershed moment for the Holocaust. It was the first trial to be televised, thus changing the conversation around the Holocaust. For the first time, people heard the testimonials of survivors.

8 A Honeymoon Stopped Marvel From Going Down With The Hindenburg

In 1937, Martin Goodman and Jean Davis had just finished their honeymoon. They wanted to fly back to New York on one of those new Hindenburg airships. Goodman tried to buy tickets. There were still some available, but none of the seats were next to each other.

Instead, the couple flew back on a plane and not a flaming ball of gas. They landed in New York and, later that year, launched Timely Comics, the early precursor of Marvel Comics.

Jean Davis also changed Marvel in another way. As a young upstart pulp magazine division, Timely Comics hired Jean’s 17-year-old cousin, Stanley Martin Lieber.^[3] Stanley Lieber worked as an assistant for Goodman by proofreading issues until he wrote his first story in 1941 under the pseudonym Stan Lee.

7 A Honeymoon Saved Kyoto From Being Nuked

Hiroshima will always be synonymous with the nuclear attack that leveled the city. More than 100,000 citizens died from the initial blast and radiation. The event is even more tragic because those people lost their lives over something as arbitrary as where a guy went on vacation a few years earlier.

In the 1920s, Henry Stimson, then the governor-general of the Philippines, went on his honeymoon with his wife to Kyoto. While there, Henry Stimson fell in love with the city.

In the 1940s, he served as secretary of war. That made him privy to a memo circulating with the five potential targets for the bomb. Number one on that list was Kyoto, the old capital of Japan and the center of historical and artistic treasures. It would have been absolutely demoralizing for Japan, making it the perfect choice.

But Henry Stimson sent another memo to President Truman to protest the choice. Stimson could not let the United States destroy the city where he and his wife had honeymooned. Truman acquiesced, and Kyoto’s citizens and irreplaceable cultural treasures were saved.^[4]

6 Segregation Ended Because A Judge Cheated On His Wife

As the son of a Confederate veteran and a native of Charleston, South Carolina, Judge Waties Waring seemed like the furthest thing from a civil rights icon in the 1940s. He would have kept that up if it wasn’t for Elizabeth Avery Hoffman.

After meeting at a party, Waring and Elizabeth had an affair for months. Now in love, Waring divorced his Southern wife of 32 years for this Detroiter. Charleston society was not only aghast that he had cheated on his wife but that the other woman was a Yankee. Perhaps most egregious was that Elizabeth was very active in the civil rights movement.

After marrying her, Judge Waring became equally interested in the civil rights movement. Elizabeth is considered the major reason that he became an outspoken critic of segregation and a champion for racial justice.

The city turned on him. Some residents threatened his life, burned crosses on his yard, and even spat on his wife. Waring was not moved. He was one of the first Southern judges to desegregate his courtroom.^[5]

He became the first federal judge since 1896 to opine that the “separate but equal” doctrine was unconstitutional in Briggs v. Eliott. Waring was also the one who pushed Thurgood Marshall to expand the case at the Supreme Court level into the historic 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case.

5 Hoover Ignored Pearl Harbor Warnings Because A Spy Had Sex

During World War II, Dusko Popov was a spy for the German army. Or at least, that was his cover. He was actually a double agent working for MI6. As a British spy, he had discovered the Japanese plot to bomb Pearl Harbor.

In August 1941, he went to New York to give this information to the FBI. He told some agents, who understood the consequences of something like this, so they advised him to go see J. Edgar Hoover.

Popov and his then-girlfriend Terry Richardson sneaked back to their hotel for an “undercover” mission. What can you expect from the guy who’s allegedly the inspiration for James Bond?

Hoover hated the fact that this foreigner had taken a woman from Florida to New York to have sex with her. Hoover considered this was a violation of the Mann Act and threatened to have Popov put in jail.^[6] Instead of that, Popov just went back home and Hoover disregarded all of Popov’s findings. A few months later, Pearl Harbor was bombed.

4 Eli Whitney’s Lover Bought A Cat, And Slavery Continued For Decades

In the early 1790s, slavery was on its last legs. Under the Constitution, the slave trade had been set to end in 1807. In fact, slavery would have become an outdated model, but then Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin. The effects of this machine are hard to overstate.

Cotton soon overtook rice and tobacco as the major crop. Unlike rice and tobacco, however, cotton required extensive labor. The unprecedented revenue and the demand for slaves made the slave trade boom. This resulted in dramatically higher profits for planters, which then led to a seemingly insatiable increase in the demand for more slaves.

