Today I went to the movies with my (straight, believe it or not) best guy friend and we saw “He’s Just Not That Into You.” Despite the cheesy endings, overall, I really liked the movie. We had some great laughs at Ginnifer Goodwin’s expense as her cute, but unlucky in love, character broke all the dating rules and drove every guy away with her psycho-stalkerness. As funny as it was to watch her leave countless messages for a guy who never called her back, or “accidentally” show up at a bar she knows a guy she likes frequents, I was sad, and slightly ashamed, to realize that I was once just like her. Times two.

What is it about the opposite sex that makes us abandon our strong, smart, independent ways and act like sad, dependent, slightly psychotic creatures? Before Boyfriend and I got together, I was, believe it or not, a bit of a nut case when it came to the opposite sex.

I dated a guy in college, let’s call him D, for all of a month, but that was enough for me to obsess about him and spend the next four years in college, and some time after, trying to convince him that we were meant to be. I would show up at bars I thought he would be at, though to my credit, I went to school in a small town where there were about four major bars that everyone frequented; drunk dialed him constantly; showed up at his apartment, drunk, in the middle of the night; ordered pizza when I didn’t want it because he was the delivery guy; and, worst of all, hooked up with him whenever it was convenient for him. I knew I was being pathetic, but I honestly believed that I was the perfect girl for him. I held on to this delusional vision of me being the only girl who could truly understand him and make him happy. I definitely believed that we would end up together. Whether it was through true love or an “accidental” pregnancy, I knew it was destined to happen. Not surprisingly, it turns out that I was wrong.

Shortly after college I met this guy, J, through a mutual friend and we immediately hit it off. We hung out a handful of times and one morning after he had spent the night, a sexless night I might add because I was trying to turn this into a real relationship, he was helping me cleanup my apartment and I mentioned something about him making a great husband one day. After that day I never heard from him again. I left messages, sent e-mails, but he never returned my calls. I spent several nights in my apartment, alone, in the dark, repeatedly watching the movie, “Closer,” and crying my eyes out, wondering where I went wrong.

About three years ago I briefly dated a guy, let’s call him A, that I met when I was drunk after happy hour one day. We hung out about a handful of times, but it was enough for me to assume that we were headed down couple lane and would soon be referring to each other as boyfriend and girlfriend. Turns out, I couldn’t have been more wrong. We actually only went out, in public, one other time after our first meeting. All other times he would come over and watch a movie, or stop by my apartment in the middle of the week for a quick booty call. We talked a couple of times a week, but it was usually me calling him. I’m not exactly sure why, but this all led me to believe that he was totally into me. Looking back, I think everything started to really deteriorate one night when I called him drunk and crying, about something totally unrelated to him, and pissed that he was late meeting me out that night. He picked my sad, drunk ass up at the bar and drove me home. We got into a fight and he told me to calm the hell down because he wasn’ t my boyfriend. This upset me even more and he left shortly thereafter. We hung out one other time (he was my date for my friend’s wedding) and that was the last time we saw each other.

I was at a bar one night talking to a bartender and asking him if he knew A, because he was a beer distributor in the area, and he said yes, and I smiled and implied to the bartender that we were a couple. Later that night I called A and he didn’t answer. So I called again, and again, and again. My friend later told me that I called about three times too many, but I thought that maybe he really did want to talk to me me but his phone was on vibrate and he didn’t hear it ringing. Unlikely, but I was desperately trying to convince myself that he wasn’t blowing me off. The next day he called me and said he was going back to his ex-girlfriend. I was angry and upset, but I told him that he wasn’t good enough for me anyway and I hoped that he and this girl were happy together. I was proud of myself for handling the situation so well. However, a few weeks later I sent him him a “breezy” (translation=pathetic) Myspace message along the lines of, “Hey stranger, long time no talk! We should definitely make plans to hang out soon.” Not surprisngly, he never returned my message and we never spoke again.

My greatest wish is for others to learn from my funny, but pathetic mistakes, and figure out when he’s just not that into you and back the hell off while you still have your dignity.