Having a long distance relationship was great. Before. Had we not lived 3,000 miles away from each other, we wouldn't have made it past a month. I would have cut and run. He would have cut and run. We would have gone too fast — with feelings that strong, that quick — panicked, and fled. The distance forced us to take it slow. The distance did much to quell my panic. The distance kept me from feeling I was giving anything up. 

But now — now it's harder. 

Here's the problem with falling in love again: You get lonely. I like living alone. I like coming home and having a quiet apartment, my cats, my space — but now I find that once I've had a couple days — or, sometimes, a couple hours — of that, I want him here.

I'm not lonely because I don't enjoy my own company, but because I want his. I like knowing what he's done with his day. I want to be able to have a minute with someone who loves me after a difficult day. I want to go to sleep and know that I'll see him when I wake up.

Feeling this way is scary. Because loving someone means you give up being perfectly fine on your own. It means there's someone to miss. It means that you start to count on someone other that yourself.

There are times I don't want to be in that position. There's a lot we give up when we open ourselves up to someone. Sometimes, that's a tough trade. 

I had a fun reunion in Dallas with a divorced gal pal I just love. We caught up over lunch about everything including her social life. They're either looking' for a nurse or a purse, she said point blank. I spit out my soup. When she told me her sister just sent her and her contractor a three year anniversary card, I snorted my salad.

What's going on around the country with divorced women with respect to their social lives really runs the gamut of emotions at different times.

This particular sweet potato has been in a couple serious relationships since her divorce back when, then she attempted some online and offline dates but they weren't working out.

She realized the problem too. HER. She just didn't give two craps. I think that was a quote.

She wished she did she said, but she didn't. So she stopped dating and started picking up men — in her pick-up truck — to work at her house and then go home.

Her contractor is the current man in her life and apparently its been going on for awhile. Three years is awhile, no?

But she explained, even a steady contractor can go MIA on occasion forcing you to find a replacement.

She told me she was so excited about a recent available contractor, he thought she was coming on to him.

Something tells me it may have had something to do with her opening line — "Show me your rock hard sheet rock baby!"

Some contractors even play hard to get she said, which is why her pick up line is of choice is? ... "Hey I've got a pick-up!"

So now we know.

Some women are out there flashing sexy legs and cleavage to attract men...others are out there flashing pick-up trucks to attract day workers.

To each her own.

Attitude is everything!

Debbie

To email Debbie: [email protected]

Okay. I haven't written about the boyfriend in a while. Truth be told, I haven't wanted to jinx it. Things have been going so smoothly I sometimes wonder if there's something wrong?

In the past, I've kept my finger on the pulse of my relationships. If the heart wasn't racing so hard one of us was in danger of a heart attack, then the relationship didn't seem real. It was all emergency-room experiences.

Reality was at such a high pitch, such a fevered pace, there wasn't any down time or room for ambiguity.

Maybe it's maturity. Maybe I'm just exhausted post-divorce, but my new boyfriend and I have a rhythm that's positively lethargic. I'm loving it.

Here's the 411: I'm so busy rushing around with kids, job, music and meetings, that when I make a date with Mr. Right these days, I'm finding peaceful relaxation, safety, security, and the warm-fuzzies are what I'm looking for. Not a racing pulse.

First, I never worry where I stand. He thinks I'm wonderful all the time. Second, whenever I ask, "Would you like to go to such and such?" his response is always, "Are you going to be there?"

He continually assures me that the largest measure of his happiness has to do with being near me.

I remember when I was in my 20s, writing about how I needed a wife. That just goes to show how lowly the position was back then, because I was writing about needing someone to do my laundry, scrub my floors, and cook my dinners.

While Mr. Right isn't angling for the wifey position, he isn't above helping me with household chores. And, he does yard work.

Now you're saying that this sounds too good to be true.

Although divorce has damaged me to the extent that I find it hard to think of a romantic future of more than a single day, I can honestly say that, from a new-age perspective, you really can dream your way to reality.

The family joke is that if I had stopped at two children, I'd be the most insufferable mother who ever lived. My two oldest daughters have never given me moment's pause — well maybe a few moments — but I saw none of the screaming, slammed doors, sullen withdrawals or general obnoxious teenaged behavior I've heard about (or exhibited myself as a self-absorbed young lass). Never had to set curfews, never had to mete out punishments for missing said curfews. How clueless I was.

