I've only been dating again (since my divorce, three years ago) for about 18 months now. I gave myself about 18 months before that to get over the break up before so much as having coffee with someone. That was a good plan on my part. But for the past year and a half or so, I've been dating various folks.

SOme of it has been fun. Some of it has been notably, hilariously awful. One of the best things that's happened is I made a very good new friend: Dr. Neighbor. We started out dating last winter, but realized after a month or so that we were actually meant to be really good. platonic friends. And so we are. (He actually has a newish girlfriend at the moment who seems absolutely great.)

Dr. Neighbor is the kind of wonderful guy friend every single woman needs in her life. He takes very good care of me, even when I am being petulant or brooding or difficult. He never holds these spells against me. Recently, I was being very petulant and brooding and difficult because I was in the process of desperately trying to make a relationship that clearly wasn't meant to work, work. Then I was brooding and cranky because it ended in a very weird, inexplicable way that I still don't completely understand. (The good news is I no longer have any interest in figuring it out. It's very fucked up, but not because of anything I did except believe everything I was told without question. That was, I discovered, not a good plan.)

This week, Dr. Neighbor gifted me with a hilarious book. I read it last night and now I am even less interested in figuring out why my recent first-foray-into-having-a-real-boyfriend went so horribly awry and ended so bizarrely. It was just the sort of silly, "you go girl!" thing I needed to read.

I heart Dr. Neighbor. I hope I can find someone just like him and have amazing NON-platonic chemistry with him and fall madly in love with him.