It also ushered in the abusive chapter we associate with slavery. As cotton grew best in the West, the crop brought slavery westward as well. It also forced the South to defend slavery more, which culminated in the Civil War.

All of this is owed to a cat. While visiting his girlfriend, Eli Whitney saw a cat claw a chicken. The cat went for the kill, but its claws only caught feathers. Eli then realized that the same technology could pull the seeds out of cotton without ruining the plant. If that cat had not wanted to eat that chicken, slavery would have ended a lot sooner.^[7]

3 Stalin Lost His Humanity When He Lost His Wife

In 1899, Joseph Stalin was just a young man in seminary school. Unable to continue his education because he couldn’t afford the tuition, he started committing minor crimes in Tiflis. While a petty criminal and revolutionary, he met Ekaterina Svanidze.

A far cry from what he would become, Stalin was a kindhearted and compassionate lover. An associate of Stalin’s noted that he was “amazed how [Stalin], who was so severe in his work and to his comrades, could be so tender, affectionate, and attentive to his wife.”^[8]

That kindness did not last long as Ekaterina died from typhus a year after they married. Stalin was heartbroken. Upon hearing the news, he threatened suicide and a gun had to be wrestled from his hand.

At the funeral, Stalin threw himself into her grave until he was dragged out. Before leaving her funeral, he said, “This creature softened my heart of stone. She died, and with her died my last warm feelings for humanity.”

Following her death, he left Tiflis and moved to Petrograd. There he changed his name from Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili to “Man of Steel,” or “Stalin,” and started his political career.

True to his word, Stalin really did lose his heart when his first wife died. No longer the tender lover from before, Stalin was so cruel that he even killed Ekaterina’s entire family during his purges.

2 Pol Pot Vowed To Destroy Democracy After A Bad Breakup

Like Stalin, Pol Pot was also a hopeless romantic disguised as a genocidal maniac. Before he would order the deaths of millions in the Cambodian killing fields, he was a French literature teacher named Saloth Sar.

He’d been at school for a year or two when he fell hopelessly in love with a former beauty queen and princess, Son Maly, in 1949. But she did not feel the same way. Five years later, she left him for famed democratic supporter and Pol Pot’s long-term political rival Sam Sary.

The breakup was devastating for Pol Pot.^[9] It hardened him to love. More importantly, his hatred of Sam Sary turned into a hatred of democracy. Following the breakup, Pol Pot wandered around listlessly for months.

During this time, his mentor, Keng Vannsak, tried to cheer him up by giving him traditional Cambodian stories where princes learn to fight in the jungle. He read these stories as an instructional manual and set off for the jungle. There, he met Marxist revolutionaries who converted him to the cause.

1 A Cut-Off Penis Caused World War I

In 1889, Rudolf, crown prince of Austria, was the only son of Franz Joseph, emperor of Austria-Hungary. They got along fine, and Rudolf was destined to take over the throne. But that all changed when the 30-year-old prince met the 17-year-old Baroness Mary Vetsera.

Like all classic romances, the father disapproved. Franz Joseph demanded that the couple end their relationship, and the crown prince did—as part of a suicide pact. But Mary was afraid that they were going to break up. So after a night of making love, she decided to cut it off. The “it” refers to the relationship and his penis.^[10]

While he was sleeping, she took a razor and chopped off his penis. Unable to cope with the loss of his relationship and his penis, he shot her in the head. Consumed by guilt, he then turned the gun on himself.

Austria had to look to Rudolf’s cousin Franz Ferdinand, who fought with Emperor Franz Joseph about nearly everything. Most importantly, Franz Ferdinand wanted to grant Slavs equal rights with Austrians and Hungarians in the empire. Many historians believe that this is exactly why Serbian nationalists chose to assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Things spun out from there, and World War I was the result.

If you loved this article, please do not cause another world war. You could just follow Nate on Twitter. If you didn’t love the article, feel free to email him criticisms or questions here. For more history lists, check out Nate Yungman’s other articles on .

Love is a mysterious and delightful emotion that has fueled poets, musicians, and dreamers. While red roses and candlelit dinners might be the conventional symbols of love, people around the world have found unique ways to celebrate this extraordinary feeling. Let’s dive into ten unconventional love celebrations and discover how some individuals are rewriting the love playbook.

