I previously wrote that I would not have the savvy nor the energy to pull off dating two men at once. After posting it, I wondered if I was in fact sure of this. And if this was the definitive answer, why wasn’t it possible for me? Furthermore, shouldn’t we all consider doing it?

Unfortunately, this is sounding dangerously close to that horrible book that outlined the rules that women needed to follow in order to find their perfect mate. 

While I think that book is absolute garbage, there is something to be said for exploring one’s options before making a final decision.

When it comes down to it, I think about all the decisions I’ve made in haste over the years, some of which have been more detrimental than others.

I look back at these and remember how difficult it was and how long it took to reverse the damage done in a fraction of a second. 

Whether it was extra portions that lead to extra trips to the gym, or saying “I do” as opposed to “I think we need to work out some of these issues before we proceed,” the result was always me having to shift gears and try my damndest to get out of the quicksand before being completely enveloped.

I may not yet have the wherewithal, but whenever I should find myself back in the game, I’d going to make sure I am able to pull off a double-header.

They say the definition of insanity is to repeat the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. Sometimes I wonder if dating is a form of insanity.

Think about it: We date, over and over again – perhaps falling into some form of love (I'm still working on defining the word) – and ultimately, at least thus far, it all falls apart, leaving us feeling empty, broken, despondent, depressed and longing for more.
 
We repeat this process over and over, each time expecting a different result.
 
Each time, we hope that this time it will be different. This time it will work out. This time I've found my prince charming.

My relationship with the new guy is going well, so well in fact that I find myself frightened. So well that I think I may purposely screw it up, just so that I can remain in control.
 
That's the scariest part of a relationship, I think: the feeling that you are out of control. If you fall in love with someone, you give them the power to hurt you.
 
I don't want to be hurt again.

I can't allow myself to be hurt again.

I know this.

I know how far I've come since Levi, and I marvel at it sometimes. I am good now. I am at peace now. I am content now.
 
What I don’t need right now is this giddy, makes-me-want-to-throw-up, happy, butterflies-in-my-stomach feeling.

This waking up next to someone, and reveling in it.
 
These dinners and conversations.
 
This falling in love.

I know he's it, my next big thing. Big heartache or big disappointment or big ... something.
 
It's like I'm on a roller coaster headed for a brick wall, I know I should jump off, but I'm having so much fun that I’ve decided to wait until the absolute last moment.
 
I do not need this right now, but, at the same time, I cannot stop it.

So I'm having my coffee, typing away, and rushing to leave in time for the early exercise class, when my workout buddy Vi, a fellow single mom, calls and says we have an emergency.

She asks anxiously, "Do you know how to tie a tie?"

"Of course." I mean, I think of course.

Her son, who just graduated from college, had his first real interview in an hour, and her live-in boyfriend had left for work.

"No problem, I'm on the way."

I always say "No problem" even if it is a problem.

I have lived with men most of my life and, rushing over to her house, I was reviewing "Tie 101" in my head.

But, when I got there, before I experimented on her son, I felt I needed to tie one on myself first.

Let's see: skinny part in the left hand, then wrap the thicker side with the right hand around twice, and come back up though the collar loop, and stuff it down under this wraparound part, and out the other side and pull.

Voila!

But I'm choking, and the tie is up to my breasts.

I try again — and again — and again.

How could I forget this?

Apparently living solo with a daughter and not watching men get dressed up anymore has taken it's toll.

I decide to try it around his neck the next four attempts: too short, too square,
too tight, too too.

This handsome young man was being very patient. I could not let him down.

So I grabbed the tie off his neck and tried it on myself one more time -- I know this thing should just slide on and off.

Aha! I have made a classic tie.

I slip it off my neck and onto his and it was perfect!

I wanted to follow him to the interview, just to see if anyone noticed or commented about how crisp his tie looked.

I am relieved.

However, just to be sure I keep my skills fresh, I've decided to start inviting more men over to watch them "get dressed."

(Wink)

Sara Muse of Belleview, Nebraska, behaved within the bounds of propriety in her conservative state. She dated her husband for a year before getting engaged. They did not live together before they married. She didn't get pregnant until after they were married.

 "We played by all the rules," she says. "Our marriage had the typical gender rules. I took care of the household chores. I cooked, cleaned, took care of the home. 

“We both worked outside of the home.  He took care of the outside yard work, car maintenance, and I took care of the inside.”

But then their daughter came along. Sara was 20 when Rhyanne was born, but despite her youth, she says, “I was prepared to be a parent.”

Her husband, she says, was not. “He wanted to live the bachelor’s life and do his own things.”

They divorced a year ago, when Rhyanne was 2.

She notes that she thought it would be easier to be a real single mom than to be married and act like a single mom.

“And I was right,” she says. Her ex-husband eventually admitted that he was scared by the idea of having a child.
 
How did this happen to her, she wondered. She had followed all the rules and still wound up divorced.

“My parents just celebrated their 30th anniversary and they played by the same rules I did,” she says, “dating, marriage, waiting for a child.”

“I kind of tried to follow in those footsteps and it didn’t work out.”

What bothers her most, she says, is “I felt like I just didn’t let myself down but also my friends and family."

(In the last part: What Sara learned)

Last weekend, I decided to take an impromptu break from reality and travel to the far away land of Philadelphia. I went to visit my friend Jennifer, who has, like me, had the great misfortune of being banished to the suburbs for the summer.

During the course of the weekend, I was reminded of our time together as struggling students. These memories led me to think about the future, and how I am handling the next chapter of my life.

