It’s not just about the money; the $2 wasn’t going to break either one of us. It’s the gesture. Call me fusty, but I like it when men open doors, walk me home, pay for my dinner or, for that matter, my water. Chivalry is a precious commodity, and one that makes me swoon. Too bad it’s in such short supply here.

I grew up in Texas, where all men are chivalrous. Although I’ve lived in New York for almost 20 years, I’ve only been divorced and dating for the past eight. Am I just a princess who thinks too much of herself and is stuck in another era? Or have post-postmodern men become spoiled because we’ve let them?

Eight of my last nine dates have been with guys who are cheap—something they should have been cautioned against in Courtship 101. Tim told me he wasn’t “against money” when I offered to share the cost of our drinks and then, without further hesitation, snatched the $20 out of my hand. Until that moment, I’d been on the fence about whether or not I wanted to see him again. I bought myself a “No.”

Jeff wanted to take me to the corner diner for dinner, a suggestion I refused. I recommended a neighborhood bistro instead, figuring that if money was the issue, I would just order a salad. It wouldn’t cost more than a grilled chicken sandwich, and at least the lighting would be ambient.

It didn’t matter anyway: Jeff complained so much about his financial situation that I paid for my half of the check. Then I listened as he told me about the $400,000 deals he had in the works on the way home.

I don’t understand. These men asked me out. Isn’t the one who initiates the invitation supposed to pay? The answer is yes, according to both Letitia Baldrige’s New Manners for New Times and Amy Vanderbilt’s Complete Book of Etiquette. After that, the woman (since, after all, it is usually the woman who receives the invitation) can reciprocate by buying movie tickets, paying for drinks, maybe cooking a meal—something to show that she appreciates the effort the man has made on her behalf. The problem is, there is no “after that” for me. When a guy accepts my money, it’s an immediate deal breaker.

Logically, it doesn’t seem fair that the guy always has to pay. I am sure that they go on as many bad dates as women do, and the idea of continually forking over cash for what may or may not be a pleasant evening makes them resentful. But there is no logic in the world of love, so I’m not allowing them that excuse.

I am not insensitive to financial issues. Seriously in debt myself, I am aware that dating is an expensive proposition. As a mother of two, I have to hire a baby sitter when I go out, so on average I start the evening $50 in the hole. Add to that the amount of money women spend on makeup, hair and wardrobe, and dating becomes something of an investment for us before we even walk out the door.

But if money really is an issue for the guy, $400,000 deals notwithstanding, there are ways around it. Don, a teacher, invited me to his apartment for dinner. I brought a bottle of wine and chocolates for dessert, and he cooked. The food was disastrous, but I was totally charmed by the gesture. Douglas, a photographer, took me for a sunset picnic in Central Park and brought homemade chocolate-chip cookies. Both were clever solutions to a shortage of funds, and far preferable to sitting in an overpriced restaurant anyway. Besides, thoughtfulness is incredibly sexy.

But then there was Peter. He was cute, he was smart, he had real potential—until the check came for our drinks. He let it lie between us as if it were a land mine. I picked it up, expecting him to grab it out of my hand, but he didn’t. Instead, he let me pay the total, dashing any real hope I had that there was anything princely about him.

A friend of mine suggested that if I tell my dates I’m offended by their cheapness, maybe they would change their ways. But it’s not my job to tell grown men how to behave! I’m not their mother, and if I were, I would definitely put them in a “time out.”

The feminist movement gave us many wonderful things—among them the ability to spend as much time in the boardroom as the dining room, options other than sitting at home with the perfectly prepared meal waiting for hubby to arrive. But did it also give us a generation of men who have ceased to be gentlemen? That’s not what we meant. It’s not what I meant, anyway.

Gentlemen do exist. My friends are married to them—Rob, George and Kevin are all fabulous guys. They have collectively adopted me, and every time we go out as a group they refuse my money and insist upon walking me to my door. It’s happened so often that I’ve started to refuse their invitations because I don’t want to feel like a mooch. Although it’s frustrating that all the chivalrous men I know are unavailable, it’s encouraging to know that they exist.

