The idea behind the man meter started nearly a year ago, while friends and I were in New Jersey for a wedding. As we told stories in our hotel room the night before the ceremony, our conversation took a turn to the topic of how do you know when you’re in the right relationship? We concluded that we don’t know, but one thing we can tell you is we sure know when we’re in the wrong one. We kept ourselves up to the wee hours exchanging anecdotes of love prospects gone awry. Subsequent conversations with other friends of mine have propelled me to lay out the motley assortment of characters that have courted us in days past. Here is an overview of some of the highlights (or I should say, lowlights):

Al the pathological lying chef. An ex of my friend Beth B’s. Not only did he have several other girlfriends at the time he dated her (including his “roommate”), but he also invented a dog named Jake and referred to him while on the phone with Beth. (“There there Jake, now that’s a good boy,” etc etc.)

*danger level – low, unless you entrust him with anything remotely important to you. And pathological liars can be funny sometimes, or at least John Lovitz has led us to believe this.

Mrs. Field’s Boy. Also one of Beth B’s. At the age of 27 she picked up someone whom she believed to be a grad student at a party and took him home to have her way with him. Afterwards he confessed that he was a 17 year old senior at Grover Cleveland High School but he still wanted to continue their sexual relationship. She was forced to avoid Mrs. Fields (his place of employment) every time she visited Faniel Hall in the months that followed, and cringed every time he called her, expecting him to ask her to buy him beer.

*danger level - from a legal perspective, it’s pretty damn high, although who prosecutes for underage sex - the parents? Embarrassment level, however... huge.

Eric the unscrupulous optometrist. This is someone from my friend Allison’s past. Really he just met her at a party and talked to her about how he was an optometrist and could make her contact lenses. Weeks later he turned up at her apartment with a pair of contacts for which he charged her $80.

*danger level - low, although the relationship could get expensive.

Mike the gravedigger. One of Jen’s many ex-boyfriends who later turned out to be gay. This she realized while he was dancing in a cage at a gay bar a good year or more after they dated (the gravedigger gig was while they were dating.)

*danger level - none, although several gay boyfriends in a row can be a bit perplexing, if not damaging to the ego (see Harold the gay tucker.)

The Old Man. Jen’s Mr. Big, except not as sexy and not as cool. And apparently, not as young.

*danger level - low, unless you have a serious problem with old men in mini-kimonos, which Jen evidently did.

Harold the gay tucker. Another entry in the ex-boyfriends of Jen’s who are now gay genre. For whatever reason while they were dating the fact that he tucked everything he wore into his pants (sweaters included) did not provide Jen any insight into his true sexual orientation.

*danger level - see Mike the Gravedigger.

Pool Boy. My own bike-obsessed Long Island boy. The first of my relationships to have been borne of (and suffered a death through) email.

*danger level - low, unless you fear that technology, in an effort to simplify and improve our lives, is becoming the vehicle for emotions otherwise left for love- and Dear John- letters (or -- gasp! -- face to face conversations).

Dr. Jorgen Stern. Jen G’s beret-wearing, coffee shop-frequenting German professor, who wanted to whisk her away to the mother country and who seduced her with spoken word night in the smoke-infested cafes of the college community.

*danger level – low, although have you ever heard German poetry? My guess is that it doesn’t exactly flow off the tongue in honey-soaked love-references, but I could be completely wrong here.

The Eco-Pod Hippie. A man my friend Allison dated at Stanford who wanted to co-habitate with her and a cult of fellow tree-huggers in a nature-friendly eco-pod.

*danger level - low, unless something goes wrong with the refrigeration system. Nothing’s worse than rotting hummus.

Missing Sony Man. A fun date of Jen’s who went MIA.

*danger level - low, unless you have a joint checking account.

The I’ve Hidden a Towel Under the Pillow Sex-Anticipator. A one-night stand of Jayme’s, who later traveled a great distance to see her in the hopes of a repeat performance. Upon realizing this was not going to happen, he attributed the demise of the “relationship” to a disconnection between his high morals and her low ones.

*danger level - low, and he keeps a clean house.

Dennis the insecure stalker. Another one of mine. He sent me a mixed tape ala high school with the song names scribbled on the tape sleeve in the handwriting of a madman. The frequency of his phone calls, and a particularly disturbing bitter voicemail, eventually drove me to bitch him out. My final words to him, “Don’t ever fucking call me again.” He didn’t.

*danger level – medium – had he been a stalker with self-esteem, I could have been in some real danger. But he just sort of whimpered away like a punished pooch and never bothered me again.

The Scottish cab farter. Picked up by Jen in an Irish pub on St. Patrick’s Day, dropped off minutes into the cab ride home, confused, in the middle of Times Square.

