Yesterday, I asked a stock boy at the supermarket to help me get a jar off the top shelf. Before he could, another stock boy handed it to me. The first stock boy pouted, "I wish I coulda helped you." Later, he circled back and complimented me on my skirt. So, I tased him.

Okay, I didn't exactly tase him. I thanked him and kept shopping -- probably a dumb move, since, as you point out, "Sometimes those 'little things' turn ugly fast." Yeah, you never know when the stock boy'll follow you to your car, clock you with a can of tomato paste, drive you to your place and make you watch as he gets your Wheaties down for you.

I'm not saying women shouldn't be careful. I'm saying they shouldn't go hysterical the moment they get attention from a man. Take this woman, who claimed she was being "stalked." The U.S. Department of Justice defines stalking as "repeated and unwanted attention, harassment, (or) contact...that would cause a reasonable person to feel fear." Whoops! There's that warning bell you mention. Only, if this woman heard one, it was "Ding! Ding! Ding! He's beneath me! He's ugly and socially awkward, and he's asking me out!"

Sure, he asked co-workers about her -- a quaint thing people with crushes used to do in the days before Googling. And sure, he's tried to bump into her on her breaks. A few times, not 300. That's probably why she wasn't seeking advice on protecting herself, but snarky ways to tell a loser she's out of his league. Do I really think "Thanks, but no thanks" will deter him? Well, probably better than "Shoot me an e-mail" -- her response when he said he hadn't stopped thinking about her. Most obediently, he complied, and invited her out for a meal. She still didn't turn him down. Instead, she e-mailed me, telling me she'd reported the guy to her boss: "This man asked me to lunch! Or dinner, if that was better for me."

Now, I'm guessing the guy wears button-downs, not a jeweled turban, and uses Word for Windows, not Word for Crystal Ball. If so, the telepathic "no" won't cut it -- you actually have to tell him you aren't interested: clearly, firmly, the sooner, the better. If, after you shut him down once or twice, he keeps after you, that's when you call for reinforcements. But, stalking expert Gavin de Becker advises in The Gift of Fear, if more women would "explicitly reject" advances, "stalking cases would decline dramatically." Meanwhile, more women should also recognize that the "gift of fear" is the gift of appropriate fear -- being alert to danger, but understanding that, most of the time, "Have a nice day" means "Have a nice day," not "Have a nice day bound and gagged in my trunk."

If you have a drinking problem, you go to an A.A. meeting and say, "Hi, my name is Bob, and I'm an alcoholic," not "Hi, my name is Socrates. I'm here to share my vast knowledge of self and others, right after I toss back a coupla shots."

Sorry, but your problem isn't that you're too perceptive, too in-touch, and too sensitive to the needs of others, but that there's no personal shortcoming you can't spin into a humanitarian gesture or a sign of what a genius of human nature you are. Take your "belief in being honest and frank" -- at least, with any girl you settle for: "Here, darling, my 32-page illustrated report on all the ways you're beneath me." Somehow, I'm guessing you manage to restrain yourself from marching over to the husky trucker in the Kwik-E-Mart and announcing, "Hey, tubby, you might wanna rethink those Ho Hos."

As for what's actually keeping you from getting a girlfriend -- could it be that you rarely ask women out on anything remotely perceivable as a date? There was that one woman, that co-worker. Technically, you did ask her out -- for lunch at high noon, the least date-like time of the day. And, perhaps that was the point: it would technically be a date, but without any pressure on you to do anything terribly date-like. I mean, when's the last time you saw two people sharing a lingering first kiss while pressed up against the sneeze guard of a busy salad bar?