The good news is, I’ve made a decision about future first dates. After reading Mmes. Baldrige and Vanderbilt, I’m not going to offer to pay anymore, unless the guy is truly broke. This way, it won’t be so confusing: I won’t leave feeling resentful, and the guy won’t wonder why I won’t return his phone calls. Had I done that with the fellow who stiffed me at Starbucks, I could have saved myself an enormous amount of aggravation. Not to mention two whole dollars.

It’s not just about the money; the $2 wasn’t going to break either one of us. It’s the gesture. Call me fusty, but I like it when men open doors, walk me home, pay for my dinner or, for that matter, my water. Chivalry is a precious commodity, and one that makes me swoon. Too bad it’s in such short supply here.

I grew up in Texas, where all men are chivalrous. Although I’ve lived in New York for almost 20 years, I’ve only been divorced and dating for the past eight. Am I just a princess who thinks too much of herself and is stuck in another era? Or have post-postmodern men become spoiled because we’ve let them?

Eight of my last nine dates have been with guys who are cheap—something they should have been cautioned against in Courtship 101. Tim told me he wasn’t “against money” when I offered to share the cost of our drinks and then, without further hesitation, snatched the $20 out of my hand. Until that moment, I’d been on the fence about whether or not I wanted to see him again. I bought myself a “No.”

Jeff wanted to take me to the corner diner for dinner, a suggestion I refused. I recommended a neighborhood bistro instead, figuring that if money was the issue, I would just order a salad. It wouldn’t cost more than a grilled chicken sandwich, and at least the lighting would be ambient.

It didn’t matter anyway: Jeff complained so much about his financial situation that I paid for my half of the check. Then I listened as he told me about the $400,000 deals he had in the works on the way home.

I don’t understand. These men asked me out. Isn’t the one who initiates the invitation supposed to pay? The answer is yes, according to both Letitia Baldrige’s New Manners for New Times and Amy Vanderbilt’s Complete Book of Etiquette. After that, the woman (since, after all, it is usually the woman who receives the invitation) can reciprocate by buying movie tickets, paying for drinks, maybe cooking a meal—something to show that she appreciates the effort the man has made on her behalf. The problem is, there is no “after that” for me. When a guy accepts my money, it’s an immediate deal breaker.

Logically, it doesn’t seem fair that the guy always has to pay. I am sure that they go on as many bad dates as women do, and the idea of continually forking over cash for what may or may not be a pleasant evening makes them resentful. But there is no logic in the world of love, so I’m not allowing them that excuse.

I am not insensitive to financial issues. Seriously in debt myself, I am aware that dating is an expensive proposition. As a mother of two, I have to hire a baby sitter when I go out, so on average I start the evening $50 in the hole. Add to that the amount of money women spend on makeup, hair and wardrobe, and dating becomes something of an investment for us before we even walk out the door.

But if money really is an issue for the guy, $400,000 deals notwithstanding, there are ways around it. Don, a teacher, invited me to his apartment for dinner. I brought a bottle of wine and chocolates for dessert, and he cooked. The food was disastrous, but I was totally charmed by the gesture. Douglas, a photographer, took me for a sunset picnic in Central Park and brought homemade chocolate-chip cookies. Both were clever solutions to a shortage of funds, and far preferable to sitting in an overpriced restaurant anyway. Besides, thoughtfulness is incredibly sexy.

But then there was Peter. He was cute, he was smart, he had real potential—until the check came for our drinks. He let it lie between us as if it were a land mine. I picked it up, expecting him to grab it out of my hand, but he didn’t. Instead, he let me pay the total, dashing any real hope I had that there was anything princely about him.

A friend of mine suggested that if I tell my dates I’m offended by their cheapness, maybe they would change their ways. But it’s not my job to tell grown men how to behave! I’m not their mother, and if I were, I would definitely put them in a “time out.”

The feminist movement gave us many wonderful things—among them the ability to spend as much time in the boardroom as the dining room, options other than sitting at home with the perfectly prepared meal waiting for hubby to arrive. But did it also give us a generation of men who have ceased to be gentlemen? That’s not what we meant. It’s not what I meant, anyway.

Gentlemen do exist. My friends are married to them—Rob, George and Kevin are all fabulous guys. They have collectively adopted me, and every time we go out as a group they refuse my money and insist upon walking me to my door. It’s happened so often that I’ve started to refuse their invitations because I don’t want to feel like a mooch. Although it’s frustrating that all the chivalrous men I know are unavailable, it’s encouraging to know that they exist.

