Dating Daze

I’m not talking about the musical group either, even though many of you probably don’t remember that band since it was before your time and you weren’t a child of the 80’s like me.   Hence the title of my next post, “Why I Lie About My Age.”

But yes, the issue on the table today is actual men in the actual workplace.  They’re there all right.  In large quantities hopefully.   Even if they’re in short supply though, I’m betting you probably like one of them thanks to the Proximity Rule (which apparently unbeknownst to me has been ruling my life for quite some time.)   I never understood why I would consistently take a cursory glance around a new job/class/what-have-you, not see anyone I was thought was cute in the least, and then after a couple months, be all about one of them.  Never failed.  But then I learned psychologists have studied this phenomenon extensively and know that physical proximity, (like being neighbors or having frequent interactions with someone), is directly proportional to how attractive you think he is.    

So it’s no wonder then that being office mates often leads to being “soulmates” (in quotations because that’s my attitude of the moment with respect to that word.)  Just look at how much time people spend at work.   Does the Proximity Rule explain why so many men run off with their secretaries?   Because 5 days a week of Business Time naturally leads to ‘getting down to bi’ness’ Business Time?

There’s no denying that getting involved with a co-worker livens things up at least.  Makes things exciting.  I mean, I’m not exactly a ‘go get em up and at em oh just let me out the gate rip roaring’ type of employee.  There’s a reason Office Space is one of my favorite movies.  But give me a single love interest at work, and my interest in my craft is instantaneously renewed.  Well, at least my interest in being at the location where my craft takes place.  Gotta start somewhere I guess.

When I’ve taken a liking to a co-worker, I no longer play the fun hypothetical game “If I absolutely had to sleep with one of you to further the species…” in order to stay awake during ‘waste of times’, (a.k.a ‘meetings’.)  Last week I amused myself for a whole hour(!) deciding between Noam and Charles.   Because it’s an important decision you know.

With an ‘employee of the month’ on the brain though, there’s no time for silly games when there are numerous fantasies to flesh out that could actually come true one day.  He would come striding down the hall in the morning in a gray pinstripe suit, and the rest of my day was shot.  One time I was sitting at my desk imagining an ‘internal meeting’ with my co-worker ‘du jour’, and he walked by and asked what I was thinking about.  “Oh nothing special.  Same ole, same ole.  Never you mind.”

Because what can I say?  Office sex is hot.  Very hot.  It’s an entire porn category unto itself for crying out loud.  Right up there with MILFs.   I think sex is one of the main reasons big business has flourished honestly.  It’s positively titillating.   (Sorry, just wanted to use that word.) 

I actually got involved with a co-worker once.  Okay, twice.  Okay, FINE!  thrice, but he was the most noteworthy one by far.   He was kind of like a big deal at work.  Like a boss.  Like a lot of people’s boss. Uhhhh, like my boss.  ;0)  Well, my boss-ish, since what are titles anyway?   Plus, he was a Senior Vice President, so who wasn’t ‘under him’ in some way?  (Wasn’t even gonna go there, but it was just too easy.  Who am I to look a gift horse in the mouth?)

He was single though, just in case you got confused by his high-ranking position of power.  Don’t you know me by now?!?  I would never repeat the sins of my forefathers.

We did have issues though when he would try to pull rank outside the office.  I would get mad and want to say, “You’re not the boss of me!”  But then I would have had to clarify, “Well, not the boss of me when we’re not at work,” and by the time I’d acquiesced like that my point really wasn’t that powerful at all.    Besides, it was just as fun to go along with him. “Yes, Mr. (Vice) President.  Whatever you say.  If that’s what the company needs…”

 I was like his apprentice of sorts.  His ‘fluffer’.   (My friend used to use that term at work and I always thought she was referring to stroking our boss’ ego, but apparently a fluffer is an actual position to be held in the porn industry. Main job duty: To keep the male stars ‘ready to go’ between takes.)    Oooohhhhkayyyy.  I think I’ll stop complaining about my job now…

We had a lot of fun though, my V.P. and me, even though he was my vice president in more ways than one.  The office was the overarching theme in the bedroom, and even while we conducted business from this remote location, we would use work jargon and corporate catch phrases whenever possible in the interest of professionalism. 

“Do you need me to think outside the box on this project?”  “Is my skill set adequate for the presentation?”   “Are you okay with your current workload, or would more be better?” 

Certain after-hours attire was requested when burning the midnight oil.  Let’s just say props like ties and glasses were BIG.  ‘Business juice’ flowed freely and Conference Room B and the supply closet were the pretend backdrops of choice.  We definitely made work work for us.

I don’t mean to paint the picture as all rosy when dating a coworker though.  There’s a definite downside to mixing business and pleasure.  What if you do something really embarrassing?  There’s nowhere to hide. You always have to face him the next day, unless you can TGIF.   They say it can take anywhere from 3 to ‘an infinite number’ of business days to recover from an extremely embarassing incident too.

For example, before anything had started with my V.P., I was walking up the stairs in front of him and he goes, “Interesting.”  Which I didn’t get at first, but then remembered I was wearing some Frankie B (too) low-rider jeans sans panties, since as you and I have already gone over I find them superfluous and often the root cause of murfs.   A fact he seemed to find quite “interesting.”

Kind of embarrassing.  But what really took the cake was when I saw him talking to the receptionist a couple weeks later and caught a glimpse of his D through the work pants.  I decided to look further into the situation  to see what I might be ‘working with’ in the future, since it sure beat looking at my spreadsheet.  Undercover of course.  Or so I thought, until he passed me in the hall later that day and whispered, “You can have what you were looking at earlier.” 

Ay ay ay.  

I feigned innocence and said I was just trying to see the picture on his building card, but who was I kidding?  I guess those incidents were good in the long run though since they let him know I was interested.  I guess?  (Trying to look on the bright side of things here.)

When we started seeing each other, I was so happy I could (finally!) let up on the ‘constantly trying to look my best’ regime, a work-related activity that’s really not fun and takes an inordinate amount of energy but unfortunately remains a very necessary part of the whole ‘liking someone at work’ deal.  It’s actually the main reason I would counsel someone against liking a co-worker.  Forget the usual arguments people always come up with.  How about, “You’re gonna get real tired real quick of having to get up at the crack of dawn day in and day out to put on your Vice President lipstick and wear your uncomfortable professional yet sexy Vice President outfit and pumps in the event you bump into him and it’s ‘Go Time’ and you have to execute on your Vice President strategies.”    How ’bout that?

Because trying to look good at work is a full-time job in and of itself.  Pimpin’ ain’t easy.  There’s no downtime whatsoever.  You essentially double your workload with your lil “looking good” side project , and since it’s more important, (obviously),  it takes precedent over the others and you inevitably start falling behind.  

Which everyone will notice and attribute to the new blossoming romance between you two.  Since everybody knows.  Oh, they know all right.  Down to the interns they know. Often even before the two of you know they know.   You guys might still be in the stage of deciding whether you like each other, but the company is way ahead of you and has already formed a consensus that you do.     It impossible to stay ‘Secret Lovers’ for long, even if “that’s what you aaaaarrre, try so haaaaard to hide the way you feeeeel.” 

All it takes is one person to notice that you used to stumble into work like, “Yeah, this how I look when I wake up, what?!?”, but you now breeze in with fresh makeup and hair down, and you guys will be the first topic for immediate discussion on everyone’s agenda.   And if one errant wink is spotted?  Forget it.  The rumor that you two are an item will have spread far and wide by EOD PST.  “You know, I have noticed quite a lot of off-site ‘business lunches’ now that you mention it.  Who knows what they were really doing…” 

Your business will be in the streets before you know it, put on blast via email blasts that go viral, via knowing looks anytime he’s in the vicinity of your desk, or via the grapevine or rumor mill, (terms which probably originated from job situations where people were gossiping while picking grapes or working at the mill btw.)  Word gets around fast at the Jay Oh Bee.  

Before I realized the impossibility of keeping a work relationship on the DL, I would try to keep it confidential proprietary info that just him and I were privy to. 

“Listen, we are STRICTLY BUSINESS at work. You do NOT know me like that at the office, got it?”

I felt it important to be that adamant, because even in this day and age, you know how things are.   He would get praised for ‘making a sale’ or ‘acquiring a new client’, while my recognition would come in the form of a “fourth flo’ hoe ‘working girl’ ” invisible Scarlet Letter/ nametag.  And warning ladies:  It’s extremely hard to recoup your market value once it’s been brought down like that.

Girls can be really catty and competitive when dealing with men and office politics too.  (Well, any type of politics actually.   Yes, Hillary, talking to you!  Can you just let my man have the nomination already?  Por dios.)   One time at my old work this girl walked by my desk and said, “Going for the slutty look today, are we?”  I didn’t respond since her comment was so absurdly rude it was comical, but luckily The Lorax got her back soon thereafter.  She had printed out an excessive amount of papers and someone left a note on her desk, “F*ck you.  Love, the Lorax.”  ;0)  Good one, Lorax.   She shouldn’t be allowed to get away with that offensive behavior. 

To be fair though, women aren’t the only ones acting out at work.  I’ve seen many a man try and fulfill his polygyny fantasies  and acquire a ‘work wife’ on the clock.  A ‘work wife’, in case you’re not up on the terminology, is like a surrogate stand-in spouse that a man has an emotional affair with and tells things he doesn’t tell the actual.  He’ll have a deep connection with this woman, but totally compartmentalize his two ’significant others’ and rationalize the whole situation in his mind.  Since nothing physical is happening with his fake wife, he’s not cheating or ‘doing anything bad’.

I come across this phenomenon more than your average Gal Friday too, since I’m in the Internet biznass and most computer guys are already accustomed to living a Second Life and having multiple social networking personas where they concoct fake girlfriends and wives left and right.  What’s one more?  Old hat to them. 

