BACHELOR'S DIARY: The man who knew the secret

Diary,

Whenever I take a break from saving lives, I like to do a bit of reading. I’m not averse to the occasional work of fiction, if it’s compelling enough, but my preferred genre is nonfiction, especially biographies. You can say I like learning about people, but truth be told, real life is stranger and more fascinating than fiction.

This last May, you might have come across the news of a plane carrying 242 passengers and crew that went down in India, killing all on board, except one 40-year-old man who walked away from the crash as if he had only tripped on a stone. If someone made a movie with that plot line, critics would pan it to death.

Or the story of a four-month-old baby in Tennessee who was sucked out of a bathtub during a tornado and found alive in a tree hours later, almost completely unharmed. I mean, what are the odds?

Down through human history, there are many more incidents that defy explanation. The woman in Zimbabwe in 2014 who woke up at her own funeral. Another woman who survived a fall from 33,000 feet. Or the man who survived the Titanic and two other ship disasters. Well, the last one was probably just a selfish prick who hogged lifeboats before women and children.

Then comes people who achieve extraordinary fetes in life. For instance, a one-legged woman climbs Mt Everest. A girl wins a Nobel prize at 17 years old. Or Florence Nightingale, who’s credited with being the mother of modern nursing.

The thing is, I always ask myself, “What do these people know that the rest of us don’t?”

The other day, I came across the story of a man after my own heart. His name is Glynn Wolfe, fondly known as Scotty. Wolfe’s fame comes from his marital alliances. Good old Scotty was officially recognised by Guinness for 29 marriages, though some sources cite as many as 31. All that happened in a span of 71 years.

For the math whizzes, that’s an average of two years per marriage. But just for context, his longest marriage was 11 years, and the shortest lasted only 19 days. Scotty, you rascal dog, you.

Scotty died in 1997, and his last marriage was to one Linda Taylor in 1996. As luck would have it, Linda also held the record for most-married woman for being hitched a whopping 28 times. Uhm, actually, no. Scotty saying “I do” to Linda had nothing to do with luck. This last shindig was mostly for publicity, and you must admit it worked. What caught my eye is the reason Scotty supplied for so many marriages.

“I love the institution of marriage,” he said. He just couldn’t seem to make it work long-term. He went on to describe himself as a romantic who didn’t like living alone, which drove him to keep remarrying despite repeated failures.

In science, for an observation or result to be deemed valid, it must be repeatable under the same conditions by other independent researchers and yield the same outcome. For our fellow Scotty, I think it’s fair to say that a series of 31 marriages is enough repetition under the same conditions producing the same results, wouldn’t you?

If this doesn’t explain why marriages don’t work, then I fear nothing will.