Who knew picking out the seating for a patio could be so complicated. Margaret Meade would have had trouble with this job. It isn’t bad enough you have to pick out the style of furniture; that’s the easy part! Steel, wicker, plastic, wood, it really doesn’t matter, as any bid comes out to be the same price. The real problem comes in that you have to decide how the lay of the land the furniture resides. Pick out chairs too tall and too scattered, and the girls don’t like to sit on your patio. Pick out all couches with thick comfy seats too close, and the guys get goofy. Somewhere in between, you get the sweet spot that satisfies the battle of the sexes, and makes the girls happy to sit by the fire and talk about relationships, and makes boys happy to sit just outside the rail, quaffing a brew, watching the HD sports report and eyeing the gals. Throw in a preacher, and you soon have the recreation of the American nuclear family.

Sans the whole style issue of the furniture, the problem is how and what do you lay out the patio? Do you use dog pack dynamics, which really work well for guys, or do you get a bit more squishy, and go Oprah, and talk it all out, like the girls would. Drawing on anthropology and reindeer game social dynamics, who gets invited and how do you get multiple social groups interacting on the patio, round the fire pit? That is the million dollar question.

A couch seems like such an easy choice. Go to any bar in town with a patio and you’ll see lots of people sitting on them. But back up in time and you see a very different dynamic as to how all the people assembled on that couch. Put one guy on the couch first and he gets the whole thing to himself. Lone wolf’s scare the girls and no red blooded guy is going to sit down beside another guy. Scoot to the far side of the couch, cross your leg to the away side and maybe you get a desperate couple willing to sit on the opposite side. Three guys on a couch just doesn’t happen.

One girl though, will never sit on a couch by herself. 1) It seems so selfish to take up the whole couch to yourself and girls are good about those social precepts. 2) A girl by herself is a target, and soon enough, two guys are on either side of her. Good girls don’t put themselves in this position. But hey, good girls go to heaven, bad girls get to go everywhere. Still, single girls at a bar are a rare breed. Most eligible girls travel in packs, two at a minimum, but usually in packs of four or more. Take the same couch and all four girls crowd in without hesitation. Four girls on a couch are imposing to almost any guy. We’ll take four girls any day.

The fight comes in when couples walk in and look to the firepit for some real estate. Walking in, the guys take the lead and dog-pack sociology is the rule of the day. Who can stare harder, gets the best seat. Get two dogs who stare equally hard though, then the contest reverts to girl rules. For a guy, what happens here is very socially opaque, as a glance or two, a few words are exchanged between the two girls, but a social dynamic no less volatile transpires, and the social hierarchy is set and maintained. The guys just do as they’re told, foretelling what is going to happen later when they are married. The women are far smarter. The guys think they are in charge, but in reality, they are just puppets. Girls rule. Ask any 50 year old guy.

Maybe if Tiger had followed a few simple rules of patio social dynamics, he wouldn’t be in the world of hurt he is now. Listen to your wife, and do as you’re told. Every married guy knows this rule. It is the only thing that explains all the poor saps you see at the Mall holding their wife’s purse, while she is off somewhere shopping. Even Tiger doesn’t get out of this one.