The good news is, I’ve made a decision about future first dates. After reading Mmes. Baldrige and Vanderbilt, I’m not going to offer to pay anymore, unless the guy is truly broke. This way, it won’t be so confusing: I won’t leave feeling resentful, and the guy won’t wonder why I won’t return his phone calls. Had I done that with the fellow who stiffed me at Starbucks, I could have saved myself an enormous amount of aggravation. Not to mention two whole dollars.

I don't know who these invisible geniuses are who actually will be accepted to college, but I'm envious of them, and more so their parents. They must be a far less stressed group of individuals than my friends and me. We peruse guidebooks and consult the Internet, meet with college advisors and attend school meetings. It consumes a good deal of our lives.

I desperately wanted the college process to be fun. I imagined walking arm-in-arm with my beautiful child through tree-lined campuses discussing Big Meaningful Issues like "Why are we here?" and "If women ruled the world, would there be war?" We would walk into libraries with great, tall stacks just to inhale the scent of the books and hear the creak of the wooden floors. Ah, life, I would say. It's a beautiful thing.

My daughter feels differently, though. She's totally overwhelmed by the application process and feels somewhat incapable of moving forward. Her junior year of high school is tough; the demands upon her intense. First there are the Advanced Placement exams to worry about, then the SAT's and, after that, the SAT II, which I knew as the Achievement Tests. And, oh yes-she needs to make straight A's, except for two A-minuses to prove that she's not an obsessive perfectionist. It's all making her a little testy.

She does well enough in school. She speaks French beautifully and, for reasons that are inexplicable to me, she excels in courses like physics and chemistry. It's not enough, though, they say. Applicants have to have an edge: perfect scores on their SAT's, play an obscure orchestral instrument, be environmental scientists and create the most briliantly written college essay ever. "I have an idea," I advised her. "Why don't you write about how much you adore your mother?"

I could certainly do likewise for her. I think of the things my daughter does well, the joy she brings to every day of my life, the sparkle in her clear blue eyes. It's the way she laughs that makes her special, I think; the fact that she named her fish, Fish; her bohemian sense of style, with my scarves swagged around her neck. It's not the colleges that I want to appreciate that, though. It's her.

What would it matter if she got into Harvard or Princeton or Yale anyway-all schools she assures me are impossible to get into? Would it really make her a better person? I wonder. I didn't go to an Ivy League school and I turned out, well … odd, perhaps, but happy enough. And besides, I once dated a man from Harvard, and he managed to drop the "H-word" (as I came to refer to it) into the conversation approximately every 15 minutes. Grace escaped him, Harvard or not.

But still, I was awake half the night worrying that I had handled the College Fair badly. I thought about my daughter's friends, whom I saw marching around purposely with their parents from booth to booth, engaging in conversation, shaking hands, befriending those in high places. What did they know that I didn't, I wondered, and how did they get their children to cooperate? Maybe I should have tripped them up, I thought, stuck out my foot just as they were passing. Instead, I stood paralyzed in the corner and waved as they passed.

My wise daughter sized up the situation the minute we walked in the door and dismissed the event as pointless. "You can get this information on the Internet," she said as she eyed the stacks and stacks of brochures. "I want to go home." We stood there, right in front of the representatives from Duke and Dartmouth, arguing about how to proceed.

She had a point. After some discussion, we surmised that the purpose of the evening was to make face-to-face contact with the college reps, look them in the eye and say something memorable. But what would that possibly be? With hundreds of students elbowing their way to the front of the line, the only way I could imagine they would remember you would be if you gave them a diamond tennis bracelet, perhaps, or burst into a rousing rendition of "Battle Hymn of the Republic" or maybe "Old Man River." Now that would make an impression.

I heard one woman telling a tale to a venerable Southern school about her youth in Texas and the summers that she spent visiting her grandparents in Alabama. "The South is in her genes," she said as she patted her child on the back. "She can't help but be attracted to it." You're pathetic, I thought. Shut up! Dear Reader, that woman was me, competing with the masses, trying to exhibit some edge. My daughter rolled her eyes and asked me to speak no more. I happily obliged.