But daughter number three — bless her little heart — has given me a run for the money from the very start. Didn't want to be born; we had to induce. Once born, she didn't want to leave my arms — or the house. Where most babies are lulled to sleep in their car seats, K would scream bloody murder the entire time. I remember one wretched ride where I compulsively kept reaching for the radio knob, as if that could turn her volume down.

Now it's just the opposite. At 15 with her first beau, it's all about The Boy, and she can't wait to get into his car. She doesn't want to spend any time with me — and certainly not with my beau and His Boy, four years younger. And I understand her need to be with her guy, her first love, so it's a delicate dance between her legitimate needs and ours.

So I thought she was being particularly magnanimous, when S and his son came over one Saturday afternoon and she agreed to go iceskating with us at a nearby rink. Afterwards, we came home, baked cookies together. When she said she'd like to skip going out to dinner with all of us to meet her guy, I thought it was a reasonable request. But S got a little pissy, which annoyed me, so I sweet talked her into it. We had a lovely dinner, then she went off with The Boy, S and I retreated up to my room for a movie, his son settled with video games downstairs.

I awoke at 3 am with a start. I was sure K was home by now, but something made me check.

Not in her room.

Ok, here's the latest cougar news — because everyone and their mother now thinks I am a cougar expert, except my own mother who may I remind you, I keep sending out of the country every time I am on the air somewhere talking about this. She is now a very frequent flier.

On Wednesday I was a guest on "Sex Files" on Sirius Satellite Radio Maxim Channel 108, which is hosted simultaneously by the lovely Anna David (out of NY) and the lovely Amy Spencer (out of LA). Every week they talk to men about sex, and this week's topic was "Dating & Cougars: How To Meet One, How To Woo One and How to Keep One Happy." No worries, I handled it.

Also on with us was Illona Paris, a sex therapist and self-described cougar, whose latest book out this week is called Hot Cougar Sex: Steamy Encounters with Younger Men. Her mother must live in Bora Bora.

She told hot stories. I tried to give warm advice but I used my every day Cougress voice. Wink. Listen to it here.

I should add that before allowing me up to the studios, for security purposes, I had to go through a "cat" scan. LOL — thought that was funny. Sort of purrfect timing.

Truthfully, the biggest thrill for me was hearing the show's hostesses with the mostesses, Anna and Amy, jump on board with my temporary new word for cougar — "Cougress," which I feel is at least a bit more feminine and a touch less harsh. By jove, I think I've started a movement.

Looking back, L's death was the point where things started to unravel, not just with my love affair with S, but with his family. It was so incremental that I wasn't sure if I was imagining things, perhaps subconsciously sabotaging the relationship because I was afraid of where it might lead. More likely that I didn't want to acknowledge that nagging question mark, simmering at the back of my mind. Which I really should know to trust by now. 

With L gone, I offered to host the first Thanksgiving without her and it went really well...except S and his siblings only invited his mother, not the step mom and dad as had been L's habit. Awkward. The sister stepped up to the plate for the holidays...but was put in the strange position of having to host both Christmas Eve and Day, identical menus, identical guests, but with the mom at one; dad and step mom at the other.

But the real shocker came a few months later at the annual benefit for the organization that L had co-founded, the one where S and I became an item. She was being honored that night for all the work she had done; her son was presenting the award.

And her widowed husband came with a date.

Trying to hide my shock at this, I glanced sideways at B, L's delightful son who I loved as much as my own daughters. "I hate her already," he said flatly, as he prepared for his speech. I looked at S, who shrugged as if to say: time to move on. I sure as hell wasn't ready to move on; obviously her children weren't either.

"Sometimes I fantasize about getting married again," I said to my friend Rachel. We both looked at each other stunned — even I couldn't believe the words that had just come out of my mouth.

"But," I continued, "I don't really see the point."

Both statements are true.

There is a part of me that dreams of sharing that bond with someone again. This is the more emotional part. But the other part — the more cynical part — says, why even bother?

Consider the cost of marriage (which can really be anywhere from fifty bucks to fifty thousand bucks — and even more if you're totally insane), factor in  the sky-high rate of divorce, then throw in the cost of getting a divorce. Truthfully, marriage can seem like nothing but a bad investment. And that does even cover the emotional energy that you'll spend, the heartbreak that you'll endure, or the cost of your therapist.

It's 2008, and the rules have changed. People live together for years without being married — something that once upon a time was frowned upon. Now, single women give birth to babies every day. Quite simply, times have changed and sometimes it seems that marriage is becoming more and more outdated.

But then why does that other piece of me yearn for it?

What is it about marriage that despite the obvious pain in the ass that it can be, that keeps up coming back for more?