Of course, you mucked things up from the start by spitting up your feelings all over her shoes ("I told her of my attraction..."). When you don't know how somebody feels about you, you don't go all full-frontal with your feelings for them. Consider the difference between "Wanna have sex with me?" and "Would you like to come up and see my etchings?" which Harvard psych professor Steven Pinker addresses in "The Stuff Of Thought." With the latter, the girl is reasonably sure you aren't looking to guide her around a late-night art exhibition, but "indirect speech" allows both of you to maintain what Pinker calls "a comfortable fiction." The same goes for asking a co-worker out for after-work cocktails. Unlike lunch, the evening can morph into a date. If it doesn't, you can spin it as friendly drinks, or your new program, "No Co-worker Goes Home Thirsty" -- which you should find much easier on the ego than your old program, "An Audience With Genius: An Unwanted Declaration Of Attraction, Followed By A Long, Awkward Free Lunch."

This guy's the slacker version of the Energizer Bunny, napping and napping and napping -- except when he jolts awake to get high, cheat on you, or yell, "Hey, Ma! Another beer!"

As total failures go, the guy's been a stunning success. Most men can only dream of living like Hugh Hefner, who has three girlfriends, but had to build a vast publishing empire, buy a mansion, and put in a zoo and waterfalls to keep them around. Granted, your boyfriend only has two women in his life; apparently, his reward for keeping his pot plants out of his mother's begonias, opening his bedroom door when she brings up his neatly folded laundry, and picking up the phone when you call to say, "Hello, this is your girlfriend, how can I provide you with excellent enabling today?"

Now, let's say some matchmaker-type asked you, "Hey, how about a cheating, drug-abusing, prematurely aged boyfriend who hasn't worked for 10 years and lives with his mother?" I'm guessing your response wouldn't have been, "Wowee, stack up the bridal magazines!" But, maybe, when you met the guy, you weren't really ready for a relationship, so the wrong guy was kinda right. And then you felt compelled to defend having spent so much time with him, which only led to you spending more and more time with him -- until his Christmas Eve proposal made a certain someone the happiest woman in the world. Not you, silly. Think of the joy his mother must've felt at the news that sonny boy might finally leave home.

As for your excitement, it was probably part generic wedding lust and part bragging rights: "A man asked me to marry him!" (Yeah, but which man?) More than anything else, getting engaged gave you the perfect justification for why you stuck around doing all that justifying for 10 long years. Yeah, you were dumb. But, you had help. It seems our brains are wired for self-justification. In Mistakes Were Made (but not by me), social psychologists Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson explain that most people, when confronted with evidence that their beliefs or actions are harmful, immoral, or stupid, "do not change their point of view or course of action but justify it even more tenaciously." Recognizing that you have this tendency is the best way to avoid succumbing to it -- along with forcing yourself to be ruthlessly honest about what you're doing and why you're doing it. Admitting your mistakes should keep you from marrying them, tempting as it must be when a man gets down on one knee, holds out a twist-tie with a chunk of rock candy glued to it, and says, "Hey, Babe, how'dja like to take over my weekly allowance payment from Mom?"

Don't be too quick to assume this prospective roommate is some young hottie. The joke'll be on you when you discover she's some 60-year-old former housewife who's going back to school and borrowing his razor in the morning to mow her chin hairs.

If his roommate ends up being considerably younger, hotter, and less bearded, sure, something could go on between them. But, unless you've got the guy chained to a dripping pipe in the basement, he's always just a barstool or bus seat away from temptation. So, even now, when you have a fight and he doesn't answer the phone, it may be because he spent the night rearranging his sock drawer -- or "rearranging his sock drawer" with some ex-stripper named Blaize.

As for his contention that he'll be at your place "all the time anyway," he probably isn't saying so because he'll pay less on his water bill if he flushes at your house. Chances are, he's trying to allay your fears that his living arrangement will become one long half-time show, with his roommate dropping out of school to spend her days vacuuming his living room topless. At the same time, he's probably trying to maintain some semblance of dignity as a guy in his mid 30s who has to take in a boarder to make ends meet. Yet, there you are, turning his solution to his financial crisis into the rental version of HOTorNOT.com. And exactly how ugly and disagreeable must a prospective roommate be before your boyfriend can get out of selling his blood to keep the lights on?