Perhaps I've got it all wrong. Maybe instead of believing that my child is going to end up in the school that's right for her, I should be contacting heads of state-or possibly Oprah-to write letters of recommendation in her behalf. Maybe we should both learn to say clever things, like "How many ways can I kiss up?" in 17 languages.

But that's not going to happen. Instead, I've decided to tune out the noise and tune into that place in my head that is full not of expectation or entitlement, but of hope and wonder and infinite possibility, and try to convince my child to do the same. Not to sound hopelessly naive, but isn't that what a college education is all about?

Yoga instructors "adjust" their students, which means they guide their bodies deeper into a posture through the use of gentle pressure. Adjustments are welcomed by most yogis, since they enable students to achieve previously unattainable asanas . They are particularly welcomed by me, though, when the instructor happens to be male.

The fact that yoga could be a turn-on came as an unexpected bonus. I stumbled into my first class several years ago, seeking serenity in the midst of enormous personal trauma. Everyone I knew who practiced had a calm yet powerful demeanor about them, so I decided to investigate.

I began my practice at a popular downtown studio. I was drawn not just to the physical practice, but to their spiritual teachings as well. Their philosophy instructed that when you overcame an obstacle in class, such as a really tough position, you were better able to overcome obstacles outside of class, such as (in my case) my life. It worked, and I soon found myself on the noble path of enlightenment.

But not for long. There was a great deal of buzz in the dressing room about an instructor named David, so I signed up for one of his classes to see what all the fuss was about.

David was thrilling yet terrifying. Sporting long, dangly earrings, copious tattoos and skin-tight orange pants, he was just the kind of guy who would appall my mother. This made me want him in the worst possible way.

I hid in the back of his class, feeling hopelessly normal in the sea of pierced noses and daunting attitudes. But David adjusted me as frequently as he did everyone else, and in an effort not to appear wimpy, I pushed myself to the point of excruciating pain. Given the fact that my life was such a mess, pain felt very, very right.

All was going swimmingly in my spiritual quest until, one day, I found David lying across my back, pushing me further into a forward bend. "Sweet Jesus," I thought, as I pressed my face into my shins. "Who needs to date?"

Slowly, I inched my way toward the front of the room. Row by row, I would move my mat up until, after about a month, I was front and center. Then, in perhaps the biggest bonanza in the history of yoga, David arrived late to class one day and changed his pants right in front of God and my prying eyes. I stared, gape-mouthed, as he stood before me, clad only in his tightie-whities and a tie-dyed T-shirt. This must be what they mean by nirvana, I thought, and I've attained it so soon.

Yoga began taking up a weirdly disproportionate amount of my time. With the commute, the class and the shower afterward, it easily took half a day, and I went, well, a lot. So, I was relieved when a reputable studio opened much closer to my apartment. Besides, the small yet audible sighs that escaped when David touched me were getting embarrassing. It was time to move on.

The new studio was great. The classes were tough, the music motivating, the instructors primarily female. Now I could get back to the business of enlightenment. Then, one hapless Friday morning, I wandered in and there, at the head of the class, was Jason-not his real name-lighting incense and selecting CD's. He had a free-spirited California-boy look: thick, tousled hair, baggy shorts and granite-hard legs.

I was sunk.

I suspect I wasn't alone in my prurient intentions. Jason's class was always teeming with beautiful, long-limbed women. Perhaps they were all there for spiritual inspiration, but I felt better imagining they were in the gutter with me.

Positioning was key. Much like when I'm at the beach, I would place myself strategically-as far away from the leggy-model types as possible. If one of them inadvertently rolled out her mat next to me, I would just smile beatifically and kick some mental sand her way.

"Don't you think he's the sexiest thing on the planet?" I asked a friend in a hushed tone one day before class began.

"Yes, but he's gay," she whispered back.

Somehow, this made it even better. Jason became all the more desirable because of his unavailability. I would look around in class at all the beautiful women and think, "I can't have him, but neither can you."

As fabulous as Jason was, the scene in his class eventually began to wear on me. The ever-ringing cell phones and Fendi bags that accompanied many of the uptown yogis were becoming irksome. When a new studio opened last fall three blocks from home, I felt compelled to try it. Just maybe I could finally give up my yoga-slut ways.

