LOS ANGELES TIMES SUNDAY CROSSWORD PUZZLE “COMING TO TERMS” By DAVID ALFRED BYWATERS ACROSS 1 Well-trodden ways 6 Fountain favorite 12 Encountered 15 Darns, say 19 In the area of 20 Go too far 21 The Pac-12’s Sun Devils: Abbr. 22 Fall lead-in? 23 Grill a bit too long? 26 19-Across, on a memo 27 Title TV role for Sandra Oh 28 Comme une jeune fille 29 Sound from a snorter 30 Stairway alternative 31 Oppressive ruler 33 Won’t let go 36 __ bean 37 Estimate words 39 “No Time for Sergeants,” e.g.? 42 Venomous slitherers 45 Text letters often in blue 47 Way more than drizzle 48 Qtys. 49 One may be saved or taken 50 Stew veggies 52 Fishing nets 54 Tough H.S. tests 57 Palatial mansion navigation need? 61 Old Norse poetic work 62 Wild way to run 63 Dismiss contemptuously 64 Novel features 66 Na+ or Cl67 “The Munsters” matriarch 68 Sheltered from the sun 69 TV series with funny animals? 71 Host
72 Make special mention of 73 Beer nickname 74 Joan __ 75 Name on the “Robot” sci-fi series 76 Miner’s finds 77 Stuck in __ 79 Fresh food fight? 82 Go beyond dating 83 Neckwear accessory 85 Arid 86 Prefix with cumulus 87 Achy 88 More than just comfortable 91 Weaken 92 Source of class struggle? 93 Endorse certain property barriers? 98 Cut 100 Opera highlights 101 Commercial bigwigs 103 Less verbose 107 Edges 108 Grooming style named for a continent 110 Saturate 112 Miembro de la familia 113 “Hunny” lover 114 Immortal confection? 118 Besides that 119 Feel bad about 120 Court errors 121 Confused conflict 122 Oolong and pekoe 123 Boot a grounder, say 124 Joint effort, briefly 125 Visionaries DOWN 1 Measured, with “off” 2 Too good for 3 Reference library
array 4 Wheel center 5 Daze 6 Apple juice eponym 7 Confront opposite 8 Far from festive 9 Arboreal apex 10 Harris and a horse 11 Happy companion? 12 20th-century Chinese ideology 13 “Around the Horn” channel 14 Elephant feature 15 Haunted house occupants, it’s said 16 Titular Verdi bandit 17 Become fond of 18 Go faster, with “it” 24 Attacks 25 Award recipient 32 Closing pieces 34 Portuguese year 35 Post-op places 36 Chance-of-rain nos. 38 Utah city that’s an anagram of an Italian city 40 Admirers, as a group 41 “Let me clarify ... ” 42 Cigar end, in two senses 43 Coast 44 Examined by touch 46 Eagerly accepted, as compliments 51 Shaker grains 53 Foolish ways 54 Friendly 55 Ferret relatives 56 Largest of the Inner Hebrides 58 __ wolf 59 Just fair 60 Word after scared or bored
62 Yale, for five U.S. presidents 65 Big name 68 Winter forecast 69 Mashed into a paste 70 French vineyards 71 “__ Beso”: 1962 Anka hit 73 Scot’s tot 75 Winter road hazard 78 Done with, perhaps 80 Ensnare 81 Tyke on a trike 83 One may stand on them to reach a high shelf 84 Prime time time 87 Big hits 89 Third-century date 90 Attentive 93 “Arabian Nights” vehicle 94 Colorful songbird 95 Cocktail named for a plant 96 __ John: meat brand 97 Book predecessor 99 Fixes the edge of 102 Sealy rival 104 Didn’t take well? 105 Down source 106 Valentine’s Day gift 108 Traditionally, amount of land plowable by one man in one day with a team of oxen 109 Common par 111 Govt. accident investigator 115 “Brockmire” network 116 Confucian path 117 “I had no idea”
MUD ABOUT YOU My boyfriend of a year is caring, thoughtful and perfect in nearly every way -- except one. He’s really good friends with his ex. They grab lunch every week, and she’ll call him to vent or get advice. He assures me they’re just friends, but I can’t help but feel threatened. Is it crazy to tell him he needs to put some distance between them? — Anxious Evolution, it turns out, is a romantic doomsday prepper, setting us up with an “in case our boo disappears on us” contingency plan: basically the mating version of a reserve parachute or the Vice President. Evolutionary psychologists Joshua Duntley and David Buss find that most of us cultivate “backup mates”: romantic Plan Bs we can plug into our life pronto if our current mate dies or ditches us or their “mate value” goes cliff diving. Though keeping a mental stash of backup boos seems like a sure sign a relationship has gone toiletward, Duntley and Buss find that even people in the happiest relationships are driven to maintain backup