There are easier and less complicated ways to get extra-relationship sex than advertising for it to store its tampons under your bathroom sink. Now, either you have reason to trust your boyfriend or you don't. You don't get to tell another adult what to do, which is what you're trying to do with "I'm willing to meet her and see how I feel." Meanwhile, you're not only telling him you have little faith in him, but suggesting he's settled for too little in a girlfriend, since you seem convinced your replacement is just a one-bedroom/shared bath ad away. You'd actually have more control by relinquishing control. Instead of telling him what to do in other relationships, show him why he wouldn't want to do anything that jeopardizes yours. It's really the best way of seeing to it that there's no woman he'd rather open a dented can of beans for: "Au poivre, darling? Or would you prefer tartare?"

Alfred Hitchcock might've retired to some sleepy town in England after a career as an elementary school filmstrip operator -- save for his wise decisions while directing "Psycho." Imagine Hitch weighing the dramatic possibilities: "Let's see, shall we have a shadowy figure slipping into a motel bathroom, opening the shower curtain and raising a big knife to stab a terrified naked woman -- or should some lad drop in at the woman's office to tell her 'I haven't stopped thinking about you' as a lead-up to asking when she might be free for lunch?"

Come on, a guy at work gives you reason to believe he has a crush on you and the shower music from "Psycho" comes into your head? When you see sheep nibbling on grass in a pasture, do you hear the theme from "Jaws"? Your complaint that this guy is "stalking" you reminds me of the old joke: It's only sexual harassment when the guy asking you out is ugly, broke, and works in the mailroom. Actual stalking is a willful and malicious form of intimidation -- persistent unwanted pursuit after the pursuer has been informed that his or her attentions are unwanted. Stalkingvictims.com reports that most U.S. states define stalking as behavior that would instill fear in a reasonable person. Sorry, but what are you afraid of, getting cooties by association? The stench of loserhood lingering in your hair?

You take the post-modern approach to saying no, ditching "No means no" for "'Shoot me an e-mail' means no." Unfortunately, most people, including Dorky Boy, are probably working off the old definition. To make matters worse, if a guy really likes you, when one door fails to close, another 10 doors open. So, while you're waiting for him to read your mind about what a "creepy, uh, expletive" you think he is, he's probably laying out his dinner clothes, researching fine wine, and wondering whether you should name the children after his late grandma or yours.

It didn't have to get to this point. All you had to do was be kind enough to say something the first time he expressed interest -- nothing cutting about his looks or living arrangements -- just "Thanks for asking, but I'm not interested." You might also try squeezing out a little respect for guys who get up the nerve to go after what they want -- especially as a girl who doesn't have the guts to speak up about what she doesn't. If you "No, thanks!" a guy a few times, and he fails to back off, sure, call for reinforcements. Until then, do your best to avoid crying wolf while being pursued down the halls of your office by a quivering, three-legged Chihuahua.

Ever wonder why junkyards always have signs like "Beware of Rottweiler," not "Man With Bad Back On Premises!"?

A woman who wants to protect herself gets a gun, a burglar alarm, and a really big dog, not a man with spinal issues to sleep in her bed while her husband's off to war. But, let's say you didn't buy a house in some sleepy suburb, but in the middle of Crack Alley, where they'll break in to steal the rabbit ears off your 1972 black-and-white TV. If a guy's real interest is in watching over your wife, not rolling over on her, the foyer rug should provide both a firm surface for his aching back and the perfect vantage point to keep an eye out for prowlers.

The firm surface you need to meet up with is the business end of the clue stick. This saga started two years ago, when you and your wife agreed to separate. Two weeks later, after you left for the war, she moved her boyfriend into the family home. Two weeks later? Yes, before the exhaust trail from your plane to Iraq disappeared from the sky, she'd already managed a little troop surge of her own: Operation Screw Daddy Over. Yep, Daddy goes off to war and she eases the kids' minds that he'll be coming back in one piece by immediately bringing in his replacement.

