Me and my boyfriend had a fight. We totally had to break up over it.

It was ok though, because we hadn’t met yet. It wasn’t like it was a big traumatic thing or anything. It was, however, more energy than I’ve ever put into a conversation with any man, let alone some dude I’m e-mailing on a dating site.

We were totally connecting in the beginning, and it was cool. He was all smart and in touch with his feelings ‘n stuff. Then he started taking a week to respond to my e-mails, even though he was logging on everyday. And I was like, WTF? Am I getting played online? That is so not happening to me. Plus, we’d been e-mailing for a month, and while I found his online persona engaging and all, I was like, seriously, I need to assess your skills in person so I know if this is a worthwhile investment. So I was like, Let’s meet, and he took five days to get back to me, and then he was like, I’m just so busy, but we can meet, and I was like, “Oh thank you for your approval (we can meet? seriously) and five days? I see you log on everyday. And busy? What exactly do you do at work for eight hours a day? Because I know your surfing the Net half the time, just like everybody else. Anyways, I didn’t say that to him.

But I did say, “Your response time is a little off-putting and my natural response is to be hesistant, as I don’t know you from Adam, Eve or Abraham or Curly, Moe or Larry.”

And then he was like, “I need to assess your response. This leads me to believe I possibly don’t have the time to invest in a dating relationship right now, as I am already pressed for time and falling down on the online communication.” And I was like, “Ok, I hear you,” only it was much more eloquent and philosophical and smart than that.

And then he e-mailed back and said, “I want to thank you. You have provoked me to some introspection that made me realize that this is so important to me, I want to be able to really devote time to it, and I can’t do that right now. I’m letting my subscription here expire at the end of the month.” And then he was like I hope you find someone, you deserve to, and I was like, Um, yeah, I know that.

So we broke up. It was a very intense relationship, as you can see.

I forwarded his thank you note to the Great and Powerful Best Friend, and she said:

“…he very much wants to sound important and intelligent. I bet he was a super geek in high school and is counting, overly much I might add, on adults not calling other adults booger-face geeks.”

And I was like, exactly.

Fucking booger-face geek.

Great and Powerful Best Friend: “Why are you having phone sex if you live in the same town?”

Right.

Summer has been threatening to to appear. Not in a really threatening way, only in a sort of threatening way. It has been making guest appearances off and on for the past few weeks, where it will show up for maybe 48 hours, and be like, “Watch out bitches, it’s on,” and then it will disappear, and be like, “Suckahs.” And that makes me be like, “Bitch.”

It also makes me be like, “I should buy self-tanner now while I can still wear jeans to cover up my legs if they turn out orange.”

So I e-mailed the Great and Powerful Best Friend about it, to tell her to do the same thing. It’s my job to attend to her care and feeding, you know.

“We need to start thinking about which self-tanner we are going to use for the summer,” I wrote.

She responded with, “We already have self tanners chosen and have stocked up while it was cheap during the winter months. Word.”

You can see she does not attend to my care and feeding with the same diligence in which I attend to hers.

“Oh,” I wrote back. “When can I expect my shipment to arrive in the mail? And I assuming it will arrive with my free gift of almond body scrub, lotion and shower gel.”

She gave me that almond stuff for Christmas. It was totally awesome, so I have been asking her lately if that was a one-time offer or a year-long subscription.

She responded to both request with something snarky that meant, “Never.”

So now the spaces between my fingers are a lovely shade of burnt orange where I didn’t wipe off the self-tanner after I put it on my legs. It said to wash your hands afterwards, but I was like, whatever, I’m not doing that, the same way that I’m like, whatever, I’m not doing that, about filtering tap water. Whatever. I’m not doing that.

And now I am orange. And probably have leukemia from the water.

Please note that at the Great and Powerful Best Friend’s house, they drink filtered water.

And have a stockpile of self-tanner, in case of Armageddon and there is a rush on self-tanner, because you want to be tan for a high-profile event like that. They probably also use almond body scrub, lotion and shower gel.

And that makes me be like, “Bitch.”

“Do you know who Daunte Culpepper is?” I asked.

I’m trying do a super-secret hide-the-phone move while I’m driving, because I forgot my wireless ear-thingy. It’s illegal to drive and talk in DC without the wireless ear-thingy. As a result, I look like I’m trying to dodge bullets in the front seat of my own car.

“Yeah, he plays for…Minnesota, right?” she said.

The Great and Powerful Best Friend knows everything about football. I knew she could support me here.

“Well, my first-grade boyfriend played second-string quarterback to him in college,” I said. “You know what that means? It means I pretty much dated a first-string division one quarterback. Because if you play second-string to a dude who was drafted into the NFL, that means you were really first string in real-people terms.”

“Well, yes,” she said. “Yes it does.”

“I’m glad we can agree on this. (Dodge imaginary bullet with cell phone as police car drives by) Plus, it was a totally for serious relationship. We were together for two years. Kindergarten and first grade. He even stole costume jewelry out of his mom’s jewelry box to give me. That how for serious it was.”

“Well, he was willing to steal for you. From his own mother.”

“This is what I’m saying,” I said. “I was on the road to being his hot cheerleader girlfriend-turned-wife. We never would have broken up, you know.”

“No, absolutely not,” she said.

You know that one song by Train? The one that goes ”…something something homefried deepfried chicken, you’re best friend always stickin’ for you…even when I know you’re wrong..” You know that song? It’s that song that talks about falling for a shooting star and traveling around the Milky Way or some shit. Anways, that’s basically what’s going on here.

“But do you want to know what else?” I asked.

(Bullet dodge)

“Of course.”

“I read this article about him online, and in it, his coach said that he would read Bible verses to the team before games.”

“Ohhhhh,” she said. “They haaaaaated him.”

“Totally. Completely and totally. And when they quoted him in the article, he said God at least twice in every sentence, and it’s not because he was saying Goddamnit.”

(trying to parallel park on the corner of sketchy and ghetto)

“Oh yeah,” she said. “They tooooootally hated him.”

“For serious,” I said. “But you know what? Lately I’ve been dreaming about how perfect everything would have been if we had never moved away from Florida. It’s my perfect idyllic fantasy.”

This is a loaded statement. If we had never moved, she wouldn’t be in my life. That is, arguably, a very hurtful thing for me to say.

“It’s always good to dream,” she said. Always stickin’ up for me, even when she knows I’m wrong.

“I’m working through it with my shrink right now,” I said.

“Lanie,” she said. That’s what she calls me. Lanie. I don’t think she even knows my first name. “Lanie, are you serious? You’ve really been thinking about this?”

“Well, yeah.” I paused. “Doesn’t everybody do that? Fantasize about how it could have been different? I’m just focusing all that energy on him.”

“Lanie,” she said. “Stop.”