Not to knock computer guys though, I actually much prefer them to guys like Rick who ‘worked in finance’ that I met a couple of weeks ago and …. zzzzzz.   Sorry, that story’s so boring I can’t even finish it.  ‘Rick from finance’ conducted audits for a living.  Can you imagine?  Makes fluffing sound like not the worst job on the planet.  At least you’d be working with people…

Married men toiling the workspace looking for a work wife get old really quickly though.  I mean, I understand that back in the day men used ‘husbandry’ as a means of survival and it was okay, but times have changed.   Doesn’t fly anymore.  

However, those men are positively child’s play compared to their counterparts who try to hide their marital/girlfriend-al status at work and act just free as can be.  These guys will flirt big time and totally lead you on by coming this close to asking you out, but when the time comes to actually make a move, they’ll suddenly balk and stop short.   I have no words for these men.

Who knows why they do it either?  Are they trying to prove to themselves they’ve still ‘got it’?  Is it just a matter of them wanting what they can’t have?  Or, as my experience would indicate, are they scared because they’re about to get married in a couple months?   A glorious celebratory event that somehow failed to come up in our many conversations and which I only learned about secondhand after wasting precious time I’ll never get back trying to figure out why he wouldn’t seal the deal.   “Because he’s got a fiancée, that’s why?!” never crossed my mind either for some reason.  Go figure. 

I got really mad when I found out too. Who did he think I was?  Some substitute girl to keep on hand in case things went awry with the wedding?  He saw nothing wrong with starting a brand new flirty friendship and furiously IM’ing me when he was getting hitched in two months?   So so rude.   The last thing I need is a new penpal. 

So I decided to call him on it.  He IM’ed me within the hour I found out, (as I knew he would), and asked what kind of tea he should get from the kitchen.  I replied with, “Hmmm, unsure, please ask fiancée.”   

Yeah mister.  Please consult your fiancée on this matter and leave me the eff alone.   He responded by instantly changing his IM status to ‘Away’ (as I knew he would.)   Did you honestly expect anything more?  

When he finally broke the silence a couple weeks later, I decided to let him have it and tell him exactly how inappropriate his behavior was.   He claimed she just never came up, but come on.  How could she have not come up once during the countless debriefings he insisted on holding each day?   I swear I even remember hearing a reference to a ‘roommate’ once, I really do. 

It was a little hard for me to drill into him as much as I would have liked though because there was technically no lie on his part.  Yes, he made a large insinuation in the opposite direction of the truth, but does that constitute a lie per se? Objectionable in a court of law. 

I’ve since come to the conclusion that he just got greedy and couldn’t stop playing The Dating Game even though he wasn’t ‘eligible’ anymore.  I guess it’s still fun to play poker with fake chips for some people. 

I decided not to let him ruin it though for all the shy guys out there who find it hard to talk to girls and use platforms like instant messaging to ask girls out.  I just wouldn’t feel right taking IM away from them.

They need it.   They’ve found ingenious ways of responding back if you reject them over IM to make it sound like they weren’t even asking you out in the first place.  Maybe because they have the time to carefully craft their responses? You won’t get a spur-of-the-moment comment like, “I wasn’t trying to talk to you anyway!” that guys on street corners say when you walk by them and don’t respond to their catcalls.  Over the computer, you’ll see something like, “I’m sorry you got the wrong impression, but I was actually just trying to network and make contacts.”  

It’s a whole ritual actually, and if he’s a nice guy you then allow him to save face and act stupid with something like, “Oh silly me!  Wherever could I have gotten that idea?  Sorry about that.  What a humorous mix-up!”

Despite all the let’s call them ‘nuances’ of dating a co-worker though, I still don’t think it deserves such a bad rap.  All the negative press surrounding the practice seems a tad unwarranted to be perfectly honest.  Why’s everybody gotta be haters?  Yes, there are a few extra risks.  But people take risks every time they start a relationship.  Love is always TBD.  Work is a perfectly acceptable place to meet someone,  and actually the most viable and perfect place ever when you really think about it. 

You get to see who the guy truly is, since he can’t hide behind a ‘fake first date face’ every single day.  Is he micro-managy?  Cutthroat?  (You should capture and review data points like these very carefully too, since how people do anything is how they do everything.) 

From your R&D, you can piece together a comprehensive history of him that would have otherwise taken months to formulate had you just been casually seeing him once or twice a week.   And the results of your risk/ben analysis will help you determine the probability of a smooth transition from cube mates to just mates.    Work is like your trial period to test him out.  Use it to decrease your likelihood of getting a lemon.

Meeting guys at work helps with a healthy work/life balance too, since you’re killing two birds with one stone.   Even though I find that term to be a farce personally, since it basically implies that work isn’t life.  Do we not work 40 hours a week?   How is that time not ‘life’? 

Work is life, that’s all there is to it.  A big part of it too.  We’re old now.  There’s no college to socialize in any more.  Work is the new school.  And no adult should be left behind.  It’s where we’re physically present the majority of the time we’re awake, and that’s without even including office parties and happy hours.

Why not take advantage?  Why should we be stuck in the boring accounting and HR departments while our romance department remains consistently understaffed? 

If there’s real potential there, I say go for it.  You never know, the ‘Jim Halpert to your Pam Beasley’  could be right under your nose the whole time. 

But when you live in California, sometimes there’ll be droughts that last so long you start forgetting what rain even feels like. The dry spells seem to last forever and a day. “Water that falls from the sky??? Are you sure…”

And we’re talking about men here of course. Do I look like a weather forecaster to you!? (Even though I do love me some ‘Anchorman’ and will find a way to fit “Stay classy” into the conversation anytime San Diego (a.k.a. ‘a whale’s vagina’) is even remotely referenced.)

Yes, in California, and elsewhere if my extremely informal studies are correct, it’s either raining men, or… it’s not. There’s no middle ground really. You’re either a man magnet and they’re coming out the woodworks forming queues to vie for your attention, or you’re getting lost in the shuffle. It’s either a time of A plus pluses and magna cum laude graduations from Man Attraction Camp, or the situation is so dire your friends start suggesting the ‘man pillow’ for you.

Have you heard of this new all-the-rage bedroom item? The hundred-dollars-a-pop pillow with a fake arm attached to it that you can snuggle up to? Must be kinda hard to advertise though, because when you get down to the nitty gritty, they’re essentially reducing a man down to a pillow. “No ladies, you don’t need a man, you just need a pillow!” It’s crazy talk if you ask me. Just a quick fix band-aid that’ll never solve the real problem. Western medicine talk and thinking. I’m holistic if I’m a day.

I really don’t get it though, this feast or fa(man) pheno(man)on. See, sometimes they’re everywhere I tell you. Is a happy medium really too much to ask? It’s enough to drive a girl (boy) crazy.

Why do you have to be either Man Central or BFE? And apparently geographical location does play a role in whether a guy pursues you, as I learned when this guy I was dating told me he initially liked both me and this other girl, but she lived “all the way out in Pomona, so …” (and then he trailed off.) Which basically meant I won by default and my competition forfeited by virtue of living in The Boonies. “Wow, thanks. What a proud victory. Makes me feel oh-so-special.” Hence the “guy I was dating” moniker.

The droughts always start out innocently enough too, with you having no idea you’re about to enter into a full-blow man hiatus. And they begin for any number of reasons:

1.) You decide to opt out because the sheer effort involved gets overwhelming. “You know what, I’m gonna have to pass. Carry on everybody, don’t mind me!” Because this dating activity ain’t no walk in the park, that’s for sure. There’s due diligence to be done. An inordinate amount of primping and daydreaming to be had. Not to mention countless Do’s and Don’ts surrounding the practice that should be committed to memory. “Don’t use the ‘c’ word (commitment for all you dirty minds out there), do ask questions, don’t wipe your hands on your jeans after dessert (am I classy or what.)

2.) You’re not so much overwhelmed as you are legitimately working with serious time constraints. Because ‘when it rains, it pours’ applies not just to men, but to life too. All of a sudden you have a dating book to write, a bikini body goal, work people harassing you during normal business hours to ‘work’ (the nerve!), and everyone and their mother (including your own mother) wanting a piece. When you’ve got too many motha uckers ucking with your shii, (your dating shii), certain frivolous time wasters inevitably get the axe.

3.) You get tired of one too many dates gone bad where you’re sitting there thinking, “Now I know I’m not missing The Office for this.” (Even though it’s still being recorded by the DVR, you’re not completely insane.) Still though, there’s just nothing like fresh off the press Office. So maybe after the umpteenth time of dumbing down for a Lowest Common Denominator or listening to a Talker’s soliloquy and politely nodding your head while censoring your comments, you just can’t muster up the pretend enthusiasm any longer. You decide to stop the weeding through and take a little breather. Save yourself. And you know what, you deserve it.

4.) You need a little time to get yourself together and do some spring cleaning. Take care of home. Perhaps, and this happens to the best of us, (especially Supertasters like myself), you’ve been eating everything in your path with a vengeance and have slapped on some serious winter weight. You’ve added numerous lbs. to the repertoire, and now need some time to get your ‘A’ game back. Maybe throw in a makeover or a haircut while you’re at it. At the very least get your nails did.

Because nails and hands are an important part of the body. They’re easily spotted wrapped around a glass or doing some light flirty touching. And they speak volumes about a person too. Don’t you notice a guys’ hands? They’re usually one of the first things I look at myself during my cursory once over, when I’m hoping and praying for a nice pair of strong manly man hands. Mands. There’s few things worse than small girly delicate fingers. Which is why you always want to put your best foot hand forward.

Regardless of the reason you’re ‘off’ though, the outcome remains the same. You’re down for the count. For a minute. It’s a risky place to be actually, since not keeping yourself abreast of the latest dating nuances can have serious repercussions indeed.