You aren't "99 percent sure" it's over, you're clinging to the fantasy that you'll find a marriage in there somewhere -- somewhere amidst the strange men strolling in and out of your kids' lives. Sorry, but if you have a choice, take "Needle in a haystack for $20." The only reliable thing about your wife is her unreliability. After all, most guys get one "Dear John" letter. You've got a subscription.

So, what are you afraid of? Admitting your marriage didn't work out? It seems preferable to staying in it, and having your kids see you walked on so much that you're practically a human treadmill. But, more important, your kids would probably have more stable lives in a "broken home" than a home that keeps breaking up over and over again. Setting boundaries takes being honest about what you're actually dealing with; for example, asking yourself who's the spouse in the truly scary neighborhood. I'm guessing, when the mortar fire gets alarmingly close, you manage to refrain from turning to the guy on the next cot and whispering, "Pssst! Hold me!"

It's got to be weird, dating a girl for whom safe sex probably means you wear a condom and she hockey masks up like Jason from "Friday the 13th." What do you do for foreplay, tell her "I just love how the moonlight glistens on your fiberglass-encased head"?

Your girlfriend probably isn't germ-phobic since she kissed girls and doesn't mention making them gargle Listerine with a Lysol chaser. But, about those forays into Lesbianapolis, you've gotta wonder, does she really prefer guys or does she just prefer to prefer guys? If she really isn't into women, maybe it was no big deal for her to kiss them. It's also possible she was molested or exposed to some sexual weirdness. I called sex therapist Stephanie Buehler, who explained, "Somehow she's made a rule for herself...made it okay to have intercourse. It's almost like she (uses) intercourse...to sort of hide the fact that she isn't really that interested in emotional intimacy. I guess giving sex is easy for her, and she knows it's something that will keep a guy around."

It is tempting, when you're into somebody, to approach your relationship like Peter Pan. As Walt Disney's Peter put it in 1953, "All it takes is faith and trust. ... Now think of the happiest things. It's the same as having wings. ... You can fly!" Yes, it sounds so romantic, believing against all odds. Of course, if you actually jump out the window, you will not be going for one long makeout session in Neverland; you will be going in a big black zipped bag to the coroner.

A wiser approach, when your girlfriend asks you to "be patient," is to ask yourself, "For what -- celebrating our two-year anniversary with an air-kiss or a lingering thumbs up?" While you're "patient" she has little incentive to get impatient -- or to become the patient of a sex therapist (see AASECT.org, the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists). Tell her you can't live without kissing, but you're willing to wait a little longer if she'll do more than sit around feeling scared. Encourage her to talk about her fears, and she might come to see that they're about as grounded in reality as "Step on a crack, break your mother's back" (or the more modern "Step on a crack vial...").

If talking goes well, maybe she'll let you work your way from home base to first: kissing her forearm and the back of her neck, and moving on to cheek and lip pecks, and more. Give yourself (and maybe her) a deadline -- a couple months? -- to see some progress. Otherwise, good luck, come Christmas party time, not only helping your friend and host revive his elderly auntie, but explaining why you and your girlfriend really had no choice but to have sex under the mistletoe.

If a woman's sex appeal sprang from inner beauty, Eleanor Roosevelt, who looked like a scone in a housedress, would've been Playboy's hottest selling cover girl of all time.

The woman who wrote me wanted to lose weight after stress-eating herself 50 pounds heavier in seven months. Her husband hadn't lost track of her inner beauty, he was just having a hard time finding her waist. He didn't stop loving her, he just stopped wanting to have sex with her. Although she wasn't losing weight "solely to meet her husband's needs," when is it not in a woman's interest to keep her husband interested? Regarding her desire for plastic surgery, if a woman's got post-weight-loss flapping flesh she'd like removed, who am I to tell her, no, do your best to walk proud with Dumbo's ears hanging over your skirt like pockets out of jeans?