Many of the associates I have made in the last two years have faded away. Most of them, I decided, were dead weight as I was headed into the future.

But that future has not begun to shine are brightly as I had anticipated when I moved to NY to attend school.

At times I wish it was a bit less of a struggle.

Sunday morning Jenn and I decided to go for breakfast, which was more of a task than either of us had anticipated. Apparently, the suburbs of the fifth largest city in the U.S. don’t unroll their sidewalks on Sunday until after 10 am.

Twelve dollars and a very interesting cab ride later, we found ourselves at the other end of the city in a diner that had every character you could imagine. Every possible character you could possibly imagine was a local at this joint, but the cream of the crop was our waitress, who had the two of us in stitches as soon as we sat down. Shortly after assuming our positions at the counter, our waitress caught one of the male patrons being less than subtle with his glances. Her disapproval of his behavior was all over her face. “I just hate the fact that men don’t even feel the need to be subtle about their attraction anymore,” she complained audibly. “A short glance is sexy, but just to ogle is downright tacky – and rude.”

Ah, the staring.

In my trips to the supermarket in upstate New York, I have noticed that men stare – a lot. We’re not talking a quick glance, either.

Single parenting is stress. It is about learning how to juggle and balance your life. It is about learning to expect the unexpected. It is 2 AM trips to the Emergency Room, all alone.

It is explaining to your boss that you can't come in to work, again. It's about scrounging change to buy diapers. It's about driving to the local Family Court (who named it that anyway?) and filling out form after form.

It's about sitting in court houses for hours and hours only to end up with some stupid piece of useless paper.

Single parenting is frustrating. It's about feeling as if you never have one second to yourself. It's never being allowed to shut the bathroom door – ever.

It's never being able to blast loud music in your car with the windows down. It's never having time to talk to, or see, your friends.

It's not having a hair cut in two years.

Single parenting is frantic. It's leaving your house and realizing that you've got two different shoes on, or worse, you don't have on any shoes at all.

It's rushing through the grocery store at 7 AM, so that you can get in enough hours at work. It's rushing to pick your kid up at daycare so that they don't charge you the one-dollar per minute late fee after 6 PM.

Single parenting is lonely. Single parenting is single. There are times when it feels like there is nobody on Earth who could possibly understand how you feel.

Single parenting is depressing. It's about taking your kid to the park and seeing all of the happy families. It is about seeing a father play with his son and wanting to throw up.

Single parenting is embarrassing. It's about waiting for that dreaded question, "Where's his father?" or, even worse, comments like, "Oh his father must be so proud!"

It's about wishing that people were more sensitive to holidays like Fathers Fay and Mothers Day.

Bellevue is called "The Birthplace of Nebraska," and there could not be a better place to exemplify the Heartland of America. What is it like to be a divorced woman in this small city, surrounded by farms, churches, a neighboring Air Force Base, a place where folks are friendly, patriotism is abundant, and conservatism reigns.

Sara Muse, 23, knows what it is like to endure a divorce in this conservative part of the country, and she knows what it’s like to do it with a 3-year-old daughter, Rhyanne, in tow.

"I was married for about a year and a half before she was born," Sara says. Her eyes light up when she speaks about Rhyanne, whom she has essentially been raising by herself since her divorce a year ago.

"He sees her a couple of times a month … at my house, not at his. He'll come over for a few hours and then leave. He doesn't take her overnight."

Sara does not fit the stereotypical image of a divorced woman, and a single mother. She’s a Staff Sergeant in the U.S. Air Force and a semester away from earning her bachelor's degree in marketing management.

She volunteers, and is active in her church. "When I first separated I was 21 with a small child, and I was walking around with no ring on my finger,” she says.

“People will look at you and the child, then your hand and there’s just this, 'How old are you? Did you get pregnant in high school? Did you make a mistake? Did you not play by the rules?'"

She’s also heard people say, “Oh you are so young to already be divorced.”

She says, “Like I’m starting on this path to five or six husbands."

Check back tomorrow for the story of Sara’s marriage

Seven sexless months into my separation from Sam I found that the saying “necessity is the mother of invention” is more than a meaningless cliché. 

I’m at my friend Heidi’s and my daughter Lila is shadowing Heidi’s son, George. Lila adores George, who is 3. So George and Lila jump off chairs and laugh, George in his blond hair, Superman boxers, Buzz Light Year shades and nothing else.

Heidi and I are at the table, steam rising from our teacups. Heidi makes a mean cup of green tea. And she used to sell sex toys.

She was a rep with one of those companies that hosts in-house parties, like Tupperware, but with vibrators and nipple nibbler cream, instead of airtight leftover containers.

Somewhere in her house is this box of lonely, untouched sex toys, and I’m a separated single mom and I haven’t sex in seven months. I lean forward. I need that box.

I’ve been asking for months. Where is that box, girl? And, she’s stumped. She knows she put it somewhere... back of a closet, behind her husband’s guitars... but where?

Didn’t she see those capital letters forming over my head when I spoke: WHERE? (By “where” I was saying “urgent.”)

It was almost time to get Roxie on her way, but I was not leaving empty handed.

“You need to find the box,” I say, and now I say “the box” and we both know what I’m talking about. “I’m going to rip your house apart, girl. Seven Months. It’s been seven months,” I say. “Seriously, I’m going to rip the walls out to find that box.”

She says, “Oh my god, I forgot to tell you. I found it!.”

A pause.

“Oh my god. Seven months. I’m so sorry. That’s so long.”

In the back corner of the closet is a pretty pink case with white polka-dots, filled with black satin bags that are stuffed with vibrators.