*danger level - low, but embarrassment level high.

The Financial Industry burper. A pseudo-date of mine that wouldn’t leave my apartment until I donned pajamas, repeated for the twentieth time how tired I was, and forced Jen to spend the night (or at least stay until he left.)

*danger level - see The Scottish cab farter.

Hubie and the eyeball. Ex-work fling of mine that suffered some eyeball damage during a tryst in a cab.

*danger level - for me, low. For Hubie’s eyeball, hospital-visit-high.

Persistent bad-grammar boy. Dana’s first Santiago fling who pleaded against their break up with a grammatically butchered note on Snoopy stationery. (Butchered in Spanish, mind you. His native tongue, mind you.)

*danger level - low, although sometimes the Red Baron used to scare me.

David, the fake photographer. Small-time con who got an Armani suit out of Hannah (well, almost did) during our trip to Santa Barbara.

*danger level - high enough to warrant an investigation by the Donna Karan company to punish his crime of deception.

Tourettes Chris. Mimi’s barndance date whose Tourette’s Syndrome was unknown to me until Mimi stopped me from asking about a cat that wasn’t there (apparently Chris was the source of the meowing.)

*danger level - see The Financial Industry burper.

My ex-boyfriend the School Mascot. Ex of mine who deserves his own future tribute. Watch this space.

*danger level - see Tourettes Chris.

Omnipresent Motorcycling Neighbor. Perhaps I initiated things by making out with him when he let me into my apartment one night when I was too drunk to work my key. I ignored his courtyard beckoning calls, but couldn’t hide when he planted himself in the median on upper Broadway when he spotted me walking home. Eventually, in an unrelated turn of events, I moved away.

*danger level - medium, since he knew where I lived.

HONORABLE MENTIONS (also known as the fuck this, all these stories are depressing me, I’m going to bed category.)

Digicleptomaniac. Jen’s.

The underhanded Russian. Also Jen’s.

Darryl the never-leaving (and never debt-repaying) houseguest. Mine and Alana’s.

“39”. Beth L’s motorcycle-dwelling three-way instigator.

Bad John. Jen G’s live-in boyfriend whom she spied taking a female friend to Miss Saigon while he was supposed to be entertaining clients.

Shady Rich. Jen G’s boyfriend who never had her over to his apartment (because he lived with his fiancee.)

Lock and Key. A preppy Connecticut boy of Jen’s who told her they fit like “lock and key”. He drove her home one day to Brooklyn and he cancelled their next date.

The Banana Republic counterfeiter. Jerry’s incarcerated roommate. What’s law in the name of lust?

The Junior. Jerry’s summer boyfriend in college. (Well, Jerry was the one in college. The boyfriend was in town for a summer class - a high school summer class, that is.)

The Engaged Dater. Boy who called Jen 10 minutes prior to their first date to cancel because he just "couldn't go through with it." Apparently he had just proposed to his girlfriend and didn't feel right about playing the field.

Fingered at the ATM. Mine. Tried it at a parking garage too.

Everyone who’s ever offered me a threesome.

The computer genius who didn't know anything. Blind date of Jen's who owned his own computer company but had no interests at all. He didn't read, watch tv, go to the movies, or know what a carbohydrate was. In an attempt to make conversation Jen gave a lengthy speech on her love for shoes.

The boy who was outsmarted by a dog. Jayme’s alcohol-prone ex-boyfriend was no match for Syrus’s wit. He actually thought that by making Syrus sit before he fed him the remnants of his human dinner, he was training him not to beg.

Professor Stalker. Jen G took a dive under her kitchen table to avoid his visit.

The man who couldn’t get it up. Jen’s. Of course. Signature line: “What’s wrong with me?”

The head-bobber. Thanks to Jen’s dream about him morphing into a bobbing head doll, this one is no longer a threat to her ego or morality.

Horatio the Hornblower. Also Jen’s. He was also in the Israeli army and heralded from a family of speed skaters.

The gay straight bartender. Another of Jen’s. Now dating a woman. With fangs.

The boy who had sex with his best friend’s girlfriend and his girlfriend’s best friend. And technically that happened at the same time, since he stole his best friend’s girlfriend, and then had a threesome with her friend. We are no longer on speaking terms (and no, I wasn’t the girlfriend referenced here, but he was trying to get me back at the time of the first tryst. And people wonder why I’m bitter?)

Wes, the man who left me for a guitar. Or so he said. But in actuality, it was a blond from his office who later became his wife. Their engagement was only months after he said he felt he might marry me. Or so he said. And people wonder why I’m bitter?

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