Dear Adventurer,

One month ago, I had come to a point where I realized that my ex-boyfriend actually was repulsive and not worth my constant lament. I found that life was all about me again and I was back to my old single-girl schedule: wake up, feel awesome, go to work, go to the gym, put on heels, go out, feel more awesome. When I finally got to bed at night, it may or may not have been with someone but I didn’t care who it was and how long he stayed. I had achieved Toilet Paper Status - going through men as fast as I went through toilet paper. In the beginning you search for good quality, but when you bring it back to your house, it’s essentially all the same - use once, discard, go get more. Congratulations to all the girls out there that make it this far. It takes a very confident and tragically passive girl to achieve Toilet Paper Status. But then, if you’re like me, once your daily pattern has reached perfection, you find a roundabout way to bring it to a standstill.

It’s the typical feel-good-movie-of-the-year plot line - boy and girl are best friends for years, one of them goes through some relationship crap with a worthless bitch or a giant tool, then in a coincidental state of simultaneous aloneness, they realize that they’d been lying to themselves all these years. They belong together. Usually, one of them gets considerably more attractive since the first time they met each other but I like to think that part is metaphorical for the way their perceptions change.

Eh, who are we kidding? The hotness factor is always present in important decision making.

Either way, all of a sudden you’re sweating someone you’ve known for years but have never actually been intimate with. Whether it’s someone that’s been your best friend or someone in the background, you’re all of a sudden afraid to do…anything. On top of that, the sexual tension makes your vagina spasm any time you see him and he tells you that he likes your shirt. He’s commented on your shirt a thousand times before but this time you overanalyze it.

He likes my shirt? Does that mean he only talks to me because I dress like a slut? Am I a slut? Is he materialistic? Is he making fun of me? Did his ex have this shirt? Was he looking at my boobs? Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

It might be that the hotness factor held true. Maybe you woke up one day and realized that all of a sudden there exists a cute, smart, blue-eyed guy who actually listens to you when you talk, loves to cook and has some delicious biceps; all of which are essential points on the Boyfriend Requirement Criterion.

Why is it that when we put more value to something, it takes us a lot longer to make any sort of move on it? How could I go from Toilet Paper Status to Timid-Indecisive Status after just one weekend?! All my hard work is now masked by daydreams of laying on the couch and watching movies together or finally having our first kiss on a New York City rooftop garden while the city lights twinkle below. Any evidence that the confident yet tragically passive girl ever existed is now gone. And I’ve never felt more alive.

All it takes is one important boy --definitely not of the toilet paper sort.

Good luck,