Related: Top 10 Bizarre Celebrations Of Love Around The World

10 Locking Love: The Quirky Global Trend of Love Locks

Love locks are symbolic declarations of everlasting love. They have become more than just a romantic gesture—they’re a global phenomenon, turning ordinary bridges into romantic havens. Picture couples attaching padlocks to bridges, inscribed with their initials or a special message, and then tossing the key into the water below. It’s a love tradition that’s literally locking hearts and keys together.

In cities like Paris, the Pont des Arts is a shimmering testament to love, adorned with thousands of locks. However, the weight of the locks threatened the bridge’s structure, leading officials to remove them. But love finds a way, and couples now gravitate to alternative locations like the Pont Neuf, undeterred by structural concerns.

These love locks aren’t just reserved for bridges, though. From famous landmarks to obscure fences, couples worldwide find inventive spots to secure their commitment. Some argue it’s the ultimate modern romantic gesture. Others see it as a quirky, if not slightly cheesy, display of affection. Whether you view it as a symbol of enduring love or a clever marketing ploy by locksmiths, there’s no denying the charm of love locks.

9 Love in Motion: Celebrating Romance with Personalized Animations

In the whimsical world of love, where chocolates reign supreme, some creative souls take the road less traveled to celebrate their romantic tales. Today, personalized animations are the ultimate Cupid’s arrow. Move over traditional love letters. It’s time to bring your love story to life through animated characters!

Forget generic emojis. These animations are tailor-made, capturing the essence of your unique connection. Imagine your partner’s surprise as they watch a whimsical cartoon version of your first date or that unforgettable vacation. It’s like having your own love story transformed into a digital masterpiece.

With the rise of animation tools and creative platforms, couples can now collaborate with artists to turn their love narrative into an enchanting visual experience. It’s not just a celebration but a personalized reel of your shared laughter, inside jokes, and special moments.

So, why settle for a static declaration of love when you can have your own animated love saga? It’s a modern twist on romance that turns ordinary expressions of love into extraordinary, animated adventures. Love has never been so visually enchanting!

8 Celestial Naming: Bonding beyond Borders

When celebrating love, some take inspiration from the cosmos, engaging in the whimsical practice of celestial naming. Forget the traditional pet names or even the star-crossed lover clichés—this unique approach involves naming celestial bodies after loved ones.

Picture a couple standing beneath a blanket of stars, pointing out their own constellations named after cherished moments. It’s not just limited to stars. Moons, galaxies, and even asteroids become tokens of affection in this cosmic celebration.

What’s more, this practice has historical roots. In 2003, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) introduced a program allowing people to name certain exoplanets. This sparked a trend, and soon, star enthusiasts worldwide commemorated their romances in the vastness of space.

Celestial naming brings an unconventional twist to love declarations as couples immortalize their connection light-years away. It’s a cosmic gesture, an everlasting reminder of the enduring nature of their love. This love not only spans across time and space but also twinkles among the stars. So, who needs a lock on a bridge when you can have your love written in the stars?

7 Dance of Devotion: Choreographed Romance

In the vibrant tapestry of love, some couples celebrate their affection with more than just whispered sweet nothings. Enter the world of choreographed dances, where love takes center stage in a captivating performance that transcends the ordinary.

These synchronized symphonies of movement aren’t just reserved for wedding receptions. Couples worldwide are turning ordinary moments into extraordinary memories by choreographing dances for anniversaries, date nights, or even just because Tuesday needs a little extra flair.

Beyond the joy of dancing together, this rhythmic celebration has a scientific twist. Studies have shown that synchronized movements can strengthen emotional bonds, enhancing the connection between partners. So, when you find yourselves tapping into a well-rehearsed routine, you’re not just dancing. You’re creating a harmonious duet that resonates with the heartbeat of your relationship.

Imagine a surprise flash mob erupting in a park or a meticulously planned routine breaking out in the living room. These choreographed displays of affection showcase creativity and inject a healthy dose of humor into the relationship, proving that love can be both a tender waltz and an energetic salsa.

6 Love Notes on the Horizon: Skywriting Declarations

Have you ever looked up at the vast sky and thought, “Wow, wouldn’t it be amazing if someone wrote a love note up there?” Well, for some unconventional romantics, that dream becomes a reality through the art of skywriting. Forget the bouquets. These folks prefer to profess their love on a canvas that spans the entire horizon.