It isn't just my "notion" that women are less looks-driven, but my notion based on reams of data showing that women seem to be hard-wired to care more about a guy's status and earning potential. Sure, you can make a guy's hotitude your priority because, at 19, it doesn't matter so much if he's earning his living carving carrots into swans on the street corner. Ten years from now, if you're looking to start a family, I'm guessing you'll be up for a little less hair in exchange for a little more 401(k). Think about it: If Bill Gates became single, women would line up like it was free tickets to The Stones. Whaddya wanna bet, when he was your age, women kicked him out of the way to get to the rocker boy who turned in cans to pay for food?

According to you, if a man's "really in love," he can "transcend the external." Lovely idea, no basis in reality. Male sexuality is much more visual than female sexuality. But, don't just take it from me, take it from a man who used to be a woman. Griffin Hansbury, a former lesbian who underwent sex reassignment surgery, talked on "This American Life" about how he saw women before and after "T" -- testosterone injections. "Before...I would see a woman on the subway, and...I'd like to meet her, what's that book she's reading?" Afterward, even nice ankles on a woman would be "enough to flood my mind with aggressive pornographic images. ... It was like...a pornographic nudie house in my mind. And I couldn't turn it off."

If anyone's reducing this woman to the sum of her fleshy parts, it's you. "The stuff she's made of" isn't 50 extra pounds. She could continue collecting chins and insist a worthwhile man would lust after her character alone, but that's really just a different kind of unhealthy than starving yourself until you look like a praying mantis in shoes.

Where does your boyfriend think dirty dishes go to die? Do they jump out an open window and smash themselves on the pavement? Leap into a sinkful of soapy water and drown themselves? Or, do they hire a hit man to do the job? Maybe an aging housewife who breaks into your place in the dead of night, slowly and methodically pulls on rubber gloves, then holds the plates under water until the deed is done.

Your boyfriend could be pondering this question nightly, but it seems he's too busy flopping on the bed, swinging his big shoes onto your duvet, and snoring. Meanwhile, you're storming around the house collecting cans, snarling, "What does he think, that I answered an ad for a fully furnished dumpster with cable TV? Or was he worried I'd get lost making my way back from the living room to the kitchen? How sweet of him to leave a trail of dirty napkins to mark my path!"

Next, he'll complain there's no mint on the pillow -- or, worse yet, he'll slip and call you Mom. Who, exactly, does he think picks up all this stuff he drops? Actually, he probably hasn't the slightest idea. In fact, while, for you, one empty Chicken McNuggets box on the couch turns your apartment into a Superfund site, your boyfriend might have to sit on the thing to realize it's there. As I've written before, research shows that, in general, straight men don't have the filth- and clutter-vision women and gay men do. Men generally have better distance vision, and can maintain intense focus on small-scale projects, but they're prone to overlook environmental detail -- increasing the chance that they'll let the chips (and the empty potato chip bags) fall where they may.

Okay, so the glass is not only half-empty, it's been on your foyer table for three whole days. How could your boyfriend not know how upset this makes you? Well, there is the fact that, instead of sweetly telling him what works for you, it seems you've spent the better part of a year festering with hate. Your inability to ask, "Mind doing the dishes tonight?" or tease him about the difference between a bedspread and a sidewalk, suggests there's more to this than liking things tidy. Are you anxious or insecure, and manifesting it in a Gestapo-like need to control your environment? Are you skittish about commitment and seeking an out, like the idea that he doesn't respect you? If you want to be with him, tell him what you need. If he cares about you, he'll make an effort. He might sometimes screw up, but he'll probably put a good spin on it: Dinner with you was so romantic and wonderful, he wanted to leave you a little something to remember it by -- something day-old and encrusted on a plate. Come on, look closely at that petrified moo shu. Can't you see a heart?

In our country, if people find out you've had premarital sex, they might hoot and slap you on the back once or twice. In Muslim countries, they bring in a guy with a bamboo cane to do it 100 times.

