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Dear Breakup Girl,

Yup, it happened again. Yet another budding romance, blown to smithereens. I met someone using match.com a couple of weeks ago, believe it or not. Intelligent, attractive, talkative -- things seemed to click, and up until a few days ago things were going pretty well. After a date we had on Thursday night, we made arrangements to meet on Saturday -- she would come to the my apartment, we'd head off to a nice restaurant downtown, come back home to watch a video, and then soak in the hot tub, essentially a clichéd but nice romantic date.

4:00 came around, and there was no knock at my door. 4:30 -- called her, no answer. 5:00 -- no answer. 6:00 -- no answer. Part of me says "I'm worried," thinking that something terrible happened to her. The cynic in me thought "great, she's blowing me off." I gave up and just left, going to get something to eat -- alone.

Later that night, I tried calling one more time -- no answer. Called a few moments afterwards, with my Caller ID information blocked ... "You got the wrong number ... CLICK" -- and it was HER VOICE. As far as I'm concerned, that's as good as breaking up with me. This morning, though, I called her, trying to figure out what the hell happened. She claimed that we didn't have a date on Saturday, ticked off that I had called her "twenty times."

Seems that every time I meet someone with some potential, where the first date or two goes great, something always happens. She'll pull a disappearing act, like the woman from match.com. An old boyfriend will come back -- this not being an excuse, but reality. She'll start dating someone else that she met at about the same time she met me. I've become so jaded, it's becoming nearly impossible to find myself falling for someone. When things seem to click, I increasingly think "too good to be true," and they usually are. I'm now afraid to approach women, thinking that I'll just be rejected for some reason or another in the end. The once gregarious and happy self is slowly being jaded into shyness and depression, and I'm on the verge of crying as I type this.

I'm an attractive, intelligent, financially secure and don't have any baggage. I'm working to get away from some of my "nice guy" traits, things that lock guys like me into perpetual friendships with no room for advancement. I date women that are pretty much in my league -- college educated, cute but not drop-dead gorgeous, and approachable, 5 to 7 on the overused scale of desirability. Checking out self-help and dating books at area bookstores, I'm finding that my execution is pretty much textbook-perfect. I'm not smothering, obsessive, controlling or obnoxious. I'm at a complete loss as to what's going on. I'm wondering -- am I alone? Are there others out there who are apparently normal like me, who just keep getting dealt bad cards in the casino of love? How do you pull out of a rut like this?

-- Dan

Dear Dan,

Manners, people, manners! It's easier to suck it up and cancel than it is to be forever remembered as the heinous troll who just didn't show.

But as for you, Dan, ooooh, don't go where you're going! Psyching yourself out will only unravel all the normalcy you've worked so hard to achieve! And if you're shy and depressed and jaded, you're only going to find yourself in a vicious rejection circle, or in "Swingers." Because I will tell you this: there are TONS of "normal" people out there, alone in bookstores, wondering WHAT GIVES?

(Oh, and also -- random point -- I don't know what went on on your first date, but arguably, going home to your hot tub is Too Much for date #2. I know your intentions are sound, but this is also the decade where people don't call to cancel. You never know. She might -- NOT YOUR FAULT -- have been rattled.)

Other than that, Dan-O, maybe the way to dig out of this rut is to quit working it for a while. Quit having -- though I'm sure it is fine -- an Approach. Hang out, lay low, regroup. The way you feel right now, every remotely imperfect turn of events is going to be a big HERE WE GO [out to eat alone] AGAIN. Wait 'til this fever pitch of freaking subsides (like, the point where you realize that even her bad manners -- after one date, Dan! -- don't count as a "breakup." And that "something always happens" is what the natives call "dating."). Then try a different section of the bookstore.

Love,
Breakup Girl

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