Things were peachy at first. My commute was down to 10 minutes each way, and the studio was pastel-colored and serene. I quickly became a regular.

"Have you tried John's class?" the owner asked me one morning. It was all the enticement I needed. The next day, I found myself under the tutelage of a 6-foot-2 hunk with a voice like warm maple syrup. I have always found intensity enormously attractive-and fortunately for me, John seemed to have none. He was languid and melodic, which meant that, for a while, I was able to focus on the yoga and not the yoga instructor.

One morning before a holiday weekend, I strolled into class to find that not one other student had shown up. I was alone with John.

It would be the last time I thought of him as laid-back. Instead, I began to fixate on his massive hands, which he used to reposition my arms, my rib cage and my pelvis. After an hour and 15 minutes, I felt spent. It was time for savasana, or the "corpse pose," as it is known, in which you lie down, eyes closed, and relax like a dead person.

Serenity swept over me until, for some inexplicable reason, John decided he needed to "rotate my inner thigh." "Imagine your heart opening like a beautiful rose," he said as he knelt over me, "each petal gently unfolding." After turning my left leg outward, he lifted me up by my torso to straighten me out.

My back arched, my lips parted, and I wondered, for one brief, horrifying moment, if I were to snatch him by the hair and start making out with him, would he kiss me back? If not, would he tell anybody what I had done?

The potential for embarrassment was too great. I began to meditate on the rose.

"What in the name of God is wrong with me?" I wondered on the walk home. "This is yoga." And then, finally, I had a moment of true enlightenment. There's a reason monks have to live in monasteries and gurus on mountain tops. There, they are far, far away from temptation.

I wouldn't have minded killing him at the time, but there were the children to think about. They seemed genuinely fond of him.

So I put away the sewing kit and looked for a new outlet for my fury. I felt that venting was an important part of the healing process. I just needed to find a way of tormenting my husband without offing him.

I wasn't up to stepping out much in the initial days after my separation. I preferred to stay home instead, and spend hours snipping his initial out of our monogrammed towels, thread by thread. Our first names both begin with J, so I would cut the second J out, thereby declaring myself master of the household. As an act of generosity, I gave him a set to spruce up his bachelor pad. "Here," I said sweetly, "why don't you take some of our towels? It's not fair that I have them all." He accepted them, but never commented on my handiwork.

Scissors in hand, I moved on to his underwear drawer. He took only a gym bag with him when he moved out, and still stopped by whenever necessary to replenish his wardrobe. When I decided to empty his drawers to make more room for my clothes, the temptation was too great. Out came the tightie-whities, and I went straight to work. After the first snip, I was hooked. I started by simply cutting out the crotch, but then I got creative-hearts, jack-o'-lanterns, smiley faces. It was so juvenile, yet so gratifying.

I put his now-crotchless panties in the bottom of a Barneys shopping bag and tossed in a few personal effects that I thought would be meaningful to him. "Be sure you open this," I said as I handed him the bag. "There's a baby picture of you with your mother in there." I'm sure he opened the bag-he loved his mother-but I never heard a word about the undies. A couple of days later, I gathered up all of his clothes-Armani suits, Hermès ties, Paul Stuart shirts-and stuffed them all in lawn-and-leaf bags. I solved the dilemma of how to deliver them when I eyed the baby stroller. I piled it high with the garbage bags, left the baby with the sitter and rolled this shifting, unsightly mass to his apartment just a few blocks away.

"I have a delivery for apartment 14B," I announced to his doorman.

"Everything?" he asked.

"No, not the stroller-that's for the baby," I snapped as I tipped the contents onto the marble floor and marched out the door, the stroller careening on two wheels.

"Jan," my ex said tersely when he called that night, "nice delivery." Well, it was something, I suppose. Those three words, spoken through clenched teeth, suggested that at least the scales were starting to tip.

Once I had cleaned out my closets, I decided it was time to redecorate. I kindly offered my ex everything I intended to replace, but he declined, having grown skeptical of my offerings. Our tastes were radically different-mine good, his not-so I had a garage sale and sold everything that he had chosen for our apartment. I made price tags out of yellow Post-Its, stuck one on each of his hunt-country prints, Oriental rugs, and tables and mirrors that looked like they belonged in my grandmother's house, and invited the doormen up to shop.