Just last week I committed a faux pas I would have never done had I not been so rusty. I’m a little embarrassed, but yes, I fell for the ‘restricted number’ trick. You know, where a guy who you’ve been avoiding gets you to answer the phone by blocking his number so you think it’s your mom? (Since all moms have restricted numbers for ’security purposes’. ;0) ) So mad when I realized it was him. At myself mainly though, since the only reason for my blunder was because I got lax. Had I been ‘on’, there would have been a heightened sense of phone security, (especially on a Saturday night!) which would have set off an instant alarm to heavily screen that ‘restricted’ call the second it came in.

Faux pas deux - (oooooh I feel so ‘French’. Well, this is Cherie Amour you’re talking to after all.) I also forgot the ‘I have a boyfriend’ line the other day. Who forgets a staple like that? Helllooooo, it’s textbook ‘Letting Them Down Easy - Rejection 101′. Page 1, line 1. Unacceptable to blank out on.

This guy I wasn’t interested in was talking to me about Chaya Venice and suggested that we hang out there sometime. Should have been a no-brainer where I said my piece without skipping a beat, but instead, I went with, ‘Uh, that sounds fun, I’ll see you there sometime!” Uh, what? “I’ll see you there sometime?!!!” Terrible. The second I said it I wanted to take it back, especially after seeing the look on his face. Snap. You know better than that Cherie.

When I was “on” sometimes I would even have to bust the “I’m married” line, reserved for only the most serious circumstances of course. If the offender would ask why the ring on my hand was conspicuously absent, I would say ‘he’ (and then I would give a little smile into the air) was working as we spoke to buy me the perfect one.

You stop trying when you’re ‘off’ though. I heard of this girl who was so out of practice that she did everything wrong wardrobe-wise. Tried to impress her sexy beautiful man yoga teacher by wearing what she thought were her brand-new cute black stretch pants but turned out to be more like her brand-new cute black see-through tights. Which she only realized after class was over and she’d done I don’t know how many downward facing dogs and happy babies. Commando no less because that’s how she rolled. Flashing “her front, her back, her ____ and her____” like she was wearing perfectly acceptable yoga attire. It was an egregious error that never would have happened had she been more with it.

Okay, it was me. I did that. And one of my friends insisted I put on the exact same outfit the next time she came over so she could laugh and see exactly how humiliated I should have been. The answer was “Very.” Thanks J.T. Where’s your compassion?

But whatever. Mistakes like that come with the territory. What I really consider alarming is how your self-esteem takes a nosedive and your view of the world becomes skewed when you’re in a slump for too long. In the initial stages, you’re thinking, “Hey, this isn’t so bad after all, I kinda like this!” But the only reason you think that way is because you believe as soon as you change your mind and want a man in your life again, you’ll have one, easy as pie. (So naïve.)

But when that doesn’t happen, and the days turn into weeks/months, the doubts start creeping in. “Now waaaaaait a minute. You wait just one minute. I used to be somebody! What’s going on… is it me?”

You start wondering if your best days are over. Yeah, you definitely reach a low point. Sometimes you even hit rock bottom and start considering drastic measures, like getting out there to furiously pound the pavement. Which unfortunately isn’t really the answer either, since it’s kind of exhausting, not to mention depressing. One time I went out with a couple of ‘the girls’ when all three of us were in a bad way. One friend went to take a seat and the other said, “Don’t sit down, you’ll take us out of the market!” It was so sad. Has it really come to that? Where you have to be thinking about the ‘the market’ 24/7 and can’t even ’sit one out’ every now and then? Yuck.

And when the stakes are that high, standards get lowered and bars get dropped. The bottom of the barrel starts looking perfectly acceptable, and you entertain the possibility of the guy with the ‘unfortunate nose’ that you would never have looked at twice before. Who would be great if he had the bomb personality, since that’s 95% for you, but that’s unfortunate too unfortunately. Which takes you way too long to decipher, since even your personalidometer is effed up from lack of use.

During my last hiatus (which ended pretty recently actually), I found myself literally batting my eyelashes when I met my new neighbor. When he said, “I’m Mike by the way”, in my head I responded, “I love you by the way.” It doesn’t take much, huh? One little salutation and he has me eating out of his hand.

Just as an aside, (since this post doesn’t have enough already), G-d played a fast one on me on April Fool’s Day and had me thinking that ‘Mike It Doesn’t Take Much’ was moving out. Turns out he was just being nice and opening the door for the movers. It was terrible though. I saw my life flash before my eyes. ;0) Just kidding, but I really have high hopes for that one. We’ll see. I’ll keep you posted in the posts.

Sometimes when you’ve been on the bench for so long though, getting back in the game start to seem pretty daunting and scary. You start wondering if it would just be easier not to play at all. But when you do decide you want out of being ‘down and out’, there are things you can do to facilitate your re-entrance. One of my friends highly recommends sleeping with a harmless ex-boyfriend to give yourself a little jumpstart. She sees them as ‘palate cleansers’ (™ N.J.) Kind of like ginger.

It’s actually not a bad practice, and can work like a charm if done properly. My friend took her own advice, and next thing you knew, she was the brand new ‘It Girl’. Men who’d been notoriously silent started asking for titles, and even ‘blasts from the past’ were trying to pop back in the picture for a second go-round. Just scooting on in like they’d never left. She had Joes in different area codes and the whole nine yards.

I love being in that position personally, I can’t lie. It’s my favorite. D*mn it feels good to be a gangsta! It’s so on when you’re ‘on’. You’re a star. And who doesn’t love guys sidling up to you left and right? Even Moms you meet want a piece of the action, “You know, I have a son about your age…”

So what’s the explanation? Let’s get to the bottom of this once and for all, shall we? One theory is that men thrive on competition from back in the olden olden days. They want to feel like they’ve won you from the masses. They sense your status and then behave accordingly. Because what fun is playing the game all by themselves when there’s no opponent? Big whup when you win against… yourself. Plus, I think men can tell when you have multiples, because you’re not as hard-pressed and can so give them the boot the second they start acting up.

Another friend of mine, a ‘manformer’ (man + informer), a.k.a. a man who tells you all their dirty little gender secrets, told me that if a woman’s ‘off’, it’s by choice. We turn ourselves off. I acted appalled, (how dare you insinuate it’s my fault!), but deep down I knew he was right. We make a conscious decision every single day how we’re gonna live our life. It has everything to do with confidence and ‘putting yourself out there’, as much as I despise that phrase. I like this theory though, because it implies that you then have the power to change the situation and choose your own destiny.

And to tell you the truthsss, I LIKE being on the outskirts looking in sometimes. You can reflect on your past and learn from your mistakes. If you don’t know your past you don’t know your future. (Okay Cherie Marley.) The downtime lets you really, truly figure out what you want in a man without any distractions, making it that much easier to recognize what you’re looking for when you see it. Plus it makes you stronger. Builds character.

Every yin has a yang, the grass is always greener, etc. etc. etc. It’s gotta get tiresome being ‘on’ all the time anyway. It’s fine. You’re like a moth who cocoons up for a while and then becomes a beautiful butterfly.

And maybe it’s better to just go with the flow when you’re ‘off’ instead of wasting valuable energy fighting against it. Just ride out the ebbs and flows and conserve your energy for when you’re back ‘on’. The tide will change soon enough anyway. Always does.

Plus the world keeps on turning, so you’ll entirely never fall off the map. There’s that whole gravity thing working in your favor. Think of it like jump rope. You’re just waiting until the time is right to jump back on in there. Just be sure not to let fear prevent you from taking that leap eventually. Because dating isn’t really meant to be a spectator sport. What’s the worst that could happen? The rope gets tangled and you have to start over again? BFD. Who cares. Life is for the living after all.

Call me crazy, but have you noticed that men are just not trying like they used to? Nowadays it seems like they all want something for nothing. And their chicks for free.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a man hater by any means. I love men. Live for them actually. It’s just that I have come across lately an abnormally large amount of situations leading me to the conclusion that we may be making things a tad too easy for them. The numbers are well outside any possible standard deviation of ‘just coincidence’ too. Something’s definitely going on.

I’m not talking out of my a** either, like certain people do when they discuss axes of evil and 100 year wars. No, I have concrete examples to support my hypothesis. This theory is well documented. No Fox News story here. This is The Onion quality.

It’s a fact. Every Joe Schmo from down the block suddenly thinks he’s G-d’s gift to women. It’s an outrage! He’s not even trying to fool us with the rocks that he’s got either. Nope, none of that. He’s just Joey from the block. Take him or leave him. Gone are the days when a guy used to add flair and accessories to the equation (like nice dinners, fancy cars and muscles) to try and get women to notice him like he was the teacher’s pet in the front row raising his hand. “Pick me! Pick me!” That’s ancient history.

Each and every perfectly and nothing more than average guy I’ve come across lately acts like he’s the best thing since sliced bread. Like I should be hanging on his every move with bated breath even though he’s making no effort whatsoever. Can you believe this phenomenon? B- level men suddenly acting like men who are too cute. You know what I mean by men that are too cute, right? Physically beautiful men who are too cute for their own good. The stuff trophy husbands are made of. That elite subset of the population (2-3% max), who are so outwardly perfect that they don’t have to try at all because women fall for them regardless. The good-looking of the good-looking men. The best of the best. La crème de la crème.

Some of my friends have even made the conscious decision to avoid men who are too cute like the plague, and vehemently reject any impulse to fall for one should there be inadvertent contact. They’re instead choosing physically below average men, betting on these guys being less of a flight risk. They’re overlooking little issues like man boobs (a.k.a. ‘bitch tits’ as The Flight Club has forever coined them in my mind. “Meet Bob. Bob has bitch tits”), or ‘gradual hair reduction’, (a gentler phrase they prefer to use over the technical term ‘balding’).

I’m actually seriously considering going down that route myself. They might be on to something. I mean, honestly, what’s a little propecia at the end of the day? A drop in the bucket in the big scheme of things.

