Stranger than Fiction

There's a line in Bridget Jones' Diary where Bridget poses the hypothetical question, "have you ever looked up a guy's phone number and dialed it, just to make sure he exists?"

The point being, that, if he hasn't called you yet, well after the time he said he would, something horrible must have happened to him, right? Otherwise, you most certainly would have heard from him by now. The only way to find out for certain, is to do the passive aggressive hang-up call.

This is often the ploy of teenage or college-aged females. However, as we get older and wiser and let our pride get in the way of doing that (some of us, anyway) there is still always a part of us that wants to. Of course, Caller ID is putting quite the crimp in this long-used female tactic.

Whenever a potential interest comes onto the scene, even the most stoic, independent and toughest of us become that insecure 16-year old, glancing at the phone every few minutes or, in this age of internet dating, checking our email. And when they don't call or write, we try to figure out a way to check up on them, without their knowing of course.

This girl included.

No matter how much we might profess not to need a man, the point is, most of us do want one. And when there is the possiblity of us satisfying that want, we get a little crazy.

Recently, I've done the fade with two potential internet dates because in our conversations or on our dates, or lack thereof, I've simply lost interest -- as have they. For the past couple of weeks, I've been doing the opposite -- instead of racing to the cell or answering machine or inbox to see if they've called or emailed, I check it with one eye open -- hoping there is nothing there and breathing a sigh of relief when there isn't.

But that may be changing. This week, I struck up an unlikely email conversation with someone not from a dating site. And altho I have no idea whether or not I'll ever even actually meet this person, as we didn't connect for the purpose of dating, I find myself checking my email more than I normally do and wanting to find new messages from him in my inbox.

Strange, I know. And every time I check my email specifically to see if he's answered mine yet, I get more perturbed at myself. But I can't help it. Inside every woman there's a girl, who thrives on the attention of boys, even if it isn't going to amount to anything -- because there's always the hope that one day, it will.