mates. “Maintaining” backup mates can mean simply having them in mind. However, it can also involve efforts to keep a backup mate out of other relationships – like by sneering about the looks and “terrible” qualities of a dude they’re into (who’s actually pretty much Jake Gyllenhaal crossed with Bishop Tutu and The Rock). Major warmfuzzy fail, sure, but it makes evolutionary sense. It’s essentially mate-loss insurance. Just as car insurance replaces your car pretty fast after you total it, having a backup mate at the ready shortens the genetically costly sexual downtime between losing or dumping a partner and slotting in their replacement. By the way, both men and women have backup mates – three, on average – sometimes consciously, but often subconsciously: a clever little scheme by evolution. (The relationship “crimes” we don’t quite know we’re committing don’t quite leave us sick with guilt.) Understandably, you long to tell your boyfriend to “put some distance” between himself and his ex (like by getting NASA to strap her to a rocket and blast her into space to play nuzzlylunch with the Mars Rover). However, psychologist Jack Brehm finds that telling a person what to do -- trying to control their behavior – tends to be a bust, firing up a fearand anxiety-driven freakout he calls “psychological reactance.” The apparent threat to a person’s
freedom to do as they choose jacks them into a motivational state: an intense desire to keep doing whatever they’ve been doing – often with a ferocity not seen till somebody put the squeeze on them. Additionally, activities they might be just mildly interested in tend to explode in importance the moment someone tries to take them away. (“Give me tennis or give me death!”) In other words, telling the boyfriend he’s gotta dial it back with the ex could push him to, well, dial it forward. On the other hand, not telling him could take big bites out of you, especially if you’re “insecurely attached” (psychologists’ term for a relationship style driven by strong fears of abandonment and its feelbad cousins like anger, depression, and jealousy). Jealousy gets a bad name, mainly from all the pain it spreads around, but it’s actually functional: an evolved alarm system, alerting us to threats to our relationships. But it also detects threats where none actually exists. Like smoke detectors, it’s calibrated to err on the side of “Better safe than charbroiled!” – especially in the insecurely attached. That said, jealousy that seems “paranoid” might not be. Evolutionary psychologist Tom Kupfer lays out reasons some people have higher levels of jealousy: feeling their partner isn’t trustworthy, believing they aren’t as hot as their partner, and having been cheated on (in a past relationship, or, especially, in their current one!). As for you, to determine the actual threat level and decide what to do, context matters: specifically, the nature of your relationship and the nature of theirs (that is, why your relationship exists and theirs doesn’t). First, consider that you describe your boyfriend as “caring and thoughtful and perfect in every way,” and probably not because you forgot “...and a callous dirtbag and world-class scamster.” Next, ask yourself: Is what you and your boyfriend have together rare and irreplaceable (on every level, from love to sex to fun), or...just another trolley stop on Relationship Avenue? Finally, ask your boyfriend what he saw in his ex and why they broke up. Was there a passing issue that’s now a moot point (in which case, ruh-roh!) – or...were there “irreconcilable differences,” from emotional issues, to “we just want different things,” to big unsolvable sex problems? Best “breathe a sigh of relief!” case scenario: She’s sexually dead to him, as in, his penis is all, “I’m not getting up outta bed for that!”
GOT A PROBLEM? Write to Amy Alkon at 171 Pier Ave, Ste. 280, Santa Monica, CA 90405, or email her at AdviceAmy@aol.com.
©2022, Amy Alkon, all rights reserved. Alkon’s latest book is “Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence.” Follow @amyalkon on Twitter or visit blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon.
MARCH 10, 2022 THE ARGONAUT PAGE 21