It’s a smart move if you really think about it, as guys who are normally overlooked and viewed as non-entities can’t rely on their looks and instead need to develop their personalities. They’re funnier. They probably have tougher skin too. Who wants someone so cute he doesn’t know how to deal with the issues that inevitably come up in a relationship since he always just moves on to the next girl and starts fresh again? Someone who more than gets by even though there’s not much going on upstairs?  Sounds kind of overrated.

To be fair, it’s not really their fault, since why be the sharpest tool in the shed when your blunt edge gets the job done and then some? But still. It gets old very quickly when you’re with a guy who’s fun to look at but not fun to be with. He starts talking and you just want to say, “Ummm, I’m gonna need for you to be quiet now. Yeah, hush your mouth. Hush it. You’re here for one reason only, for me to look at like a beautiful piece of art, and you’re ruining it.  Good for only one thing.” ;0)

I’m just kidding. I’m really not that superficial, but sometimes the personality really is shockingly that bad. One time I went to the movies with this model guy who was ‘really really really really ridiculously good looking’, and I guess he wasn’t that into the movie (or me for that matter), because after ten minutes he said, “You know, I’m just gonna check out,” and proceeded to fall asleep instantaneously. Like a dog can. Because we people usually need a couple of minutes to unwind and gather our thoughts before we can fall asleep, right? Not him. He could “check out” right away. That’s how developed the brain was. Or maybe he was just tired from being out late last night with a different girl? Who knows. The outcome was still the same though.

Anyway, on to the examples of men being lazy. What a long digression. That was so George W. of me to go off on a tangent that makes no sense whatsoever.

First off, they’re suggesting ‘grabbing a drink’ in lieu of the old-fashioned dinner date. What the …? When did this tried and true ritual get ousted? Who did this! I like eating. A lot. And when you do end up going out for a meal, men just aren’t offering to pay like they used to. You two will be out to lunch, the bill will come, and he’ll suddenly be looking around, ‘out to lunch’, both literally and figuratively. Which by the way he’s probably asked you to lunch instead of dinner to get the lunch specials and avoid being upsold with before dinner drinks and after dinner desserts.

Which leaves you wondering, is he cheap, or just broke? Because there’s a big difference. Leap year difference. One time this guy and I were ordering lunch at a café that came out to $15. The guy looked upset that he had to pay and I heard some kind of “hmmph!” noise coming from his direction, so I put $10 on the counter to see if he would take it. Which he did. Uh, oh. Trouble. Because who can’t afford $15? That was a test, and he failed. I actually want to pay from time to time, but I can’t for the life of me stand ’splitting’. You split with business associates. Isn’t dating supposed to be all about sharing and collaboration? How positively unromantic to split. Going half on a $15 lunch means the two of us will never ever be going half on a baby, that’s for sure.

Secondly, at the end of dates, they’re putting the ball in our court and making us make the next move. They kiss us, and then say “Call me!” or “Don’t be a stranger!” I always thought comments like these meant you would never hear from them again, but these days, they actually do call a couple weeks later asking why you haven’t called. Uh, because that’s your job? I’m all for equality, but a complete reversal of gender roles is a bit much. I already work hard for the money like a man as it is. I refuse to be in charge of making the first move too. Sorry.

And if you happen to work with a guy who’s taken a liking to you? Forget about it. Every day is a new opportunity for him to cube date. Cube dating is where a guy will stand over your cube like a lion over his prey and talk your ear off over a good thirty minute free ‘date’. Offices breed cube daters like Los Angeles breeds overly plastic surgeried monkey-looking women too. I was the victim of a serial cube dater’s advances once, and let me tell you, it’s not fun. He would come over to my desk every single morning. Now, must we draw attention to the fact that I just got into work at 10:30? So much for trying to quietly sneak in.

Extracting yourself from a cube date is extremely difficult too since they’ve kind of got you cornered. Had you been on the phone with a guy, you could always excuse yourself by yelling, “I’ll be right there!” or calling yourself from your home phone to your cell phone (I know all the tricks). But you’re not. So everyday I would have to get up and take a field trip to the kitchen just to get away from him. He would trail behind, chatting away. It was terrible. A recurring bad date that never ended. Just step away from the cube, mister, step away. I personally find cube daters extremely offensive to tell you the truth. This is a place of business! Come on. Not on company time, Mr. Vice President. Please.

Fourth piece of evidence: They’re roping us into text message relationships. Their toys are stopping romance right in its tracks. Lately I’ve started refusing to respond to text messages. If they truly want to get in touch with me, they know what to do. Because it’s a slippery slope I think. Texting can quickly become the main means of communication if you let it. Letting that type of behavior slide now leads to a future of text sex and trying to live happily ever in eHarmony later. Is that what you really want to look forward to? Text messages saying, “Re: the baby. Crying. Needs milk?” That just wouldn’t fly with me.

I’ve saved the best piece of proof for last though. This one really takes the cake. I think I may just have heard it all. This act alone could have prompted this entire post. My friend was about to have sex for the first time with this guy she’s been seeing, and he got on the bed, TUCKED HIS HANDS BEHIND HIS HEAD with his elbows out, and waited for her to get on top of him. Laid on his back like he was watching a show or a performance.

Wow. I mean, isn’t that a given? No hands behind your head the first time? Maybe that could come later in a relationship where sex has become old hat and taking a breather every now and then is okay. But the first time? You’re supposed to be pulling out all the stops and showing us your good side. (Not your literal ‘good side’ you have when taking pictures. Mine personally is my right side, so I look a little to the left. Works like a charm every time. Not that good side. The other one.)

Is that not the epitome of making the least effort possible?  Now if that’s not pure laziness, I just don’t know what is. I can’t imagine hearing about such a thing five, ten years ago. Men who don’t think twice about making non-descript whoopee? They simply didn’t exist. Their reputations were at stake.

I think I’ve finally figured out the reason too. Took me a while, but I’ve got it. It’s porn. Too much easy access to porn on the Internet. Or maybe it’s ‘that rap music’, the scapegoat for everything these days. “You know how everyone’s poor and has no health insurance? Well, have you heard what they’ve been listening to?” Even though I know blaming the music is baloney, I must say on this particular laziness issue that Snoop’s ‘Sensual Seduction’ and Ludacris’ ‘Hoes In Different Area Codes’ sure aren’t helping matters any.

I blame the porn though. It’s the main culprit. Rap is just the getaway driver in a crime that would have happened anyway regardless of him being there or not. There’s simply no other possible explanation besides porn for ordinary guys acting like they’ve got quite the little groupie following.

Not that porn is always bad. I happen to love porn myself. Didn’t leave the house for three straight days when I first discovered it on the Internet as a matter of fact. It’s perfectly fine… in moderation. Might I even say it provides a valuable, needed service for the community? It’s education. And knowledge is power.

But guys’ overuse of porn and their ability to virtually get girls anytime they want is resulting in this undesirable phenomenon of lazy men. Porn is lowering the bar for men and raised the bar for women. Or do I mean the other way around? I mean whatever way means it makes things pretty darn easy for men and very hard for women.

Now that porn is ubiquitious (do you see how my studying SAT words during an entire semester of physics class has really paid off for me?), men just don’t need us quite as much as they used to. The element of desperation that used to be present in the chase is sorely lacking. Men are still chasing, but half-heartedly so. It’s not like if they don’t catch their prey they won’t eat anymore. Oh they’re still having dinner all right. They’re never truly S.O.L when they’re but a computer away.

I’m actually kind of worried. This could quickly transform into a serious problem. Maybe whole relationships could one day become obsolete? Like, a plus, yes, nice to have, sure, but not absolutely necessary. One of my guy friends says the reason he loves porn so much is because of its variety. What if they start being harder to please after seeing hundreds of naked women? That would be horrible. Who wants to get judged on a curve? It’s kind of scary when you really think about it.

So I’m asking men everywhere to consider getting back to basics and returning to old-fashioned dating practices. Scale back on the porn a bit and start thinking about its repercussions. Because this porn / new technology thing might not be all it’s cracked up to be. We might be taking one step forward, two steps back for mankind. Changing things too quickly and jumping the gun often results in serious growing pains. We need adaptation time, just like when the day came that men didn’t need to go out and hunt for food while women stayed home and kept house. There’s just no way that happened overnight. We need to evolve into a new lifestyle. Slowly. Gradually.

It’s always so much easier to nip a situation in the bud and stop it before it gets out of hand too. What if George W. hadn’t had 8 years to run around like a wild banshee wreaking havoc and leaving behind a sorry state of the union for a woman or a black man to fix? Because we are gonna win, one way or another. Hillary is so Plan B it’s not even funny, but we’ll make do if we have too. But that’s neither here nor there.

So men, whadya think? Maybe we should change? (It’s funny because my ex-boyfriend always used to laugh at how I would suggest that he do something or change some habit by turning it into a question. “Should we take out the trash?” or “Should we stop leaving our wet towels on the bed?”) ;0)

So guys, should we stop this nonsense and start taking care of business? Get back to that pedal to the medal behavior you used to exhibit at the beginning of a relationship? Show us that you Mclove us with chivalry and romance? (Sorry, I can’t say ‘lovin’ or any derivative of it like ‘love’ without adding a Mc in front of it. My allegiance to Superbad is just that strong.)

Even if you’ve all banded together and decided to stop trying, flip the script and collectively decide to make a change. A change we can believe in. Because there’s power in numbers. And anything worth having is worth working for, isn’t that right? Besides, a little manual labor never hurt nobody. We can do this men, yes we can. Yes we can.

Let’s just continue on with the subject of breaking up so we can get it out of the way, shall we? Although I don’t know why I’m asking you since you don’t have much of a say in the matter.