"A dollar?" René the porter asked incredulously when he opened the plastic garbage bag and saw the Ralph Lauren equestrian-print bedding. "Each item is only a dollar? I'll give you 10."

"No, no," I answered. "One dollar and not a penny more." From 10 years of marriage, I netted $17 and a priceless amount of satisfaction.

And yet, it wasn't enough. "This divorce stuff is exhausting," I thought. We were still a long way from reaching an agreement, and I needed a vacation.

Valentine's Day was approaching, and I was feeling rather blue. So I enlisted a friend to go with me, lined up the baby-sitter to watch the children, and arrived in Paris on Friday morning, Feb. 14.

It was my ex's weekend with the children. "Where's Mommy?" he asked when he arrived to pick them up.

"Paawis," my then-2-year-old daughter responded.

"Did you forget to mention something? What the hell are you doing in Paris?" he asked that night, when I called to speak to our girls.

"You would never take me, so I took myself."

The shouting coming from the phone was so toxic, I literally jumped. Finally, a reaction.

"Guess what, Sporty?" I said. "I don't have to listen to this anymore. Haven't you heard about the Big Divorce?" I placed the receiver down on the fancyescritoire,gazed dreamily outatthe rooftops and waited him out. When the noise finally stopped, I hung up the phone.

Surprisingly,things weren't going too well with our divorce attorneys. "What are you doing to this man?" my lawyer would ask every time we spoke. "He's not agreeing to anything."

"I'm being perfectly civilized," I would reply. "Really. I told you he was unreasonable."

After months of slugging it out, we finally came to an agreement, more out of exhaustion than anything else. On Aug. 20, my attorney called to tell me that my divorce was final. The next day, he died of a heart attack. This upset me because, though I had never practiced voodoo on my attorney, the consensus among my friends was that dealing with me had killed him. I felt hard-pressed to disagree-we argued a lot over my feelings that he sympathized with my husband.

On Aug. 22, my ex rang me up.

"I just thought you should know that I got engaged last night," he said.

This pissed me off. He was engaged, and I was sitting home alone on a Saturday night. Wasn't I the nice one here? I thought a moment and said, "Congratulations. I wish you a lifetime of happiness, and I hope the two of you have a bunch of uuuug-gly little babies."

"Goodbye, Jan," he said and slammed down the phone. I quickly made the sign of the cross, begged God for forgiveness and went about my day.

I realized I was through tormenting him-as well as myself-when I woke up on his wedding day and felt oddly unfazed. Besides, I was throwing a cocktail party that evening and was more concerned with my celebration than his.

My soirée was a big success. I didn't think about my ex once until the end of the evening, when the caterer asked me if I had any garbage bags.

"Plenty," I said, and retrieved the enormous roll of lawn-and-leaf bags that I had bought for the clothing drop in my ex's lobby.

Then my college roommate, who is going through a horrible divorce, gave me a call last week. "This is awful," she told me. "How did you get through it?"

"I'll be glad to tell you, but let's discuss it over coffee," I said. "And bring pictures of your hubby. We have some work to do.

I am not indiscriminate. I date very little, but I kiss even less. Kissing should be special, and one thing I've learned is that if the person isn't right, neither is the kiss.

I was woefully out of practice after my divorce and nervous about the concept of dating. I love to kiss, but it had been 10 years since I had done so for the first time. I believe that if you enjoy doing something enough, you will do it well-but still, I was worried. What if I didn't fare well as a kisser? Would they kiss me once and send me on my way?

First kisses transform a date into something more-not quite a relationship, but more than a date. After my divorce, Jeff was my first first kiss, and he literally took my breath away.

"Want a mint?" he asked, as he popped one into his mouth and kissed me just outside the ladies' room of the Monkey Bar. I had forgotten that kissing could be so good, and I remember thinking, "Divorce rocks!"

Living in Manhattan makes kissing tricky, though. Doormen stand guard outside my building-a bastion of father figures waiting for me to arrive home. When I return with a date, Miguel pretends to sweep the spotless lobby floor, while Andres' tack is to turn his back to us and gaze vacantly toward Central Park. Danny scrawls nervously on a legal pad at the desk, while Rene stares straight at us and smiles.