In Saudi Arabia, it's not just premarital sex that'll get you in trouble, but premarital seating. Religious police there actually arrested an American businesswoman for sitting with a male colleague in Starbucks after her office lost power and she needed WiFi. The Times of London reported that the woman was interrogated, strip-searched, and jailed for violating laws against public contact between unrelated men and women. The judge reportedly told her, "You are sinful and you are going to burn in hell." You have to wonder, if she gets hell for sitting near a man in Starbucks, what happens to the giddy 15-year-olds I saw groping each other in the big chair? Is there Hell Plus? Advanced Hell? Or maybe "New Hell! Now With Extra Charcoal!"?

Ask a Western woman if she's "dated" a lot, and she isn't likely to confess, "Why, I'm the Whore of Babylon!" Yet, you married a woman from a culture where slut can equal death, and you thought all you had to do to get her to spill everything was tell her honesty works best for you? As for telling you that you were blazing uncharted territory, and were quite the lover to boot, even Western women with sterling integrity have been known to exclaim, "Wow, that thing's enormous!" Meanwhile, they're thinking, "...compared to the stub of a No. 2 pencil."

Poor Booboo, you weren't her first. Or her second. And there is that possibility you weren't even her third. Get over it. All this moping is distracting you from the essential question: Did she lie about her sexploits out of some ingrained policy for self-preservation, or are you likely to wake up alone one morning and find that your bank account's cleaned out, your car is gone, and she's even taken the dog? The fact that her character is kind of a mystery to you suggests you pledged to spend the rest of your life with a near stranger. Smooth move, dude! At least get to know the woman before you divorce her: Is she ethical? Even when nobody's looking? Does it mean something to her to do the right thing? Does she act in your best interest or does she just act interested out of self-interest? I know, boring questions, but they'll ultimately be more instructive than interrogating her about whether she let Achmed get to third base in the summer of 2003.

For a man, it's the size of a woman's heart that counts -- until her thighs approach the size of small Volkswagens.

Now, some men do go for a woman with extra padding -- not just "junk in the trunk," but junk bungee'd to the roof and hood, and crammed from floormats to ceiling in the front and back seats. Actually, there are about five men who go for this. On the bright side, the average guy isn't into haute couture thin: those slivers in stilettos who look like they subsist on cigarettes and the occasional French fry when they need enough energy to make it down the catwalk without fainting into Anna Wintour's lap.

Still, feminists see a cruel plot against women who eat. According to Naomi Wolf, author of The Beauty Myth, there's a patriarchal conspiracy to keep women dieting so they'll be too weak and hungry to compete with men. Right. Here in the real world, it isn't some brainwashed dim bulb who doesn't let herself bulk out, but a wise woman, assuming she's on the prowl for heterosexual men who aren't, say, Tanzanian hunter-gatherers. Male sexuality is hard-wired to be looks-driven, and research suggests that the body size men look for in a woman corresponds with the availability of food. Where eats are scarce, like in the Sahara, Lane Bryant ladies are in. Where there's food-a-plenty, men go for slimmer women. And yes, that describes our culture, where, if you're foraging for dinner, you're probably not scraping for grubs with a stick, just reaching deep into the cooler at 7-Eleven.

At a certain point, "more of you to love" becomes way too much for your husband to get around. He can't help feeling this way, but because his first thought is something like "Yeah, you're big-boned -- like a brontosaurus" doesn't mean he should release it into the atmosphere. People get way too much credit for being "direct." Sometimes what passes for honesty is really just poor impulse control. Your husband needs to take that 10 extra seconds to break things to you in a way that doesn't slap you upside the ego. As for your own impulse control issues, a fork is not a stress reduction tool. And dieting might take off the pounds, but it won't solve the real problem: getting it into your head that the only hunger pangs food relieves are those you feel in your stomach. For guidance, pick up Diets Don't Work, by Bob Schwartz. Whatever you do, avoid reading Naomi Wolf, who suggests that, until women can shovel down just as many donuts as men do, they "cannot experience equal status in the community."

Are you just not communicating right? I sure can't figure you out. I e-mailed you back and asked you for 10 reasons why you're still there. Or five. Or two. You sent me thousands of words -- and still failed to give me one reasonable explanation. A few highlights:

People change over time. I've changed, he's changed. Perhaps the next change will be for the better.
Some people do change, but most people just change their underwear. In this case, I'd say the likelihood he'll walk in the door all loving, giving, and gainfully employed, and stay that way, is up there with Larry King being chosen as the next Victoria's Secret cover model.