There’s nothing sadder a person who’s just been broken up with. The dumped are always down in the dumps in a big way. That ‘breaking up is hard to do’ is a total understatement. I think it’s one of THE hardest things to do. It’s comparable having someone really close to you die. You never see that person afterwards, or if you do stay in contact, you still never see him in the same way again. Maybe the person you thought he was never existed, or maybe he changed, but the outcome remains the same. Finito. Kaput. It’s over. And once again, very little say in the matter from you.

You become an emotional rollercoaster and go through the 5 stages of grief. You deny what’s happening while keeping busy playing the fool. You get angry and positively livid with the mere thought of him traipsing happily through life while you live out the rest of your days as a basket case. Then you bargain with him as if bartering will make him change his mind.  You then get depressed, lose 15 lbs in two weeks, and walk around with red puffy eyes telling your story to anyone who’ll listen, including poor guys at bars who really didn’t sign up for all that. And then finally, you get to accepting things as they are.

Acceptance doesn’t always come of its own accord though. I usually help it along by writing “The Top Ten Reasons why So-and-So is a F*cking A**hole and I will so diss him the next time he calls.” In this work of art, every miniature flaw So-and-So has is exaggerated until he becomes a total monstrosity. Whatever works though. I’m an advocate of pulling out all the stops to get through being broken up with. You gotta do what you gotta do. Another trick of the trade is adding songs like “If You Should Lose Me ” and “Return of the Mack” in heavy rotation into your life soundtrack. Timeless pieces really.

But what always jolts me back into reality and truly gets me back to normal is when I partake in a little revenge fantasizing. An absurd amount of time always ends up being spent on this ‘pastime’, but unfortunately there’s just no getting around it. It’s a necessary step in the healing process if you ask me.

It’s not even revenge per se either, but rather more of like a punishment of sorts. That offender has been quite offensive and needs to be punished for his wrongdoings by feeling the loss of me. Is that so terrible? Him dreaming about better days (with me in them of course)? I think not.

Plus they’re just fantasies. I never actually exact the revenge. A little fantasizing never hurt nobody. They say we live in our minds half the time anyway. And what happens in my head always stays in my head.

I never end up getting that creative with them actually. The plot always stays the same. Time: a couple of months into the future from the date of the breakup. Place: anywhere will do, as long as it’s remotely plausible that I could bump into him while I’m frolicking with my new, improved boyfriend, a.k.a. Version 2.1, if you wanna get technical. (I do work with the Internets after all.).

It’s always glaringly obvious to everyone who matters (i.e. him), that I’ve majorly upgraded too.   Initially I was all excited and forgot that you’re never supposed to go with the first version of anything since they’re chock full of problems, but I’ve since wised up and made the trade.

I want to emphasize though that the newer version is always the same make and model as its predecessor. The new man is always exactly like the old one, only better. All the kinks have been worked out.

Oh, hey! Fancy seeing you here! I’m good, thanks. Great actually. I’m just here with the new you. He’s you, just better! Uh huh! You know how you sell computers? Well he makes computers. And you know how you’re short-ish? Well… he’s not.

When I was broken up with by a wanna-be writer he was published. When the ex-boyfriend was a vice president he was a president. He always looks a lot like them too. Same race, same build, pretty much same everything. Only… you guessed it, better.

The best part about these elaborate dreams is they’re created and acted out all from the comfort of my own home. No primping or getting ready required. And in this faced-paced society we live in, I’m thankful for every one less thing I have to do.

I use that extra time to plan the fantasies down to a tee. Every minute detail is carefully thought out, from my attire down to the crestfallen look on his face when he sees me with the better him draped over me like a brand-new coat. He’s always by himself and has an overall dejected vibe, and I’m always glowing.

I never feel that these dreams have to come true though. Once they’re concocted and played (and played and played) in my head, oh say, 100 times or so, I start feeling like they might have actually happened in real life and start living life again and going about my business, only this time a little older and a little wiser.

So you can imagine my surprise when one day, a scenario worthy of Top Revenge Fantasy status actually came to fruition.  The new man wasn’t there for him to be jealous of, but don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining in the least. I’m actually considering changing the static plot of all future fantasies to mirror this one, it was that good.

I was at the Cabana Club with my friends, painting the town red.   My face was ‘put on’, my hair was ‘did’, conditions were perfect.  So there I was, turning the corner, and guess who I see?   None other than the monstrosity. We literally bumped smack dab into each other too, so there was no ‘let me pretend I didn’t see you even though I blatantly did’ going on either.

We did the usual hug and “Hey!” you do to buy time and figure out how you’re going to handle the situation, and then we moved in on the nitty gritty. He asked if I’d gotten his text messages over the last couple of months since he hadn’t heard back from me. I told him that I’d changed my number, and he said in a shocked voice, “Because of ME?” I replied “Of course not! I moved,” in an ‘as if you were important enough to make me change my number’ voice, but I think we all knew exactly what was going on.

Come on, why else would I change a perfectly good 310 cell phone number? Maybe if I’d had a 213 or 818, then maybe, but a 310?  We don’t do that.  Besides, we don’t have to change our cell phone numbers anymore just because we move. That’s why their called mobile phones.  They’ve got mobility.  They go where we go.  And we know it. We’re not stupid. Except for when we make laws and pick presidents and do stuff like that. Luckily he didn’t press the issue though.

So he asked for my new number, and I said I didn’t think that was such a good idea. When something breaks and you glue it back together, it’s still broken, it just looks fixed. Once bitten twice shy.

And he said “Awww, please Cherie. Come on, you’re a great girl, I’m a nice guyyy….” And I said “Yeah, I AM a great girl”, with no mention of him, because sometimes what you don’t say is more important than what you do. Ooops, did I forget to add you into that little great girl/guy sentence? Now why on earth would I do that? Any idea?

The look that came across his face was exactly like I always picture it in my revenge fantasies too. Pretty sad actually, but I didn’t let it deter me one bit. I was on a roll.

Then his friend came over and tried to pull him away under some pretense, but he ignored the friend and kept trying to talk to me. Which felt pretty good, since this friend had played a major hand in his breaking up with me in the first place. This was his paranoid friend who was petrified he was losing his right-hand man and tried to talk smack against me and the boring, uneventful life his buddy would have had if he went down that route for the rest of his life never being able to be with another girl ever ever again.

So you can imagine this friend was just tickled pink when we broke up. Thrilled to bits. And I think when he saw us talking, he was scared of us being reunited (and it feels so goooood), and had to do everything in his power to ensure that didn’t happen.  He didn’t know he had nothing to worry about though.

Once his friend left, I cut him short and said “Well, it sounds like you’ve gotta go. Nice seeing you,” in a very monotone tone. And I’m anything but monotone. 100% multitone. To the core. My attitude was like, “Awwww, I wish I could give you my number, I really and truly wish I could. But I can’t, so I won’t. BuhBye, you take care now.”

Then I walked away in all my glory. But just before I turned the corner in my grand exit I couldn’t resist and looked back at him over my shoulder. He was still in the same spot I’d left him in, staring at me all hurt like a sad little puppy dog.

I still can’t believe that actually happened. Not exactly an everyday occurrence that’s for sure. I was on cloud nine for days. I mean, I always envision their faces once they realize they’ve traded in their diamonds for glass, but to actually see it with my own two eyes? Now that’s the stuff dreams are made of. What a gift. Christmas in July.

The only reason I was able to be that cold-hearted “yo, I’ll see ya later… unless I see ya first” girl was that I was already over him when this blessed moment in time took place. My love feelings had already fizzled, so my performance was easy. And I nailed it, if I do say so myself. I had already come to the conclusion that he wasn’t right for me (even if I had done so out of necessity when he called it quits), and once you go there in your mind you can never go back. It was already a done deal. He wasn’t my pusher no mo’.

I’ve really come a long way from that broken-up-with- girl too, don’t you think? I’m so happy I snapped out of it. Can you imagine if I’d ended up with him? I would be miserable. He was the right guy for that time I was with him, for the retro me, but he’s so not right for Cherie Version Deux. He’s just an Un. We’re simply not compatible. Not a fit.

No hard feelings though. I honestly wish him the best. The best, that is, except for one thing. His getting married and having one of those family things can still only happen after it’s happened to me. That’s where I draw the line. No reason to be a martyr here.

So you see, everything worked out perfectly, just like it always does in my dreams. I’ve moved on, and he, well, he’ll be forever standing in that sad little spot looking at me forlornly as I walk away as far as I’m concerned. Forever getting his in my mind.

He should have known that was going to happen though. Tit for tat. Or, I guess I should say, no tit for behavior like tat. Payback’s a bitch, that’s all there is to it. We all know the world isn’t flat. Everything that goes around eventually comes back around.

Yes, yes, we all have embarrassing moments sometimes. Sometimes we wear the rival college’s color to our freshman year football game and have forty thousand people yelling at us to “take off that red shirt, take off that red shirt”, while we’re just humming along “da da da da da, da da da da da” until we look up and realize they’re talking to us. Or sometimes we take a tumble when we’re a lil ti’sy out on the town. But whatever, we just walk em off and go about our business. No big deal.

But other times, we do things of the far more serious nature that are not quite as easy to shake off. Actions taken ‘in the name of love.’ Behavior that prompts our friends to feel the need to have an intervention of sorts with us:

Cherie, you are NOT to do this again. I’ve been letting this slide because everyone is entitled to a few mistakes, and have actually been encouraging your doings in the hope that you would get it out of your system. But I can’t keep silent any longer. You’re embarrassing us. You are NOT to do this again.

Which, interesting enough, I took to heart and ended up transferring into other areas of my life too. I told my old boss, who loved to have me redo projects until I was blue in the face for no apparent reason, “Aaron, I am only doing this ONCE. I am not doing this again.”

To give you a little example of this type of acting up, I’ll start with someone else’s embarassing moment so by the time we get to mines I’ll be nice and warmed up.

One time I had been talking to my friend’s brother from San Francisco on the phone. We were just blind phone dating though, since we’d never met nor exchanged pictures. When we finally did meet, there was no chemistry for me. Instant unattraction. Unfortunately he didn’t feel the same way.

