In which I talk about my feelings.

Personal time: I broke up with my boyfriend of 6 years roughly two years ago. It was a good decision, and though it sucked pretty hardcore at the time (especially since we still lived together), we were good enough friends that we moved past it and are still really close. After all, we've seen each other naked.

So after we broke up, I was all, "Cool, it's just going to be raining dicks now, right? I'm going to make up for all that time I was in a monogamous relationship, and really LIVING life like those wonderful skags on Sex and the City, right?"

WRONG.

Sure, there was a story or two to titter over with the girls, but nothing that led to anything more extreme than some heavy petting. That's what the old folks call it, right? Heavy petting? Is that over the clothes or under the clothes?

Both?

I forgot to mention the six-month on-and-off game of cat and mouse with an emotionally retarded asshole that I used to see back in the day, a game which I ultimately lost, but that's probably because I've tried block it out and pretend it never happened.

I wish this was the reason it didn't end well.

In order to "get back out there," back into the dating game, which, incidentally, I never really played, I joined a dating website. At first, I was all, "Oh man, look at all these cute dudes living in my town, they've got jobs and hobbies and like the same movies I do!" But as each cautious attempt to connect with these guys was met with silence, or worse, awkward meetings where I did all the talking, I have become more and more cynical about actually meeting someone who I respect and don't find pretentious or boring. Or who isn't in a relationship already. Or married. Or has a kid. Can you be simultaneously desperate and picky?

I'm usually so decisive...

What I've come to realize is that, much to my own chagrin, I'm going to have to be okay with myself, by myself, for a while. Ugh. What a prospect.

This is going to be a ridiculously difficult project; life already has me pretty pissed off, what with the traffic ticket and getting fired from one of my jobs, two things that were simultaneously my fault and did not have to be taken to that extreme conclusion. These incidents have left me feeling a lot of moral outrage, but have also nearly crippled my sense of self-worth, the little that I had left after graduating with a useless degree and $15,000 of debt. It's a mean little voice that asks why I can't seem to handle real-life situations without doing it wrong and also cruelly implies that I will never get off my parents' couch.

I had so many dreams...

I'm just shy of accepting the impending spinsterhood, and have already planned on which shelters I'm going to adopt my eight cats and three dogs from. My only hope?

Or it would be if the dude Terry McMillan wrote about didn't divorce her and claim to be gay.