Cab-kissing is an excellent solution. When given the choice of where to meet, I've been known to opt for a restaurant far from my apartment. "My neighborhood's so boring," I say, but I'm really thinking of the cab ride home-lengthy rides make for lengthy kisses. This plot is far too risky for a blind date. I choose my victims wisely, reserving it for those I long to kiss.

I do worry about embarrassing the cab driver. But time and again, I close my eyes and kiss, thinking, "If I can't see him, he can't see me." Mission accomplished, I arrive at my door, thank my date for a lovely evening and politely shake his hand.

Plotting is not always essential. Some kisses occur spontaneously, the element of surprise compensating for the lack of anticipation. Jonathan kissed me on a piano bench in his apartment after serenading me with Chopin. I kissed Keith on roller blades after skating out of control and into his arms in Central Park. My first kiss with Jack was in Greenwich, Conn. on the Fourth of July with fireworks in the background.

I am impatient at times. No kiss by the second date is a pardonable offense, but by the third date it's a crime. "Are you going to kiss me or not?" I asked Robert at a summer party in East Hampton. He promptly swept me up and carried me to the pool house, the gallantry of the gesture intensifying the beauty of the kiss. I was shocked by my own bravado. Never did I expect such passion from an investment banker.

Dean was an interesting challenge. He was shy, I was told by the friend who'd set us up. I kept this in mind after he'd driven me home, as I sat in his car waiting for my kiss. I listened as he prattled on and on about the latest developments in molecular biology. "Shut up and kiss me," I finally said. I suppose I had frightened him into action, but his kiss was a terrible bore. "Damn!" I thought. "All that time for that." No kisses are better than bad kisses.

Kisses communicate, telling much more than words. There is the I-am-terrified kiss, which is brief and unimaginative, and the I-have-issues kiss, which is frenetic and overly imaginative. The noncommittal kiss lacks luster and zeal, and the unaware kiss is just plain wet. The open and self-assured kiss, though, is the best: soft yet sure, slow yet measured-the kind of kiss that makes you happy you're alive.

David was my most recent first kiss, on a warm spring night in the city. He was my one and only date from the slew of lunatics that had contacted me via an Internet dating service. For weeks I had refused to meet him, fearing he was too good to be true. Instead, I printed out his picture and carried it around with me, delighted with the simplicity of our relationship.

David wasn't quite as pleased with the arrangement, though. "How can you be happy with that?" he asked. "Is it really enough for you?" Sensing that yes would have been a bad answer, at last I agreed to a date.

The anticipation was unbearable; I had dreamt of his kiss for a month. "I guess this is as good a place as any to do this," he said, as he spun me on my heel and kissed me in front of the fountains at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. David was to kissing what Michelangelo was to sculpture-sheer, beautiful, blessed perfection. I was crazy about David, but our relationship was long-distance and too complicated to maintain. Our kiss, though, will live in perpetuity.

It would be nice to meet someone. When I got divorced, though, I vowed to never again live a life of compromise. Until I find exactly what I'm looking for, I am perfectly content to wait. Besides, I've never kissed for the first time on top of the Empire State Building. I don't intend to commit to a serious relationship until I do.

I've had responses from as far away as Greece and Monaco, with the Greek writing to me, "We are 89% math and I would like to have a contact." I know neither what he based his computation on nor what he meant by a "contact," but I felt frightened and pressed "delete."

I've had potential suitors tell me that they "extrude confidence," are highly "intelligient," and that they will absolutely not bare the depth of their "sole" on the first date. "Reformed Bad Boy" told me that he used to be a total jerk, particularly to women, but that he's all better now. Of course he is.

I've considered revising my profile to add "no lunatics, please," but if you change as much as a comma, that idiot Cupid sends your profile out to a bevy of new beaus that he has personally chosen for you.

Cupid is a little computer-driven matchmaker who lives within the confines of the dating service. Based on I know not what, he pairs you with whomever he deems appropriate. I've come to hate him. He has extremely bad taste and insults my intelligence, not to mention what he does to my self-esteem. No. 1 on my latest list of Cupid mismatches was this: "Looking for my Black Queen."