I kind of feel like he should have known that I wasn’t into it, because when he tried to kiss me at the end of the night I turned the cheek. Isn’t the cheek a dead giveaway? Cheek = not interested.

Anyway, twenty minutes later, I got a phone call saying that he’d thrown his gum away in the car and now he couldn’t find it. He was calling to make sure it hadn’t gotten on my nice leather purse. “Nope, purse is just fine. G’night.” Thirty minutes later, I got another call, hoping he hadn’t been too forward when he’d tried to kiss me. “Nope. Don’t worry about it. Night night.”

Can you believe the phone rang again for the third time? I couldn’t bring myself to answer it though. Stop it Jeremy Piven from Swingers, I insist. You just stop it right now. You’ll thank me in the morning.

I felt his pain though, because I’ve been there. Where you know you need to stop, but for some reason you can’t. You just keep digging the hole deeper and deeper.

Okay, I’ll stop hemming and hawing and share my stories with you now. All I ask is that we don’t speak of these events ever again. They never happened, capiche?

Story Number One:

Just like John West, I ‘Thought I Was’ in love. I really did. Maybe the extent of how far people will go is directly proportionate to how hard they fall. Cause I fell hard. When I went to Santorini without him, you could hear his name being yelled across the whole island. “Jean Pieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere!” There were messages being sent in a bottle and all kinds of nonsense.

After Greece, everything was just fine and dandy for a while. Then he started losing it for me. The thrill was gone. He was obviously trying to give me the boot, but I just couldn’t accept it. He was breaking dates left and right, and I kept on taking it. Playing myself big time. I should have nipped that behavior in the bud by leaving him, but no, that’s not what you do when you’re ‘in love.’

In my defense, he wasn’t exactly being straightforward with his words. (He was like a little kid, “Use your words Jean Pierre, use your words.”) His actions made it obvious he didn’t want to see me, but he kept insisting that everything was fine. And I so wanted to believe him that I let all the bad behavior slide.

That turkey could do whatever he wanted, and I kept acting like nothing was wrong, belittling myself the entire time. I should have parted ways much earlier, but I kept telling myself he was ’scared’. ;0) Us girls’ favorite line. There sure are a lot of petrified guys running around if we’re right, aren’t there?

For example, one time I was at a bar right by his house. Like next door. I was basically downstairs in his building. I called him to tell him I was there, and he said he would stop by. A couple of hours later, and he calls and says, “Hey, I’m in Marina Del Rey! But I really wanted to see you!” Translation: I’ve been running in the opposite direction of you to get as far away as I possibly can, but now I’m going to tell you what you want to hear.

He was deathly afraid of communication, and whenever I would tell him that we were going to talk because I’m a girl and that’s what girls do, I would have a huge protest on my hands.

So eventually we stopped talking altogether, and a month later I ran into him at The W. He already knew I was there since I’d seen his friends first, and had called me so we could meet up since the W’s a big place. I hadn’t answered though because I’d just gotten a new phone and am very technically challenged. Good thing I do computer stuff for a living, huh?

When I saw him and told him about my phone issues, he goes, “It’s really not that hard to press the talk button.” What a jerk. So rude. But of course I taught him to treat me like that. Afterward, (figures), I came up with the perfect comeback too. “I didn’t know you knew how to use a phone since I never hear from you! If only I’d known you were such a pro!”

That was my first time being broken up with though. And hopefully the first cut will be the deepest, because I’m not so sure I can take that pain again.

And you’d think I’d have learned my lesson, right? You’d think. But unfortunately, there’s no shortage of love lessons to be learned for me. Enter ‘Cherie’s Embarrassing Moments’ Round Two:

When Ben called me to tell me he was too busy with his three jobs and school to start seeing me seriously, I took his words at face value and believed him. I should have learned my lesson from the Jean Pierre fiasco that their actions tell you all you need to know, but trust me, I’ve sure got it now.

So when I hung up with him, I consulted my friend on the whole situation. The sitch. She was convinced that we just needed some fun time together and kept saying “He needs to get his nose out of a book and start thinking with his d*ck! He can’t be sacrificing his love life like that. You need to call him right now and drive over to see him.” And for some reason I got all riled up and I called him. (I know. I have NO idea what I was thinking. I went temporarily bananas. NO idea.)

But it gets worse. Of course my call didn’t work, because he said he had to study that night. And I responded with exactly what my friend had said, word for word. “You know Ben, you’re a young guy. You should be thinking with you d*ck rather than having your nose in a book all day.”

Oh. My. God. Unbelievable. WHOT! I still can’t believe I said that. I’m having a hard time even writing it. And I said it?

Not exactly Cherie at her best. I mean, I’m shy! One time, I liked this guy Anthony Johnson who worked on another floor in my building. When I finally had a chance to meet him, I had built it up too much and couldn’t go through with it. My friend Oscar knew how much I liked him and was physically pulling me by the arm, “Let’s go! What’s wrong with you! Let’s meet Anthony Johnson!”, but I couldn’t do it. Too overwhelming. But I guess I have no qualms telling people to live a little and think with their D’s.

I redeemed myself a little (hopefully) when I called him later to tell him that wasn’t really me saying that but I was just repeating words that had been said to me, but still. Retain some semblance of common sense Cherie. For all of us.

Oh well. You win some and you lose some. I’m just a late bloomer and learned these valuable love lessons a little later than most. I should be happy too; some people never learn. I know better now. And I’m actually glad I could practice on these guys. They’re like scratch paper.

Plus it happens to the best of us. Just happened to be my turn, that’s all. Everybody does it at least once or twice in their life though. Everybody plays the fool.

And remember, don’t tell nobody. Mum’s the word.

Member of the Tribe mean business. Especially if they’re over 30, i.e. practically ancient in their mother’s eyes. M.O.T.’s who’ve managed to remain single at that level do not have the luxury of playing around.

Now for you shiksas lucky enough to be blithely walking around oblivious to what the aforementioned terminology means, a Member of the Tribe is a Chosen Person. Also known as someone who is a Jewish, as they called me in Jamaica. “Cherie, I didn’t know you was a Jewish!”

Yes, a Member of the Tribe is someone who is Jewish, if you’re still confused for some reason. Which I actually understand, seeing as I’m a halfer myself (half Member, half non-Member), and had no idea what being Jewish entailed until moving to LA a few years ago.

I’m kind of like a faux Jew. Working on it though. I’ll get there one day. Growing up, I thought being Jewish meant staying home from school for two days a year in September and getting eight presents in December. I’m just ig’nant is all, I’m just ig’nant! Didn’t know any better. To this day, whenever my friends want a good laugh they just ask me to explain the story of Chanukah. “Well, the bad guys burned down the temple, and then the Jewish people lit candles that lasted for 7 nights! Or wait, 8 I think? No, definitely 7.”

When I say Jewish men mean business, I’m referring to the topic of utmost importance in the eyes of their parents, which is marrying them off to a ‘nice Jewish girl,” wink wink. All chosen people are taught to marry within the tribe, and any Jewish man worth his yarmulke knows this.

Poor Persian Jewish guys have it even worse. As if the pool wasn’t small enough already, she has to be Persian AND Jewish. Just great. Fantastic. They basically have to marry their cousin, or … they have to marry their cousin. Which luckily is just fine in Iranian culture, maybe borne out of necessity?

My friend, let’s call her Neecole Joon, is continually bombarded by her aunt trying to marry her off to her son Arash. “Neecole Joon, you are very beautiful gell, very vise. Vhy you no marry with Arash? Ahhhh, that’s right, you Americains, you don’t marry with cousin.” Yeah, you got that right Aunty. We Americains sure don’t marry with cousin.

So naturally, Jewish men rebel and play around the spectrum until they’re ready to get married, but when it’s time to tie the knot, the group of potentials are limited to JGirls. I’m generalizing of course, but sometimes you gotta generalize. Those Jewish boys. Like that Haaaaaaaaahhhhhhhrry Steinberg. And those Gold brothers? Oy vey.

Ready to settle down Jewish boys are on a mission, and will find out within the first 5 minutes of talking to you whether or not you’re a member and thereby worthy of taking on a JDate. Why waste time?

For example, this Jewish guy started talking to me after yoga class last week. He asked if I drink coffee, and when I responded that I’m not really a coffee kind of girl, he said, “Hmmm, the way you just said coffee reminded me of an old Jewish lady.” He then pregnantly paused (if a guy can do that, and why not, it’s the 21st century), and looked directly into my eyes. Which is genius if you really think about it, because he asked his question without having to come right out and say the words. I almost wanted to be mean and not tell him if I was a card-carrying tribal member, but rather just laugh and say “Hah, like “Coffee Talk” from SNL. That’s funny.” I gave him a break though, seeing as we are peeps and all.

I couldn’t resist having a little fun first though, and said, “Well I am half-Jewish, maybe that’s why.” Which kind of answered his question, but not really, since I didn’t tell him which half I was. Because it matters. Oh it matters all right. In Jewish law a person is only Jewish if his or her mother is Jewish. Dad can be as Jewish as it gets, responsibly ordering up pastrami sandwiches on challah like there’s no tomorrow, but if Mom’s not, it’s an instant blackball. You’re out. Luckily I’m from the good half though, so I was able to squeeze on in there.

I think the main reason Jewish guys succumb to Mom’s pressure is because they can’t stand the guilt she would undoubtedly place on them every day if they went against the grain and married an ‘other’. Because Jewish moms are all up in your business. You’re business is their business as far as they’re concerned. Same business. “If only you’d have married a Jew.” Head shake, head shake. “A nice Jewish girl would have known better.”

Let me explain the extent of the overbearingness to you. One night I was out and my mom couldn’t get a hold of me, so, what’s an overprotective Jewish mother to do? Frantically start calling all the hospitals, naturally. Duh. When I finally came home to about 30 missed calls and called her back later that night, she was hysterical, “Oh, thank God! Where have you been!? I’ve been worried sick.”

