THE OTHER DAY, I was looking for a Father’s Day present for Andy, and I was browsing through websites that sell nerdy shirts. We both like nerdy shirts, a fact that I think speaks volumes about him but that says nothing at all about me. I ran across one with a statistics joke on it that was so funny that I wanted to share it with someone, but I only know one person who’s studied statistics. He’s an ex-boyfriend who hasn’t contacted me since I married. Why not? I thought we were friends after we broke up, but now I sense he wouldn’t want me to send him my stats joke.

I have to share it with someone. Here’s the joke:

Person 1: I used to think correlation implied causation. Then I took a statistics class. Now I don’t.

Person 2: Sounds like the class helped.

Person 1: Well, maybe.

Don’t you think that’s funny? No. Of course not. Even I don’t think it’s funny after I typed it out. But my ex-boyfriend would have.

Andy, like the wise Billy Crystal in “When Harry Met Sally,” says that my statistician ex never contacted me again because men and women cannot be friends. Andy claims that whenever it appears a man and a woman are friends, someone — generally the man — is hoping and waiting for more. I was skeptical when Andy first told me this theory, but now I am a convert. In fact, the more I observe interactions between men and women, the more I think that Andy and Billy are wiser than Yoda — both on this matter and in their understanding of sentence syntax.

I now realize I used to be very naïve. In my early twenties, I dated and then was best friends with a man named Paul for several years. After I met Andy, I had a vision that Paul would find someone to marry, and we’d meet as couples all the time and be best friends with each other, like in a ’90s sitcom. Paul’s mom had the same vision. She invited Andy and me over for an evening to visit with her and Paul. Doesn’t that sound fun — my ex, his mom, my fiancé, all together for a spot of tea and some laughs? At the time, I thought, “Look how happy we all are! We’ll do this all the time.”

We’ve never done it again. I see now that maybe Andy and Paul didn’t view the night the same way I did.

Needless to say, Paul and I are no longer friends. Andy knew that’s how it would turn out, but I didn’t. Neither did Paul’s mom, apparently. That means there must be lots of women out there who, like Paul’s mom and me, believe that friendships with men are possible. Look at that. I don’t need a statistician in my life — because look who just conclusively proved a law of the universe with a sample size of two.

In addition to his theory that men and women are never just friends, Andy, wise in the ways of love, has another philosophy that stalking is romantic under the right circumstances. We recently watched a “Spiderman” movie in which Spiderman admitted to following and spying on Gwen from rooftops. He did this several times a day, even though Gwen had broken up with him weeks ago. How did Gwen react to this revelation that her ex-boyfriend was stalking her? She kissed him.

Andy said, “See! Stalkers everywhere are watching this and thinking, ‘I knew it! I just have to be more persistent.’”

But I don’t know. Spiderman isn’t just any stalker. When other men say they have to follow their exes to protect them, it’s creepy. But in Gwen’s city, there are a lot of radioactively charged mutants with anger management issues running amok, so when Spiderman says he has to watch over her to keep her safe, maybe it is romantic.

Andy says he never stalked me. Given his theory, I find this offensive. What’s so great about Gwen that she gets a stalker? But I guess the population of psychologically damaged mutants is significantly lower in the Bay Area.

Or is it? It’s not like I can check in with the one statistician I know and ask.

Kirstin Odegaard runs the Benicia Tutoring Center. Read and comment on her writings at www.kodegaard.com.

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