I recently talked to a wife of an engineer, an NE (non-engineer), who freely told me about the first date she had with her the man who eventually became her husband. They went to a picnic for her work. It was at a park on the other side of town. Without directions, and knowing generally where it was, they found their way there in a roundabout way. I say roundabout way because they went through many roundabouts on the way there.

When they arrived, she told colleagues about how they seemed lost and went through a number of roundabouts. But, “Ryan” (as we will call him), a transportation engineer, enhanced the conversation even more with an explanation of the design features of the roundabouts and statistics about how roundabouts reduce severe crashes by 80 or 90 percent – a lot of good engineering stuff. I think he did it to impress her. Well, from the way she still talks of it, she was impressed, although maybe not the way he intended.

Ryan was standing there as she told this story and I still get the idea that he is thinking, “Oh, yeah, I impressed her with those statistics.”

She continued to date him, and eventually got married. So maybe it did work.