That same mom worry rubs off directly onto the sons too. There’s an urgency to everything. A few months ago I met a Brazilian Member of the Tribe. I was pretty excited actually, because I had picked him out of the crowd as one of the cute ones, and then he came over later and started talking to me. Don’t you just love it when that happens? But it soon became too much too soon.

He was out for his older brother’s bachelor party, and clearly had marriage on the brain. I’m sure his mom had undoubtedly moved on to him with the pressure now that the first son was taken care of. Anyway, this is the same Brazilian guy I made out with at the Sky Bar the night we met. After we were done publicly displaying our affection, he laughed and was like, “I cannot believe we just did that. Can you imagine? A Jewish couple making out in public.”

Yep, you heard right.  Apparently it only takes one night to become a Jewish couple.

In the flurry at the end of the night, post-a couple drinky drinks, he left without getting my number. It was clear he thought he had already gotten it, since we had made plans for the next night and he was going to call me the next day so we could figure out the details. But he hadn’t sealed the deal. I knew all along that he hadn’t gotten my number too, but went along with it. I knew in my heart of hearts (because I have more than one?) that it wouldn’t work out between him and I, and when you know, you know. Instantaneously. Women’s intuition maybe?

See, I never want to feel like I’m just filling a superficial checklist a guy has made up in his head. Is she Jewish? check. Tall? check. Cute enough? sure. Okay, fine, she’ll do.

The problem is that I never want to just ‘do’. I want to be special. When it’s too easy and a guy starts liking me before genuinely getting to know me, I’m completely turned off. Like Tupac said, “I hate to sound cheesy but tease me, I don’t want it if it’s that easy.”

I’m not saying I want them to be hard to get or anything like that, but get to know me a little bit before liking me that much. If you like me that much straight away, how easy will it be for you to like that next girl just as fast? I mean, sure, everyone has a checklist, but refine it a bit, that’s all I’m saying. Figure out some ‘make it or break its’ beforehand.

When he was planning our date for the next day, I hesitated because Sunday is my salsa night and anyone who knows anything knows salsa night is sacred. Salsera pura soy yo. When I mentioned that to him, he said, “Well, what’s more important, me or salsa?” Ummm, not really sure you want me to answer that?

I did add a new Jewish-ism to the repertoire though, so the whole experience was definitely not in vain. After we made out he goes, “I guess we’ll have to ask Hashem for forgiveness.” I just laughed like I’ve been talking to Hashem all my life, but in my mind I was thinking, “Who’s in G-d’s name is Hashem? The Sky Bar manager maybe?”

When I talked to Neecole Joon the next day though, she explained to me that Hashem is a pet name us Jewish people have for G-d. We’re not supposed to use his real name because that would be rude, not to mention disrespectful. So, I am becoming a proper Jewish girl after all. Slowly but surely.

Anyway, we’ll see who I end up with. Maybe an Em Oh Tee, maybe not. Only Hashem knows.

And three posts later, just starting up again after an extremely long Soprano-esque break where you start to forget why you even tune in in the first place, we’re still on the topic of … friends. On a dating blog. Sorry guys, I just get into these phases and become obsessed with things. That’s how I be. I’ll snap out of it soon.

Maybe I just “put my all into everything that I do”, which also happens to be my answer to “Tell us about your weaknesses” during job interviews when I turn a negative into a positive. “Well, I just work really, really hard. I get so focused and excited about what I’m doing that sometimes I have to remind myself that I can only do so much each day.” Then I fake laugh, trying to make it a professional fake laugh of course so that I can get the job so I can stop hating job searching and start hating the job itself. Not that I’m lazy, I just feel like I should be dating instead of working. And dating encompasses getting ready for dates and going on dates and daydreaming afterward about them and fantasizing about future ones. Dating isn’t a chop chop you’re done experience.

I promise I’ll get back to the mensss soon enough though. And at least we’re on the right track with this post, since we’re talking about friends that become scarily like your man. We’re talking about the one you know even without asking that you’ll be hanging out at least one weekend night with. The one you say, “Of course you are” to whatever she’s going through because you’re going through the exact same thing too. “I’m really into Indian guys lately.” “Of course you are, because I recently acquired somewhat of an Indian entourage myself.” We’re talking about… your Everything.

Your Everything is a friend with whom, and apparently it is ‘whom’ and not ‘who’ according to Word, you’re really, really close. I mean tiiiihhhhiiiight. An everything isn’t a something. They’re a be all end all. And it goes without saying that you can’t have multiple Everythings either. One, maybe two tops. There’s just not enough time in the day to do any more than that justice. A bitch gotta eat for Christ sake. (Don’t worry. I can say that because I’m Jewish. It’s fine. Just another figure of speech as far as I’m concerned. I mean, yes, the term does exist, but it just doesn’t have the same significance that it has to other people.)

An Everything will sneak up on you too. All of a sudden one day bam, you’ve got yourself an Everything. Without warning there’s suddenly someone else (not even a man so definitely not your man) that you’re talking to for hours on the phone and having the time of your life. All your inside jokes are their inside jokes and sometimes you can only talk to them because there’s a new language going on that only you two understand. If it hasn’t happened to you, it will one day, watch. (My Everything just happens to be Mexican, so these days I incorrectly add “watch” to the end of a lot of my sentences these days since we hang around so much and I pick up stuff.)

Now that’s not to say that life with an Everything is all rosy. Sometimes you get too close and fight like sisters. In my last argument with My Everything, she said and I quote, “I feel like I’m just not important in your life. You never have time for me anymore.” Ummm, sorry? Did I somehow just acquire a boyfriend without my knowledge? Like I said, serious business. Being an Everything is not for the faint of heart. And once you’ve made up, you’re still pissed at her that she’s not a guy. Thanks, thanks a lot ALICIA. Why can’t your name just be ALEX ? Would that be so hard? Gracias JANAYA. Can’t be JOHN huh? Too much for you?

An Everything will try to change you too, just like a real live boyfriend inevitably would. “Cherie, we have got to work on your lateness and your bad sense of direction.” And you want nothing more than to knock their block off you’re so livid, but, at the end of the day, you know they’ve got your back in a way that only an Everything can.

My intention here though is not to turn this into an Everything-bashing post. Not at all. I actually want to sing the praises of the oft-underappreciated Everything. Am I saying that just because my Everything is privy to all types of extremely classified information and could ruin me if she wanted to? Of course not. I love my Everything. Just want you to have a realistic view of what it’s like.

So, as I’m sure you’ve ascertained, Everythings share EVERYTHING. It ain’t no fun if your homie can’t have none. You share and tell all, and the feedback that comes back is brutally honest.

“Cherie, I’m sorry, but you’re dating down. You’re dating down! Stop it.” (When I was a waitress and ‘he’ was a cook and I had ‘waitress/cook syndrome’, a phenomenon running rampant in restaurants everywhere as we speak.)

An Everything will also help out in whatever way is necessary, like tirelessly concocting a plan to help you figure out what the guy you’re seeing does for a living when you don’t want to ask because you don’t want to be that superficial LA girl. Which you’re not, but you still need to know that information regardless. Does a ‘nice dinner’ mean Katsuya or Olive Garden? C’mon. That matters.

And with that Everything by your side, you’ll get to the bottom of things with that man in no time. “Oh, so you’re tired from work? What kind of tired are you? Do your feet hurt? (A sure sign of blue collar because they’ve been on them all day, unless they’re teachers and then still unfortunately blue collar thanks Republicans.) Or is it your eyes? (from a computer.) What hurts, eyes or feet? Eyes or feet!? Just wanna hear about your day is all.”

But the Everything duty to end all duties is participation in a reconnaissance mission. Recon is what sets an Everything apart from the rest. These are missions of the utmost importance, and one wrong move could blow the whole operation. They require the services of someone you trust 100%, and your Everything is that person to devise and strategize with you. It comes with the title.

Performing reconnaissance can take many forms. Maybe you’re asked to go undercover one night at a karaoke bar where the target man will be and say something like “Great article the other day! Alicia was laughing so hard when she read it.” Obviously, it’s then a given that you are to report back immediately not only a word for word transcript of the conversation that ensued, but also an intelligent analysis of his non-verbal reaction. “Well, how did he look when you said that? What was his tone?” And you best have answers.

Or maybe you’re to gather intel by following a car. I won’t say who (to protect the embarrassed), but one time, one of us actually wore a wig while the other frantically trailed an ex-boyfriend’s car to find out which club he was going to so one of us could “bump into him’ that night. See, that’s the thing. An Everything will never tell which one of us it was because it doesn’t matter. Whether you’re a head honcho or just a wingman in a particular situation, chances are the roles will be reversed next time.

Anyway, we achieved smashing success during that Operation Ex. We ended up giving the ex-boyfriend a ride back to his house in the very car we had used to trail him a couple hours earlier. Later that night, standing outside on his balcony, this time seeing it from the inside rather than the outside, we laughed and laughed. “About nothing ex boyfriend, don’t you worry about why we’re laughing. Mind your business.” It was a risky mission sure, but sometimes the higher the risk, the higher the reward. And we completed the job like true professionals. Quite impressive if I do say so myself. Reconnaissance mission fully accomplished.

And, in true Everything form, the other one kept quiet a couple of months later when one of us said, “Remember when we ran into my ex-boyfriend? That was fun.” No reason to point out the slight distortion of the facts.

Now I know in the near future I’ll have various My Boyfriends and hopefully only one My Husband and six My Kids, but for the time being, I’m pretty happy with My Everything.

Friend break ups are the worst.

I had to break things off with my writing partner slash coworker slash new friend about a month ago, and it was not pretty. We had barely started our book, a guide for women on how to thrive in the workplace, when I nipped it in the bud. I had that “Uhh oohh, abort abort!” moment pretty quickly on too. Definitely not meant to be.