Skywriting, a form of aerial advertising using smoke trails from an airplane, takes love declarations to new heights—quite literally. Instead of whispering sweet nothings, admirers commission skilled pilots to scrawl their affectionate messages across the heavens. Picture a plane soaring through the clouds, leaving a wispy trail that spells out “I love you, Beth” for all to see.

Beyond its whimsical charm, skywriting has an interesting history. It gained popularity in the early 20th century, with the first recorded skywriting display in 1922 over New York City. Since then, it has become a unique way for thrill-seeking lovebirds to communicate their sentiments, turning ordinary skies into romantic canvases.

5 Lightsaber Love: Geeky Gestures

Geeky gestures of love add a touch of whimsy and intellect to romance. It proves love can be as multifaceted as the most complex Dungeons & Dragons campaign. Here are other geeky ways couples show their love:

Imagine receiving a personalized algorithm that calculates the probability of eternal love based on shared interests. That’s right, some tech-savvy lovers are coding their way into each other’s hearts, proving that love is the ultimate programming language.

For those captivated by the galaxy far, far away, Star Wars-themed marriage proposals are a thing. Lightsabers replace engagement rings, and “I am your spouse” becomes the declaration of eternal commitment. It’s a love story written in the stars and directed by George Lucas.

Gaming enthusiasts have found a way to blend their virtual and real worlds. In-game weddings, complete with virtual rings and ceremonies, are not just reserved for MMORPGs. Some couples plunge into Fortnite or Minecraft, exchanging vows in pixelated landscapes.

Mathematics lovers have cracked the code for a heartwarming gesture. The Fibonacci sequence, a mathematical marvel, becomes the basis for surprise gestures—whether it’s arranging flowers in Fibonacci spirals or crafting a love letter with a sequence-based cipher.

4 Sealing It with a Kiss: The Kissathon Tradition

In the unpredictable realm of love, some enthusiasts have taken the term “PDA” to a new level with the extraordinary phenomenon known as the Kissathon. Picture a gathering of passionate souls locking lips for an extended period, aiming to break records and celebrate love in the most literal sense.

This passionate escapade has its roots in an attempt to set the Guinness World Record for the longest continuous kiss. The current record, a whopping 46 hours, 24 minutes, and 9 seconds, was set by a Thai couple in 2013. However, the Kissathon is about more than just surpassing numbers. It’s a testament to the endurance and commitment found in love.

Participants in these lip-locking marathons often come armed with strategic techniques to combat fatigue and maintain their smooch stamina. They navigate hydration challenges, employ creative neck-support maneuvers, and occasionally use entertaining distractions to keep the love flame burning.

What makes the Kissathon truly unusual is its blend of competitive spirit and romantic zeal. It’s a charmingly bizarre celebration that showcases the lengths people are willing to go for love—or, in this case, for the record books.

3 Love and Laughter: Comedy Roasts

Love knows no bounds, and neither do the laughter-filled celebrations of those who choose to toast their relationships with a side of humor. Enter the world of comedy roasts, where couples celebrate their love by poking fun at each other in a lighthearted and entertaining manner.

Traditionally reserved for celebrity gatherings, comedy roasts have found a unique niche in love celebrations. Picture a couple surrounded by friends and family, taking turns delivering witty jabs about each other’s quirks, habits, and endearing imperfections. It’s a verbal sparring match where love is the ultimate winner.

These roasts aren’t just about laughs. They testify to a couple’s ability to embrace each other’s idiosyncrasies. From funny anecdotes about who hogs the blanket to playful digs at questionable fashion choices, nothing is off-limits. Couples engage in good-natured banter, showcasing a deep understanding of one another while keeping the atmosphere light and cheerful.

As unusual as it may seem, there’s a psychology behind it. Laughter, after all, is a powerful bonding tool. Shared laughter strengthens the emotional connection between partners, making comedy roasts a surprisingly effective way to celebrate love.

2 Painted Unity: Canvas Wedding Guestbook

In the wild world of love celebrations, where traditions often collide with creativity, the canvas wedding guestbook emerges as a delightful deviation from the norm. This isn’t your average pen-and-paper affair. It’s a masterpiece in the making!

Instead of the predictable guest signatures on paper, couples opt for a vibrant canvas that evolves into a kaleidoscope of memories. Guests are invited to channel their inner Picasso and contribute artistic strokes, doodles, and personal touches that transform a simple blank canvas into a visual symphony of love.

