Tep, BTDT.ETA: Except for the weight thing, but I've got my own baggage, you guys know...

{{{Teppy}}} BTDT. Don't stop being the wonderful heart on your sleeve, woman that you are, because someone is going to love that about you someday. Someone even better than crush boy because he'll be right for you.

(Out of the shower now; still trying to stop crying before friend gets here.)

someone is going to love that about you someday. Someone even better than crush boy because he'll be right for you.

I sincerely don't believe that. I never have, to tell the truth, which is really sad, but I've never ever believed that anyone would ever love me. And so far, I haven't been proven wrong.

I'm hoping my friend will understand my weeping melodrama and my need for comfort food. I'm going to engage in a stereotype here, so be warned: he's gay, so I'm assuming he'll be sympathetic and willing to watch me eat my way through a gallon of ice cream.

Oh Steph, I hope lunch with your friend helps to drown out the voice, because the voice is wrong.

Oh Steph, I hope lunch with your friend helps to drown out the voice, because the voice is wrong.

And, see, I think 34 years of precedent is pretty strong proof.

I never have, to tell the truth, which is really sad, but I've never ever believed that anyone would ever love me.

Neither did I. I was absolutely, positively convinced of this fact beyond any doubt. And, I honestly believe that someone will love you the way you deserve to be loved someday. You are a good person who exudes warmth and love. Not to mention gorgeous, which you are. Take care. I hope you get your ice cream.

Well, I do *love* you, Tep. Even if as a couple we'd be the Doublemint Twins.

Teppy, I am so sorry.

I'm going to engage in a stereotype here, so be warned: he's gay, so I'm assuming he'll be sympathetic and willing to watch me eat my way through a gallon of ice cream.

I don't know if that's a stereotype any more than assuming a female straight friend would get the ice cream therapy. It's pertinent that your friend is gay, because it means he has to deal with teh boys in matters of the heart, too.

Teppy--Oh, man. I hate that feeling of rejection and vulnerability. But remember--as my therapist said to me REPEATEDLY as it took me years to get--Each relationship is not a referendum on your whole life. It's just one guy. It only takes one person to like you back--just one. You may run into hundreds of people who don't want you, but that doesn't mean *all* men won't want you. It FEELS that way, but luckily your feelings don't define the real world. You have had boyfriends and affairs in the past, so even your own experience proves you wrong even though it's impossible to see at this point. I told my therapist and all my friends at age 36 after the 8th guy in four years told me he thought of me as "a friend" that I was clearly not sexually appealing to men and that I going to be an old lady in my NYC studio apartment with 18 cats. Two months later I met the BF.

But remember--as my therapist said to me REPEATEDLY as it took me years to get--Each relationship is not a referendum on your whole life. It's just one guy. It only takes one person to like you back--just one.

See, this is why we all have the t-shirts.