we all play games -- we play them to get into each other's pants, into each other's heads, into each other's hearts, and when it comes to love and sex and dating -- we all make saints of our senators and i am no exception because i've spent the last 12 months working on my game, which until recently was that i had no game, you see, first there was my roommate good smelling, long-haired, leather jacketed, bad boy that mama warned me about but i just can't help myself, craig: just because someone lets you see other people doesn't mean they respect your liberty and independence, no, sometimes it means they don't give a shit as long as they're getting off, and the sex was only mediocre and it really sucked when the condom came off and i'm the one who had to take all the fucking hormones and had to spend two days puking in an effort to avoid motherhood but anyway, he dumped me for a girl who works at hooters which shows what an idiot he is, then, twelve hours later, there was my other roommate (slutty, i know, very slutty), mike, who told me that he was a virgin but who never told me that he was an obsessive compulsive who roamed our house at night checking the locks and the stove and it was weird because he treated me like a goddess, he said that he loved me, that i was beautiful and i always felt guilty that i wasn't in love with him, that i couldn't say it anyway and i really hoped that i would learn to love him but it was making me crazy because he always wanted more from me--more than i even had in me, but in the end he used another woman--in our house no less, to sabotage his own happiness and he didn't realize that he sabotaged mine as well because i lost my home because of him, because of him coming and standing at the foot of my bed checking me like the stove or the locks to see if i would try to love him again and in addition to my comfortable home i also lost most of the rest of the faith that i had in love and in its mystical powers to give us strength in the face of adversity and to -- i digress and i must tell you that a week later there was scott, and he was part revenge and part desire, a friend that i had wanted for a long time and we were suddenly, conveniently both single and it was the opening night of his play which i had assistant directed and the champagne was flowing liberally that night, but i was sober and he wasn't so very drunk as he likes to think, i'm sure and when we were in the darkened theatre and our clothes were melting effortlessly off of our bodies he said things like "i don't want to be the rebound guy" and "i can see how easy it would be to fall in love with you," and i am such an idiot that i believed it all but mike called him one time too many and it was more than he could handle so he practically left skidmarks on his way back to his old girlfriend and he said it was because he valued our friendship but he didn't tell me that they were together again until i got drunk and threw myself at him and our mutual friends witnessed it and he injured my pride like no one else ever has and i don't value our friendship any more and i actually like his new-old girlfriend but i can't really be friends with her because i'll always wonder if she knows that the only reason that we didn't screw right there on the stage was that we didn't have a condom and not that he's some noble prince or anything and for about two months after this no one wanted me who wasn't really old, like older than my father, or just plain freaked out beyond all belief and i felt like a garden slug and so i threw myself into my work at the theatre and i smoked a lot of pot and a lot of cigarettes and i read a lot and i got a new job and i lost 20 pounds and that's enough to keep you busy for a while and some of my friends said to keep off of the boys and not to date until i was no longer emotionally reeling but i was so used to emotional reeling that i didn't know the difference anymore and i also figured that if we all waited until we had our heads on totally straight, so straight you could calibrate scientific equipment then we would all be alone and the human race would die out and i continued to have just a little bit of hope left after craig and mike and scott and i was bored and it was summer so there was nothing new on tv and i ran into an old college chum now living here and he was jason, who stopped calling and i didn't know why but we'll get back to him later but nearly at the same time, (well, overlapping anyway because i had to wear one of those summer weight, short sleeved, mock turtlenecks on our first date to hide the marks jason left on my sensitive, easy-to-bruise neck, you do the math) there was randy who really also valued my friendship but who hasn't called me once since we broke up and that's okay with me because while he was intellectually the most compatible man i have ever known, he isn't the kind of guy who would ever take me on the kitchen table, i mean for god's sake, he wouldn't even kiss in public and i told him the same thing i'm telling you and that's "i don't want anyone who doesn't want me," but we know that's a lie even if he's not smart enough to know the difference and i really had a tenderness for him and i think that might have been my last chance to fall in love for a very long time because he really led me on and it sort of took me by surprise when he dumped me and i think that my last spark of faith in love may have died out and i'm damned if i know how to relate it but i persist in dating because, well i don't know why really but jason came to the theatre to see me and i was tending bar that night and mike (the second roommate, the crazy, cheating roommate, just in case you've forgotten) had already been there crying and asking for a second chance and wishing me happy birthday a week in advance and giving me the last of my mail and so i was in the shittiest mood imaginable when jason showed up and it just felt good to know that there was someone out there that wanted me and he said that he had been out of town for work for 4 weeks, so i started hanging out with him but keeping it platonic and then i went out with doug who is, frankly, a catch and a swell guy and a homeowner with a cat and a dog and very intelligent and sweet and eager to please and boring as hell and there was also mark who smelled good but turned out to be homophobic as hell and whose biological clock is ticking so loudly that it keeps him awake at night and all this juggling three guys was way more effort than it's worth and when you see three guys you can't sleep with one of them because that's not fair and you can't sleep with all of them because that's slutty so i told my friend, troy, who is smart enough to not want me, that i was going to break up with all of them and i did break up with mark but then i was over at jason's and i got up and he pushed me up against the wall and kissed me and then carried me upstairs to his bed and it was the best sex that i have ever had and the first time that i have ever had an orgasm through anything but oral sex or a vibrator and i am a slave to my hormones in the fall when the cold is coming and i start nesting and i get skin-hungry and i guess that now i am being unfair and i told jason that if this didn't work out we were not going to be friends because i have enough damn friends and we are still having sex whenever we can but it's strange for me to know that i can show up at his door at pretty much anytime and just have him and i still haven't broken things off with doug, even though i know that he could easily fall in love with me and i actually lied to him about sex with jason but since doug has never bought me dinner or anything i guess i don't owe him but i really hate existing in this morally nebulous place and i can't believe that jason puts up with this crap either and i don't really respect him for that but i'm totally cock-whipped and on those rare occasions that he says something tender or sentimental i cringe inwardly and clench my jaw and i realize just how cold-hearted i have become and i told him this morning not to count on me and not to fall in love with me but at the same time i do know one man that i could fall in love with but i am way too scared to ever even broach beyond the boundaries of our comfortable, yet new friendship because what if i'm wrong and i can't fall in love with him and then i fuckup this friendship as well so maybe it's better to be unrequited until i am certain but what if the light is truly out and can't be relit and i see now what they mean when they say that sending an innocent man to reform washington is like sending a virgin to reform a brothel.