Beyond the ordinary, the canvas wedding guestbook has its roots in the desire for a tangible keepsake that transcends time. Unlike conventional books gathering dust on shelves, these artful creations become cherished wall hangings, proudly displayed as a testament to the uniqueness of the love story.

As guests pick up paintbrushes instead of pens, laughter and creativity intertwine in the celebration. The canvas becomes a collaborative masterpiece, capturing the essence of the day in a way that no conventional guestbook ever could.

1 Love Takes Flight: Sky Lantern Releases

One extraordinary expression of love takes to the skies—quite literally—through the enchanting ritual of sky lantern releases. Imagine a moonlit night, stars winking overhead, and a soft glow begins to rise in the distance. Couples, families, or even solo adventurers gather with lanterns in hand. Fueled by a gentle flame, these paper lanterns ascend into the night sky, creating a spectacle that surpasses the ordinary.

Originating in ancient Chinese culture, where they were believed to bring good luck, sky lantern releases have evolved into a global symbol of love and unity. Couples often inscribe heartfelt messages or wishes on the lanterns, sending their sentiments soaring into the heavens.

There’s something undeniably poetic about watching these luminous orbs float away, carrying the collective hopes and dreams of those below. It’s a moment that turns the act of love into a visual masterpiece. This shared experience lingers in the heart long after the last flicker disappears.

So, the next time you’re looking to celebrate love in an extraordinary way, consider lifting your affection skyward. After all, in the world of romance, sometimes the most unusual gestures are the ones that leave us breathless.

Some prefer to live life like a lone wolf, uninterested in sharing their space, and value alone time more than anything. To those types, love is just a word or something that warms their heart when their mother phones. For others, love is the lifeblood of existence, the very essence of who we as human beings are. And to most, it’s one of the strongest emotions you will ever feel.

That is why we resonate toward happy endings. We celebrate marriages in the hopes that the love will last a lifetime, and we consume romance novels and stream rom-coms. The sad truth is, though, that not everyone will experience what love has to offer. Have you ever wondered why?

Here are ten insane superstitions from around the world that might ruin your love life.

Related: Top 10 Crazy Superstitious Things People Do

10 Having a Beard

Despite it having a traditionally masculine connotation in many parts of the world, facial hair isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. The modern world has made manscaping rather simple. However, some still choose to embrace their inner caveman, letting it grow, hiding their chins, or sporting some stubble.

Be that as it may, there are parts of the world where having facial hair is downright bad luck and might even ruin your chance at love.

Despite historical figures and warlords often depicted with beards, it was traditionally considered bad luck to not have a clean-shaved mug. This is because it was often associated with the working classes. It lowered the status of the man, thereby also diminishing his chances of finding someone willing to stoop down to his uncultured level.^[1]

9 Even Flowers

It’s not just in the West that flowers are considered an appropriate gift before a first dinner date or to cheer up your aunt when she is sick in bed with the flu. Flowers are a symbol of affection in many parts of the world, including Russia.

But before you gift someone a bunch of flowers, count them. There is a Russian belief that suggests only an odd number of flowers should be gifted as an even bunch could crush your love life or your chances at finding happiness with the person receiving the flowers.

In fact, it can be considered an insult to give an even number of flowers, as an even number is usually associated with funerals and a period of mourning. Definitely not how you want to start true love.^[2]

8 The Number 8

We are all familiar with the fear of the number thirteen. Also uncommonly referred to by its tongue-twisting scientific name: triskaidekaphobia. But did you know some fear the number 8?

Those who wish to find love, that is. The number eight in some parts of India is considered a terrible omen for a new couple, and arranging your wedding date on the eight can only spell trouble. Eight is a representation of Saturn or Shani and is sometimes linked with gloominess rather than positivity. Bad luck and more bad luck.

Interestingly. August 8, 2008 (or 08.08.08) was considered good luck, as the combination of numbers has the reverse effect, and compounding the bad news number can be a positive sign.^[3]

7 Not Finding the Name

Henna (temporary tattoos) plays a large part in some Indian celebrations and is often considered one of the most traditional parts of Hindu and Muslim weddings. Often, the henna will form an important part in the Mendhi, or the Name Game.

Back in the day, when marriages were often arranged, the bride and groom would need some sort of icebreaker on their wedding night, and that is where Mendhi came in. The groom’s name would be written in henna somewhere on the body of the bride, and he would need to find it.

