The Mating Habits of Socks

If you read yesterdays post on socks, you know that I spent a good chunk of time yesterday afternoon trying to help my lonely socks find their mates.  While I was whiling away time with the socks, I got to thinking and that is always a dangerous thing.

How is it that socks lose their mates?  What makes some socks stay with their mates for life, while others seem to wander off at any given chance?  Once lost, how frequently do socks find their mate again?

Here are my observations.  Socks lose their mate in a variety of ways, some head to the laundry room with their mate, but come out of the dryer without one.  We'll call those mates MIA.  Perhaps my washer or dryer eats them.  A more likely scenario is that one of the socks gets entangled in the affairs of other items in the machine, perhaps a pair of pants.  The wandering mate will only be found when that pair of pants is put on again (which if it is spring, the sock might not be seen again until fall).

Other socks go their separate ways before ever reaching the laundry room.  I can't tell you how often I will find one sock laying in the middle of the living room floor with no mate in site - strange!  Since all of my children have two feet, I'm not quite sure how this happens.

Lastly, there are the visiting socks.  Visiting socks are the ones that show up in your laundry, but belong to no one in your household.  These socks sometimes appear in pairs, but frequently not.

Now, once socks are separated, will they ever be reunited?  You would think that beautiful and colorful socks like these

would have no problem finding (and keeping) their mates, but it is not so. It seems as though in sock life, as in real life, attractiveness has nothing to do with the ability to find and keep a mate.

While I was playing match-maker yesterday, I found it difficult to ascertain at times which sock belonged to which mate.  You see not all pink (or blue or yellow or black...) socks are created equal.  As you see here, pink comes in a variety of shades and, of course, socks come in a variety of sizes.

White does not come in a variety of shades, but the variety of sizes and styles is seemingly endless.  Believe it or not, none of these socks found their mates yesterday :(
One last observation for you to ponder, it is far better to be a plain white sock than a pretty colored, striped sock. The reason being, in a pinch a plain white sock can choose a mate that somewhat resembles itself of the same size, all of those pretty socks in the first photo are stuck by themselves until their original mate comes home.

And the moral of this sad tale is - Barb has too much time on her hands!  Oh, if you want to see the happily reunited socks, scroll down to the sock post below to see the happy couples.