IT IS BOTH humbling and supremely irritating to know that ...

It is both humbling and supremely irritating to know that the most excruciating moments in your life can be defined by new-wave hits. The soundtrack to my first heartbreak was the Buzzcocks' Singles Going Steady. How embarrassing that almost 20 years later, I'm getting dumped to Morrissey. I don't have a mohawk anymore; shouldn't I have progressed onto a different musical decade by now?

Junior Mint and I were out on what I believed to be a date. We had been seeing each other off and on for five months. He had a bad habit of spazzing out after sex and disappearing. Days or weeks later he'd reappear and insist that we redefine our relationship as "just friends." Then we'd end up in bed again. I liked him a ton, so sucking up my ardor and being pals was difficult, but I was willing to work at it. Until he dropped by a few weeks ago and busted a move.

Obviously, I should've cut him off after the first post-coital freakout, but what a lot of people don't know is that the Girl of Date is actually a bit of a romantic (i.e. stupid fucking sap) at heart, and I really liked this mope.

What's even more inexplicable is that midway through our retarded little relationship, I realized I'd already lived through this push-me/pull-you mindfuck with my sexually conflicted college boyfriend. It didn't end well back then either. (The Cure figured heavily in that bust-up.) So blithely ignoring all five million fluorescent red flags, this time when we ended up naked and sweaty, I actually believed things were different. For once he didn't pull the post-sex vanishing act, and though he was still a little flaky, his actions led me to believe he was at least dropping the obviously not-working friends shtick. That he called every night telling me all manner of sweet crap only made me more certain of this change of heart. Der.

Cut ahead to our date. Or, more accurately, my date. He spent the evening with his arm either wrapped around me, or his hand planted on my ass or clutching my thigh. He kept giving me this cute goofy grin and hugging me. We were having an after-dinner drink when "Every Day Is Like Sunday" came over the Great Lakes jukebox. I love me some Morrissey, but the new wave hadn't exactly served me well in the past. I suggested we go home. Together. He removed his hand from my ass and looked at me with an expression that combined exasperation and pity.

"Do we really have to have that talk again?"

Huh?

"Judy, we're just friends. I don't know why you keep putting me in a position where I have to reject you."

"But, but, but, but? Your hand, my ass? My mouth, your dick!"

Being Irish and all, I've got a helluva temper, but this time the blind rage lasted all of five minutes and, incredibly, nobody got a broken bottle jammed into their eye socket. Instead I burst into tears and cabbed it over to my friend Jane's house. She met me at the door with a box of tissues and a bottle of wine.

"He's such an aaaaaasshole," Jane snarled, pouring me a gigantic glass of wine.

"But I love him!" I blubbered, attempting to chug my wine and wipe my nose simultaneously. "It's because I'm not pretty enough," I wailed. Just then I caught a glimpse of myself in Jane's decorative gilt-framed mirror. My face was blotchy and red, my nose was running and smeared mascara had given my face a distinctly Alice Cooper-like flava. I had to believe I had a point.

I spent most of the next day in bed, curled into a ball, completely bereft. Predictably, I called him. Through tears I told him that I had plenty of male friends and not only did I not have sex with them, none of them ever grabbed my butt or walked around with their arm around me. He told me he just figured I was more affectionate than other girls. It became clear that in his mind, I was a delusional, pathetic freak. So instead of summoning up reserves of righteous indignation, I became a delusional, pathetic freak.

"I love you," I choked, appalling even myself in the process.

(Good fucking god. Did I really just say that?)

The horrified silence emanating from the other end of the phone told me I had, so I quickly hung up.

That night I went out with my buddy Steve and gave him the lowdown. He promptly put his hand on my knee. "I see I've been remiss in our friendship," he snickered. Funny guy, that Steve.

So now it's Sunday, and I'm almost out of tissues. It's rainy and gray and that goddamned Morrissey song keeps echoing through my brain. I'm doing my best to feel sorry for myself, and all I can hear is that overwrought mawkish drama queen moaning on about his seaside town. I suppose it could be worse. I could've been dumped to Kaja Goo Goo.

"Come, Armageddon," indeed.