These days, it is done more for fun as a way of keeping an age-old tradition alive. Still, in some weddings, in the past, it was a good sign if the groom found the name (and bad if not). If he failed, it was said that the bride would be dominant in conjugal life. In other parts of India, however, the family wouldn’t allow the wedding celebrations to commence until the groom found what he was searching for.^[4]

6 No Coins

If you haven’t heard yet, money is one of the biggest drivers in relationship problems and, ultimately, divorce. However, it is not necessarily a lack of money that puts strain on the relationship but rather the decision-making regarding its use. In some cases, the adage, “no money, no problems,” is the problem.

That is why many superstitions arise around money and financial prosperity. In Sweden, for instance, parents often express their hopes that their daughter will never have a shortage of material goods, so in the past, they came up with a superstitious plan.

The tradition is that the bride should place coins given to her by her father, a gold one in her right shoe and a silver one in the left, symbolizing that she will never go without money.^[5]

5 Sharing a Towel

Probably the one superstition on the list most of us can get behind. Sharing a towel has its benefits, less washing and less space used on the hanger, but is there anything worse than having to dry yourself with a damp, muggy towel? Especially during the winter months?

In parts of the world, particularly Russia, it is believed that using the same towel as your significant other will bring about conflict in the future, which might have a detrimental effect on your relationship. This belief has made its way into Western folklore, which we should all get behind.

Using the same towel as your other half might be an omen for a bad fight on the horizon, and more often than not, that might just be the case.^[6]

4 Opening Scissors

As children, it has been hammered into our little sponge-like brains that we do not run with scissors. A child’s mind is a marvelous thing, and images of falling onto a pair of upright scissors still haunt many of our dreams. But the truth is that we don’t have many reasons to ever run with scissors. We are, however, often guilty of playing with scissors, opening them and leaving them open, or cutting the air without actually cutting anything else. And that is exactly why your relationships fail.

In parts of Northern Africa, and particularly Egypt, it is considered bad luck to leave scissors open or to open and close them without cutting anything. It’s a superstition based on the function of the scissors, which is to cut things. Therefore, you run the risk that it could cut your relationship until they are closed again.

Some suggest that opening and closing a pair of scissors during a wedding ceremony will leave the groom impotent, and dropping a pair of scissors will lead to your partner being unfaithful.

The advice is clear: Don’t run with, leave open, drop the, or cut the air with scissors. You know what, maybe it’s best not to own scissors at all.^[7]

3 The Gift of Time

Clocks and watches have become somewhat obsolete in a world with smartphones, laptops, and wearable tech all telling us the time and reminding us of where we ought to be. But there is still a place for a nice watch or a marvelous wall clock in the luxury market, also quite popular as gifts.

Gifting a timepiece sounds like a straightforward, good idea, but some might disagree. In parts of Asia, and particularly China, the clock symbolizes a countdown to the end, a ticking reminder of death itself. The belief stems from the fact that the phrase “giving a clock” sounds similar to sending someone off on their final journey in Cantonese and is, therefore, considered a terrible wish for young love.

Gifting an item that symbolizes their time is almost up is particularly offensive to seniors and remains a cultural taboo.^[8]

2 Pregnancy at a Wedding

We have all been to weddings where children aren’t allowed. Some people might not agree with it, but the bride and groom have their reasons. But have you ever been to a wedding that bans pregnant women?

In some parts of China, there is a belief that stems from the idea that having a pregnant woman and a bride in the same room would cause a clash of positive energies. This can have an adverse effect and turn to sour bad luck, bringing either misfortunate to the wedding or the unborn child. Pregnancy and a wedding cannot co-exist as their luck will cancel each other out.

It should be noted that some base their advice on science.^[9]

1 Yellow Roses

Valentine’s is around the corner. You have someone in mind who you might like to take out, and you want to send her flowers in advance. Give yourself a fighting chance—do not send them yellow flowers.

Sending yellow flowers is not a sign of love; in fact, quite the opposite is true. It might sound strange that a flower, innocent and beautiful, can break the legs of your relationship before it can even stand. But yellow roses, in particular, signify jealousy, a decline of love, and the ultimate relationship killer (after wet towels, that is), infidelity.

Stick to the tried and tested red, and you will be fine. ^[10]

A black hole is a mysterious and hungry creature. But they do more than just consume anything that comes too close. Black holes are behind the biggest explosion in space, shoot boomerangs, and create their own planets.