In a committed relationship, there should be room for growth and mistakes, forgiveness and support.
In this relationship, he grows increasingly neglectful, disrespectful, and sponge-like, and you make the mistake of forgiving and supporting him.

At one time, the love and support he offered gave me the strength to overcome my insecurities.
Somebody once opened a door for me in Cleveland. I'm not still trying to repay them. Remember all his music gigs you attended? He might not be "into" photography, but if he were into you, don't you think he'd find a way to brave two hours of cheap wine, cheese cubes, and gallery snots to cheer you on at your first show?

I believe he can do amazing things.
Keeping you in his life is the most amazing thing he's done yet. Of course, there's still time for him to come home and announce, "Darling, this is Becky. She'll be staying over tonight. Mind sleeping on the couch?"

I'm compassionate to strangers, so my loyalty runs pretty deep when it comes to someone like him.
Your loyalty is to avoiding reality. You're with him because of stuff that's missing in you, not qualities that are present in him. Ah, but it's easier to make him your project than to address flaws in yourself, right? And easier to do that if you hone an image of yourself as this noble, self-sacrificing person by spouting these group-huggy, drive-by zen excuses for staying with him.

Most worrisome of all, however, was your last reason for sticking around.

I see him being the father of my children.
Which takes only sperm with nice strong tails. I can hear him now: "Sorry, kid, can't drive you to school, I'm off to the wilderness to find myself. And, hey, should I bump into any old girlfriends...! Tell your mom I'll be home after she pays for your college."

There are those things that are really hard to say: "I'm leaving you for your best friend." "A few lawyers might be dropping by about some downloads I made from your computer." And "You should probably get tested for Hepatitis C." And then there's "Hey, wanna grab a drink after work?"

A guy who can't squeeze those last words out, especially to a girl who's been flirting with him for months, doesn't need to be charmed, he needs prosthetic testicles. But, wait! You've got a pair in your purse! You bring them out as needed, say, when the car mechanic tells you he has to put in new belts, and they have to be Gucci, imported overnight from Italy, only $500 a piece (he's giving you a break). That's when you slap your brassies on the counter and tell him how it's gonna be. Take charge. Just like you're tempted to do with the co-worker whose male role models are clearly less Navy SEAL than baby seal.

So, should you ask the poor dear out? Grab his sweaty little hand and yank him over the hump? Surely he's got masculinity in there somewhere, like a zit that just needs to be popped. You'll be the guy for the first 20 seconds, and he can take over from there! Sorry, but if that's what you're thinking, it's probably because you're mistaking this guy's festering weirdness for shyness. Shy men have a tough time asking women out, but ultimately, they're men, and if they're into you enough, they'll find a way, even if they have to suck down so much powdered elk antler that they're likely to paw and snort a little if you say yes.

This guy sounds like the type that therapist Robert A. Glover describes in No More Mr. Nice Guy -- a guy who's not nice at all, but is filled with "toxic shame," and is so desperate for approval, especially from women, that he hides who he is and never asks for what he wants. Not surprisingly, he doesn't get a lot of dates, and tends to be filled with repressed rage and hatred for women. Glover told me that, in a relationship, this passive guy often turns passive-aggressive: He's chronically late and "forgetful," puts the woman down in public, and he's generally passively manipulative "because he never gets his way -- even though he's never asked for it."

Assuming you weren't flirting with great subtlety, like from the women's bathroom with the door closed and the hand dryer on, you should consider the guy a lost cause. Of course, it's got to be tempting to gather the girls for an afternoon of Chardonnay and analysis: Maybe Glover's explanation fits, maybe the guy wasn't breast-fed, or maybe he was -- until he was 8. Pondering what's wrong with the guy can be a productive endeavor....well, compared to continuing to turn on the charm to see if it'll eventually cause the guy's head to explode.