First of all, I realized that I’m no expert on succeeding in the workplace. Don’t look at me, I’m the last person you should be asking. I still can’t figure out how to make work work for me, if you really want to know the truth. How do people do it day in and day out? I can’t seem to muster up the enthusiasm personally. Plus, I know even less about The Man than I do about Men, so why be a poser and fake the funk?

Secondly, I see writing as more of a solo sport, like swimming. I understand that some creative ventures take two to tango, like Flight of the Conchords (which I’m very thankful for by the way, since what would a workday be like without a daily rendition of ‘Business Time‘?), but writing isn’t one of them in my book. When it comes to writing, I’m just not the commitment type. I’m a solitary rolling stone writer who gathers no moss because she never has writing partners or the drama that accompanies them to create the moss. That’s me. I know thyself.

So I should have known better than to get wrapped up in this whole partnership thing, even if it did start out innocently enough. But it just happened. Came about when I least expected it. We were working together, started joking around one day about women in the workfarce, and next thing I knew, I had committed to writing a book on the subject and to “one day being on Oprah!”

I must admit, I was all riled up too at first, since my now ex-writing partner has a strong connection to a top literary agent. I was having visions of my life as a famous writer effortlessly popping out one book a year and having free time for days floating around in my head. I would have so much free time that even my free time would have free time. It would be great.

But I came back to reality soon enough, and started planning my whole ‘this isn’t working out writing partner it’s not you it’s me’ speech. Which actually turned out really well, even though I didn’t end up using any of it and instead decided to blurt out the second I saw her “I just can’t do this anymore! I’m sorry, I really thought I could at the beginning, but I can’t. I just can’t. Things change, you know? People change.”

She tried to convince me that this was a partnership worth fighting for since we work so well together, but I was strong and stuck to my guns. That is, of course, until she started crying. As soon as the tears came out, I lost my will entirely and basically retracted everything I had previously said. Anything to stop the uncomfortableness. I was giving weird pats on the back and saying things like, “No, I didn’t mean it like that! Maybe this can work out. Don’t cry. Of course we’re still partners! I was just kidding. Everything’s fine!”

And for some odd reason, this story has captured the fascination of all my friends, even more so it seems than a real break up story involving an actual man would have. Maybe because it’s too close for comfort, and they know that a friend break up could happen to us one day too? I don’t know. What I do know however is that everybody absolutely has to know how she’s taking it.

Of course, I’m happy to oblige. “I told her over and over again that I was really busy at work and just don’t have the time right now, but she wouldn’t listen! You know how writing partners are. They’re hard-wired to be like that.” I tell them how she came to pick up her books from my house the next day and how we small talked, but it just wasn’t the same. Then we move on to discussions about how I need to get out there and start writing again, as unnatural as it may feel.

So if you’re like me and are not feeling this post as much as others, just remember that I’m still dealing with a break up, albeit a friend one. I’m forcing myself to write, as I’ve been told the best way to get over a book that didn’t work out is with a new one. And even when you’re the break upper and not the break uppee, it’s still tough. It might take a while before I’m back to my old self again.

Recently a close friend of mine, who deserves only the best life has to offer, found out that her husband who she’s been with for nine years has been cheating on her. Not with one woman that he’s leaving her for, (which in some weird way might make it better?), but with many a hoe. Now normally I don’t like to use the word hoe as I’m all about womyn power, but come on. If you’re running around whimsically sleeping with married men just for the hell of it, you a hoe, I’m sorry. You’ll get yours too. What goes around comes around.

So come to find out, her husband had been with three other women in the past year, provided he’s telling the truth the whole truth and nothing but. But honestly, who really knows? He could easily be sugar-coating as the number three (having slept with one) sure sounds a lot better than the number eight (having slept with eight).

I guess I shouldn’t be so shocked though, seeing as he is in “the industry”. For all you non-Angelenos, (a.k.a. normal people), ‘the industry’ is just shorthand for ‘the lala movie fantasy world where men never have to grow up and just sleep with young actresses and makeup artists while their wives are at home taking care of the kids and getting botox.’ ‘The industry’ is a pure breeding ground for cheating and infidelity and is right next to Planet Kobe, where all the professional athletes live.

How did she find out, you ask? Not because he finally broke down one day, overcome by his guilty conscience mind you, but because a shady lady made her affair with the husband known. A lesser-than-phenomenal woman (the nice way of saying a trick ass hoe), who my friend had previously thanked for ‘taking care of her husband’ while he was sick on location in China. Thanks so much. You’re too kind. No seriously.

When she first found out, her initial reaction wasn’t anger either, but mainly just shock. Her friends were livid, (oh we were up in arms!), but she was just dumbfounded and sad, like someone had punched her in the stomach. Which I completely understand, because I recently had the joyful experience of having someone I thought was a good friend get me fired from my job. ‘That girl’, as I refer to her now, even sunk so low as to act like she had no idea I was about to get fired that day and offered to treat me to lunch. Honestly, there are just no words when someone you trust does you like that. You feel like they just stuck a knife in you, smiled in your face, and then twisted it. Oh well, it takes all types I guess. And seeing as she was not ‘my husband’ either, but rather simply ‘that girl’, the betrayal must feel a million times worse for my friend too.

She really has an amazing attitude though. She “feels more alive than ever now” and “accepts that this happened because how boring would life be if everything always stayed exactly the same?” She’s completely focusing on the positive, which is great. I’m just not so sure I would be able to be like that right off the bat though. Even though I’m on the periphery of the whole situation, I’m still really hurt by what her husband did. I couldn’t sleep for days after he cheated on us. Not impressed.

The fact that he’s being so logical about everything doesn’t help matters either. His response to why he cheated is that he wasn’t thinking at all. He “didn’t mean to hurt her”, and just basically thought he could live two separate lives and she would never be the wiser. No harm, no foul, right?

I’m thinking that maybe men and women just are different in the way they process things? Like night and day? Apples and oranges?

I don’t know though. It takes a certain person to blatantly disrespect the partner he vowed to love his whole life and have sex with random girls in their bed. His actions show how much he treasured their sacred union. To me, he made a mockery of their whole relationship, all the while being slick about it and weaving in truth with the lies. Before he got caught, he told my friend that he and the cheater girl had been working at the house so often, their doorman probably thought the two of them were having an affair.

My friend is having a really hard time turning off the nurturing, supportive side most of us women have. If there’s a problem, we want to help and be there for you. Even after finding out, she was so used to thinking of the two of them as a team that she started making a list for the husband to do when he got back to the States. You see, he had conveniently waited until she was halfway around the world visiting him on a shoot in China to have the cheating be exposed.

Here’s how she started the list before realizing how asinine she was being:

1. Get ride home from airport
2. Find apartment.

I kind of want to finish that list for him.

3. Pick clothes up from sidewalk
4. Dodge slaps and pinches from Cherie Amour
5. Call Mom. Tell her I got a divorce.

That’s not to say I don’t understand her reaction. I can see myself doing the exact same thing. Love isn’t rational. It doesn’t make sense. Psychologists say that when we fall in love our bodies produce the same chemicals as when we’re mentally ill. Because we basically are. We’re either lovesick or dying of a broken heart. Love is serious business.

And even after this, I’m still a firm believer in a lifelong, loving relationship between two people. There have simply got to be men out there who still believe in the convention of marriage and value the beauty of honoring your wife and the commitment you made to each other. Men who purposely avoid temptation. Men like Paul Newman, who once said “Why go out for fast food when there’s steak at home?” Men like my Pop-pop, who never stopped idolizing my Grandma. Men like the Gladiator. (Hey don’t judge me, I live in LA remember? I’m a product of my environment!)

So my friend has decided to do couples’ therapy and see what happens. She wants to try everything possible before throwing in the towel, since this is a marriage after all. Her husband better step up to the plate pretty soon though, because she’s really falling out love fast. And once you pass a certain point, I’m not sure how easy it is to get those feelings back. His attempt might be too little too late. A day late and a dollar short. Buh bye. See ya.  Later skater.

Lest you think her husband got off too easy though, here’s a little story you might enjoy to renew your faith that all is right in the world. Her husband, so tired of spending the night in a sleeping bag on his new apartment floor, went to Walgreens at five in the morning and ended up getting a dog bed to sleep on. Now I’m not quite sure about the details, (i.e. Is he using it as a pillow, or is he curled up in it?), but regardless, I sure do like that story. Face! You made your dog bed first husband. Now lie in it. Hmmmm, maybe G-d really is a woman after all.

So there you have it. Apparently there are men, and then there are good men. And never the twain shall meet.

from my hiatus. Finally. I mean WTF Cherie Amour? How are you just going to one day STOP writing on your blog and turn your dating daze into never ending hardworking work days that blend into each other and all seem exactly the same and forget about men altogether. But, as ri-dick-ulous as that sounds (sorry, the hiatus has been so long that I’ve basically turned into a perv like one of those high school boys that never gets any and and all he thinks about is sex), but anyway, as ri-dick-ulous as that sounds, that’s exactly what I did.

I wasn’t going out. I broke out like a thirteen year old boy. I got snacks and stopped trying. I was (shockingly enough that I even had the opportunity to do so) turning down boys left and right in the supermarket (which apparently is the new bar and the new place to pick up snacks girls in their glasses buying up a balancey type bar for dinner before they get back in front of a computer because they’re computer nerds now and that’s what they do and are turning down your advances because the mere thought of getting ready for a date is utterly exhausting.) Yeah, it was pretty bad.

So today I just decided to stop it. Just STOP. And collaborate and listen, cuz I’m back with a brand new invention. Somethin, grabbed a hold of me tightly, flowed like a harpoon daily and nightly. There was a problem and it was time for me to solve it, check out the hook while my dj revolves it. Cherie Cherie baby, I’m baaaaaack, I’m baaaaaaack.