They also harbor strange mysteries. When black holes die, what happens to everything they ate? Why did a black hole flash in 2019 when science argues that they cannot flash? New discoveries could have spectacular answers.

10 Mind-Blowing Things Black Holes Do (Other Than Suck)

10 A Star Turned Into Space-Pasta

A star perished in 2019. One half blew into space. A black hole shredded the other half into long tendrils and munched them. This coined the foody phrase of “death by spaghettification.” As peculiar as that was, the event was also unique for reasons other than deserving a dollop of pasta sauce.

When a star dies, it releases a flash of energy known as a tidal disruption event. In this case, it was both the closest tidal event near Earth (215 million light-years away) and the clearest. Once astronomers detected it, they watched for months—in incredible detail—how the black hole tore the star in half.

The devastation revealed a clue about where tidal flashes come from. While the whole story is still a bit hazy, they are definitely connected to the debris leaking from a failing star.^[1]

9 This Black Hole Shoots Boomerangs

Around 17,000 light-years from Earth, a black hole is nibbling on a star. The pair is simply known as XTE J1550-564. At first, there was nothing surprising about them. Black holes snack on starlight. Old news. But in 2020, researchers looked at old X-ray images of XTE J1550-564 and something did not add up.

In an attempt to get to the bottom of the strange data, the information was fed into a computer simulation. It revealed how some of the light made a dash for freedom. This, in itself, was not unusual. When light is trapped in the accretion disk (the dust swirl around a black hole), then it can still get away. But the light that escaped from XTE J1550-564 did something strange.

Normally, when light makes a successful escape, it bounces against the disk and then shoots into space in a straight line. But these beams first curled back towards the black hole. When the light eventually reflected off the disk, they looked like boomerangs. The phenomenon had not been seen before or since.^[2]

8 Black Holes Hide In Plain Sight

Some black holes are shrouded in dark dust. These so-called cocooned black holes are tough to spot but by any estimate, there should be crowds of them out there.

In 2020, scientists combed through the Chandra Deep Field-South (CDF-S) image to find more cocoons. This X-ray picture covers a section of the southern sky in great detail. Many things in CDF-S had already been identified, including 28 points that were listed as galaxies or black holes without cocoons.

But the 28 were imposters.

Not for long, though. When the chart was compared to optical and infrared observations of the same area, their bright signals were undeniably those of black holes with cocoons. The X-ray could not pierce the dimming effect of the dust which explained why they resembled other stellar objects. The discovery also suggests that plenty of records, similar to CDF-S, are probably littered with these black holes that masquerade as something else.^[3]

7 A Unique Trio

Back in 1983, astronomers considered NGC 6240 something of an odd pickle. The galaxy had a strange shape and an unusual infrared glow. The wisdom of the day concluded that NGC 6240 was actually two galaxies. The peculiar shape and brightness showed that they were colliding.

Each galaxy brought their own supermassive black hole along. By the time they were spotted, the black holes hovered closely together at the centre of NGC 6240.

2019 swung by and astronomers looked at the galaxies with better equipment. They were surprised to find a third black hole at the centre. Their peers from the 80s probably missed it because the black hole was dormant (the other two consumes matter). But whatever the reason, its presence suggested that the merger involved three galaxies.

A triple galactic smash is chicken-tooth rare but not unheard of. What makes this situation so unique is the closeness of the three black holes. They orbit each other inside a small area of 3,260 light-years and the active pair is barely 645 light-years apart.^[4]

6 A Clue That Explains The Oldest Black Holes

A mystery surrounds the earliest black holes. Thought to be the remnants of the first stars that had died, nothing could explain why some of these black holes grew into huge objects. Indeed, when one was discovered in 2020, it weighed 1 billion times the mass of our Sun. But being born soon after the Big Bang was not what made this guy special. It provided a strong clue about its own growth and size.

The black hole is holding six galaxies hostage. The setup resembles a spider’s web with filaments running between the black hole and the galaxies. Wherever the filaments cross, the galaxies prosper. Whatever feeds them (probably gas) is being funnelled by the threads. In the same way, the web can inflate black holes to enormous proportions by nurturing them inside a gas-rich environment.^[5]

Top 10 Bizarre New Finds About Black Holes

5 The Biggest (And Weirdest) Space Explosion

In 2019, something from space rattled the Earth. Two observatories detected the gravitational waves and homed in on the source. What they found was something bizarre, record-breaking, and impossible.

