THE BRAINWASHING OF THE HEART OF L-----.

It's gotten to the point where I dread talking to my most beloved friends. Particularly with the girls, there is NO way to pass the 4 minute mark without a question being shot directly at my ego about who I'm dating or if I'm not, an explanation (short essay) of why not. It's become a sickening mental game of "Boiling Point". Today: Janet. Boiling point... 12 minutes. She spared me, which only tells me one thing... she's single too.

I have been with couples nonstop for the past few weeks. So it only seems natural to wonder why one of these things is not like the others. The short-list roster: My friend from law school and her husband. My pan-continental partner in crime and her fiance. My Vegas satellite and her husband. My bar study buddy and *her* now-husband. Another law school girlfriend and her new fiance. I'm only stopping the count because I might launch into an anxiety attack. And if that's not enough salt in the wound, honk honk, beep beep, up pulls a rental Mercury Sable with my sis and the love of her life.

Yes, love even looks good in an old man mobile.

I swear, I did not get the memo. I have NO idea how people do this. I was a huge old-school Disney fan (Snow White- black hair, white skin? Hello. That's ME!), so Jon's (www.hyperwest.net/anachronic) recent examination of this clear-cut direct-market brainwashing of L---- (that's me, too) was enlightening. Are my standards just a convoluted bipidy-boppity-boo?

The idea of being paired up with someone has always made me a little nervous. When I wore my gray velvet dress and do-si-doe'd with Brian B. in third grade... sweat. When I had to seventh-grade slow-dance with Chad and yet keep good posture in my tie-died Skort...panic. When I had to fake marry Josh G. for our Family Matters class in high school, we lived 'parallel lives' and our love fern quickly died in my locker. My most durable relationship to date with a man has been with George Michael; and yes, it is entirely possible that this fact alone prompted his coming out of the closet.

There are not many things that scare me, but alongside sharks, snakes, and six-toed human beings is the idea of putting my heart on the line like that.