Surely, a wife lives for the day she can holler to her husband, “Tim, honey, it’s your old girlfriend on the line calling to let you know how special you are!”

Even the most secure wife isn’t likely to yawn and go about her business when some woman on the phone claims to be her husband’s “old friend,” which, in her mind, is probably short for “the girl he had all the crazy sex with in college.” Chances are, she’s picturing you as the single girl who spends all her spare time and money hotting herself up -- while she’s on her hands and knees in stained, shapeless sweats and no makeup, cleaning up baby vomit. “Hold on a sec,” you tell the wife, “I think that’s the UPS man, delivering another shipment of my size zero slinky dresses.”

Oh, did you emphasize that you’re “harmless”? Come on, you have to know that to many wives, a harmless old girlfriend is one who’s not only dead, but who the husband never found that attractive, due to her two heads and her dual handlebar mustaches. As for “Tim’s thoughts,” he’s probably wishing you’d shown your gratitude by stuffing a big sock in your mouth, dropping your phone down the garbage disposal, and turning it on. Or, at least called him at work. You could’ve said everything you planned to say to him at home, but without causing any of his co-workers to burst into tears and spend a month grilling him, “Is she prettier than I am? Is she better in bed?”

What’s with this sudden urge to express your gratitude, anyway? If you’re aching to give back, the little old lady who taught you in second grade would probably be thrilled out of her support hose to have a visitor at the home. Maybe you wanted to remind him you’re still out there. Maybe you wanted to remind his wife. Or, maybe you were bored and lonely, but couldn’t say you miss him and need excitement, so you grabbed for the old, “Thank you for being you.” If something’s missing from your life, admit it and deal with it. You should feel less compelled to call up some married guy to tell him how much he meant to you -- as his jealous wife listens in. And not because you finally have the equipment to show your gratitude by breaking into his car and leaving your lace panties in the passenger-side door pocket.

Nothing like a little unfinished business to jazz up a first date: “I’ll be the broken man at the corner table. Just follow the trail of Kleenex and tears.”

You know how sleeping with somebody is supposed to mean sleeping with everybody they’ve ever slept with? Well, not only does dating somebody mean dating everybody they’ve ever dated, if they’ve recently been dumped, there’s a good chance you’re dating somebody they’re still dating. Sure, their ex is physically gone, but at the same time, they’re very much in the room. So, you aren’t just holding your drink, you’re holding your drink in that funny way their ex does. And, of all the hopping joints in town, they make you meet them at some boring bar in the business district (gee, wonder who works next door), and they insist on a streetside table -- despite the fact that it’s raining cats, dogs, and Shetland ponies.

If this sounds at all like you, you might as well have brought your ex on dates: “Look how smug she is. Clearly, it was all her fault!” Should you have been banished to a monastery? Well, no, especially not as somebody who’s “looking to share a nice time and have sex with a woman.” You get yourself ready to do that by going off alone and fixing what’s broken -- not by trying to hold it together with used chewing gum and wishful thinking, then having little leaks on dates, or, as you put it, “I probably talked too much about my pain.” Oh, fun! I can see you at dinner with a woman, shaking your fist skyward: “Why?! Why?! Why?! Sorry…what were you thinking of for an appetizer?”

As for the one month per relationship-year rule, no, it’s not like it was handed down from the mount on the stone tablets (although it’s possible there was no more room on the front, and nobody noticed the little arrow and “for #11, turn stone over”). If you’re dancing around chortling, “Wheee! The wife left me!” or find the mere thought of her tedious, there’s probably no need for a waiting period. But, can you blame women who worry that a guy who’s “unwillingly separated” isn’t with them for how great they are but for how great they are as human grout for the void left by his ex? Consider whether there might be a reason women seem less likely to end your dates by climbing into bed with you than by climbing out the restaurant’s bathroom window; say, that little puppet show of your last relationship you put on with the baby vegetables: “Now Mrs. Carrot is cheating on Mr. Carrot with Mr. Parsnip…”