The signal, labelled GW190521, was produced when two black holes collided 7 billion years ago. The explosion created a single, bigger black hole. Curiously, one of the original two was most likely also the result of a merger between other black holes. But this cosmic pile-up was not the only strange thing.

The explosion was the most powerful blast ever recorded in space. The force equalled a million billion A-bombs detonating every second for 13.8 billion years. The final black hole was 142 times bigger than the Sun, making it an intermediate-sized black hole. This was significant because black holes of this size had previously only been possible in theory. But one of the original pair was plainly impossible.

Calculated at roughly 85 solar masses, it broke a scientific law stating that no black hole could exist in that range. In order to form, it would need a star between 60 and 130 times larger than the Sun. But therein lies the problem. When these stars die, they go out as supernovas and not as black holes.^[6]

4 Something Destroyed A Black Hole’s Corona

Things went normal for a while. A galaxy named 1ES 1927+654 swirled around a black hole, as most galaxies do. The black hole was visible due to its corona (a ring of hot particles that orbit most supermassive black holes). There was nothing special about it.

1ES 1927+654 did not like being ignored. In 2018, it gave astronomers a mystery that remains unsolved to this day. For some reason, the black hole’s corona flared forty times its normal brightness. Then, just as suddenly, the flash was gone.

The galaxy got its wish. Telescopes from all over the world turned to 1ES 1927+654, hoping to see more. They were not disappointed. In less than a year, the corona dimmed at a rate that should have taken millennia. While the experts were unprepared for such a speedy version, they had a feeling that this was not a quicker-than-normal life cycle. Something else was destroying the corona.

According to one theory, a star collided with the black hole. The star cracked open like an egg, which caused the initial flash. The smash disrupted the black hole’s magnetic field, the very thing holding the corona together. Robbed of its stability, the corona then rapidly fell apart and caused the black hole to darken.^[7]

3 The Flash Mystery

Remember GW190521, the biggest and weirdest space explosion of all time? Something else happened about a month later in the same region and researchers are not sure whether the two events are connected. The black holes that collided had no fiery coronas, so nothing about the crash should have been visible.

But there was a massive flash.

To solve the riddle, researchers added a quasar to the story. Quasars are supermassive black holes that release blasts of energy. But the flash was too spectacular, even for one of these giants.

Instead, the theory goes that the two smaller black holes became trapped in the gas ring that surrounds their supermassive cousin. At one point, the pair merged and created the GW190521 signal. The force of the merger kicked the new black hole through the ring and disturbed the gas enough to trigger a delayed reaction (the flare).

This explains why the flash happened 34 days after the GW190521 signal but nothing is certain. There is an equal chance that the two events have nothing to do with each other.^[8]

2 They Have Blanets

Planets are born from the wheel of dust that swirls around a star. Blanets, on the other hand, are worlds that form inside the dust ring that orbits a black hole. Some blanets are rocky and Earth-like but nearly 10 times bigger. Others are gas giants like Neptune.

Blanets have never been found.

But a study in 2020 showed that the strange worlds must exist. A requirement for planet-building is ice. Acting like a glue, ice makes dust particles stick together. Once a clump develops enough gravity, it pulls more dust and other clumps together. Eventually, the object grows into a planet.

Some black holes have a “snow line.” Beyond this region, things are cold enough for ice and blanets to form. In the Milky Way, the conditions are so perfect that thousands of blanets are probably orbiting the black hole at the centre of our galaxy.^[9]

1 Black Holes Release Their Victims As Curves

When Stephen Hawking announced that black holes die, other physicists were excited to learn everything they could about the phenomenon’s life cycle. Then the leading expert on black holes, Hawking claimed that black holes evaporate. But this led to a seemingly unanswerable question.

When a black hole nears the end of its life and disintegrates, what happens to all the stuff it had consumed?

Mathematicians uncapped their whiteboard markers and did a few calculations. They concluded that the stolen “information” simply disappears—which violated about a gazillion sacred laws in physics. Another theory suggested that the information leaked back into space as curves. But nobody could prove things either way.

Recently, physicists turned to advanced computers and mathematical tools to solve the standoff. They created realistic black holes, sped up their evolution and watched their deaths closely. This was only a simulation but incredibly, it matched one of the theories. When the black holes neared their doom, the information seeped from them in curves.^[10]

10 Eerie Theories On What Happens Inside A Black Hole