Before you label me a bastard, read the whole post:

1. Meet them for dinner or lunch at an appointed time, and indicate upon their arrival that you made a mistake and set the reservation for 30 minutes prior. See how they respond to the change in plans. (Testing: how they contend with mistakes on your part)

2. Same as 1, but tell them that the reservation was accidentally made for 30 minutes after their arrival. Alternatively, travel with them and purposefully orchestrate things so that you miss a bus or train. Obviously, you then fix the problem and cover costs. (Testing: how they deal with waiting and unexpected changes in plans)

3. Take them to a restaurant with good food but bad service. (Testing: how diplomatically they contend with and resolve incompetence, which is the default mode of the universe)

4. Invite them to an event or function and then profusely apologize when you realize you've forgotten your wallet. Offer to repay them later or treat them the next time out. (Testing: how they relate to money issues. Wonderful people sometimes turn into irrational monsters as soon as even a few dollars are involved. It drives me crazy to keep a running ledger of who owes whom for a few dollars here and there, especially in social settings. Repaying the favor is mandatory, but dwelling on differences of pennies is tiring.)

5. Take them somewhere extremely crowded where they'll be inadvertently bumped, preferably where they are exposed to people of different races and of lower socio-economic classes. Large outdoor markets are good, as are subways during rush hour. (Testing: biases against specific races and social classes, which are usually fast to emerge after there is any physical contact.)

6. Explore the most controversial topics until you find something the two of you disagree on. Ask them to explain why people have the opposing viewpoint. I use this mostly for potential romantic partners and potential travelmates. (Testing: how well they listen and both consider and summarize points-of-view or feelings opposite their own. I always look for both friends and girlfriends who fight well. Not in the physical sense, but in the intellectual and emotional sense. If I travel with one of my best friends for even a week straight, there will be times when we butt heads and fight. It's inescapable. In those cases, are they civil and good at listening and finding compromises? Good at identifying common ground, picking their battles, and laughing off the unimportant? Or, do they lose control of their emotions and make hurtful personal attacks or generalizations? Do they use guilt or other negative emotions instead of taking time to discuss things logically? Hold grudges?)

Life is both too long and too short to suffer through toxic relationships.

You can have them do things like "conduct research, monitor the Web, make appointments and even give [you] a wake-up call and tell [you] to get some exercise." All this can be yours for $15 an hour!

But buyer beware: sometimes this veritable army of Girl Fridays can be a little rough around the edges, as the Indians "don't always have the greatest client service skills or business acumen or accents." (That's not true! The guy who called me three times last week demanding that I pay my overdue credit-card bill had a perfect accent).

An "entrepreneur" who hired one of them to "book him a cheap trip to India, perhaps using local knowledge" was unhappy when his slacker PA simply emailed a list of prices from Travelocity. Now he's totally out 30 bucks.

What's with this trend? Oh, we know who to blame: "Like many others using the services, Ms. Levy was inspired by two books: Thomas L. Friedman's "The World is Flat" and Timothy Ferriss's "The 4-Hour Workweek." Aren't we all!

Well, one of the things I hate most about my job is reading and then regurgitating Sunday Styles articles. So after I read the one about Timothy Ferriss, I took Timothy's advice and asked a waiter to sum up the rest of it for me. Actually, a retail clerk, but same difference.

There was one problem: she hadn't read the Style section either. "I just looked at it, I didn't read it. I read Arts& Leisure! Want me to sum it up anyway?"

"Sure, go for it," I said.

"Okay," she said, "Well, there's probably an article that's like, 'Is information technology affecting our relationships and how we dress for the winter? What part do blogs play in all this (style, relationships, etc.)?' An article about leggings probably called 'What happens after leggings?' and some pictures of some cool headphones. Oh, also one of those love life articles about meeting your future inlaws and do you still want to date this person now that you know their parents are judgy WASPs, culminating in the author's realization that s/he her/himself is a judgy WASP?"

Close enough! All the time I've saved? I am going to use it to update my Facebook status and send out some resumes.