Which would be fine, if I were black.

Most of the men's profiles are the same. They like to hold hands and walk on the beach or snuggle in front of the fireplace. They universally enjoy fine dining and are always embarrassed to tell you, but they really are very good-looking. None play games, which is unfortunate, since I am particularly fond of Scrabble and, when I am feeling spunky, Twister.

I actually called one guy. His name was Dan (all names have been changed to protect the guilty), and though his profile was not very interesting, the shallow part of me was attracted to his photograph. He was six feet tall and incredibly handsome. We had e-mailed back and forth several times and decided on a mutually convenient time for me to call him. I introduced myself and after several awkward seconds heard, "Refresh my memory. Which one are you?"

"How about you refresh your own memory and look me up on the computer," I snapped. He did, and to fill the gap of the logging-on time, he told me in great detail about the crusty pink eye from which he was suffering.

"Oh, yeah. You're beautiful," he said after my image finally popped up on his screen. "Do you really look like this?"

"Not at all," I responded. "I cut that picture out of a magazine." Goodbye, Dan.

In the midst of this madness, though, I have one small glimmer of hope. His name is David and he lives in Maryland. He is handsome, charming and, best of all, he dares to be different. In the space on his profile that says "What I'm looking for," he wrote, "I'm looking for my car keys." Underneath his photo, instead of the usual "Click here to meet your Love God," David's caption read "Lather, Rinse, Repeat." He is a pilot, which brings to mind speed, power, great heights.

We've been e-mailing each other for about three weeks now. While he continually questions why we bother since we live in different states, I throw philosophical tidbits at him in an attempt to convince him that it's irrelevant. "Just be, don't ask," I say, hoping he won't question exactly what that means.

I have printed out his profile and carry it around with me rolled up in a little diploma, secured with a rubber band. I do this in case I run into any girlfriends I want to show him to. This happens more often than you would expect, because I live in Manhattan and am constantly bumping into people I know. "Look at my new boyfriend," I say as I unroll him. "Isn't he cute?"

A couple of days ago, I took him with me when I went to have a pedicure. As I reached into my bag to retrieve my sandals, out plopped David. I was momentarily horrified to see him gaily floating in the tub in which my feet had been soaking. "My boyfriend!" I gasped as I rescued him from his grubby sea, hoping the smiling attendant spoke no English. "He's wet."

David came with me to a cocktail party last week. I brought him along to show to my friend Ellen. She and her husband Mark had invited me to a soirée held at one of those old-boy New York clubs that, as a concession to the 21st century, has decided to allow women in for an evening. Men outnumbered women by about three to one. Mark made it his mission to introduce me to as many available men as possible.

"Ah. Here's my friend from prep school," Mark said to me. "Hello, Blakely-this is my friend, Jan."

"Hi, Blakely. It's nice to meet you," I lied.

Sniff. Pause. Extended hand. "Yes. So nice to see you," he said, with a little bow of his perfectly coiffed blond head. Blakely was bronze- he had just returned from Mustique. His monologue glided into his plans for the summer, which will be primarily spent on the Vineyard.

"And you?" he asked. "Where do you summer, Jan?"

Anywhere you don't, Blakely.

Ordinarily, I leave these evenings feeling despondent about the possibility of ever finding romance. This night, though, I leave with a spring in my step, for David is in my bag. I can't wait to get home and log on. Merely seeing his screen name makes my heart skip a beat.

Language excites me, and even the titles of his e-mails are seductive: "Lost in Atlantis," "Mystic Veil" and my hands-down favorite, "Distant Thunder." Having grown up in Texas, storms have always thrilled me.

Though I respect the intimacy of our correspondence, I do forward his e-mails to a few dozen close girlfriends. We are all so starved for meaningful relationships that I feel it's my responsibility to share.

David really wants to meet me. He has come up with innumerable plans to make this happen: coming to New York City, meeting halfway, whatever would be convenient. The mere thought makes me cringe. Our relationship is so perfect now-so positively unreal. I'll take my paper boyfriend over a real one any day.

My Internet-dating membership expires in two weeks. I don't think I'll renew. With my David, I'm sure I've found true love.