E. Lockhart's Blog

Paula Chase's Groupie boyfriend list!

Paula Chase's YA novel, SO NOT THE DRAMA (love the title) - -is about a girl who wants to get in with her high school's glitterati -- only her best friend does it first, and she's not invited. Plus her sociology class's experiment to rid the school of prejudice is seriously backfiring.
Preview it here.
Her boyfriend list, below, gave me some serious new crushes.

THE GROUPIE BOYFRIEND LIST
By Paula Chase
Now, I’m not advocating becoming a groupie. But IF I ever were to be one, the guys I’d stalk, err…admire from afar are basketball players, drummers, saxophone players and the occasional rapper. Keep in mind that these guys are ideal boyfriends, not because of their appearance but their skill. So, here’s my, If I were a Groupie boyfriend list:

•Questlove – the drummer for The Roots. First of all, he looks like a big ol’ teddy bear. And what’s not to love about teddy bears? Second, he’s the drummer but basically second in command of the group. Men in charge are hot! Third, have you heard any of The Roots music? If not, shame on ya. They’re like this crazy eclectic, soul/hip hop band. No misogyny here! And when a guy respects his momma enough to make sure their music’s lyrical content is respectful…you got it, that’s hot!


•Allen Iverson – I know Alley I is coming up on his twilight years in basketball. If he leaves the NBA without a championship, it’ll be nothing short of a shame because he’s sacrificed his body for his profession. He plays hard and has the injuries to prove it. I’ve loved A.I.’s skill since his days at Georgetown. He was the fastest, scrappiest dude on the court and nothing is sexier than a feisty point guard.

•Boney James (saxophone player) – Saxophone music, I think, is the most sensuous sound on planet earth. Boney James is one of contemporary smooth jazz’s kings. His music could put you in a coma and I mean that in a good way! It’s just that smooth. I won’t even go there about the lip strength necessary to play the sax. I won’t even go there.

•Jay-Z – Hova has this whole former bad (very bad) boy turned millionaire mogul thing going on that is irresistibly attractive. Diddy only wished he were as smooth and genuinely confident as Jay-Z. Not to mention his lyrical flow is sick!! Listen to some of Jay-Z’s raps, especially his earlier stuff. The production combined with his linguistic gymnastics is groupie inducing. And his lips…shoot, I’m going there again.

Buy the book. Be Paula's Myspace friend. Read her blog!

Sara Rosett's Boyfriend List

Mystery novelist Sara Rosett sent us her real-life secret crush boyfriend list!
(Here's her Fly Survey from last time she visited.)

The boyfriends I never had (aka secret crushes)
by Sara Rosett

1. Michael—(6th grade) athletic. That’s about all I remember!
2. Robert—(junior high) quiet, smart. He was a swimmer with white blond hair and great shoulders. Sigh.
3. John—(high school) Witty, always made everyone laugh and kept it from getting too serious. Another blond (I’m seeing a trend here that I hadn’t ever noticed). I always had a hard time concentrating in typing class.
4. Jack—(college) Dark hair this time, but not interested. This was probably my shortest-lived crush because it wasn’t long after Jack that I met the guy I would marry. You guessed it, a blond. We’ve celebrated our fifteenth anniversary last year!

Rosett's new book, STAYING HOME IS A KILLER, features Ellie Avery, military wife and mother – and of course, sleuth. Ellie's ordered world is thrown into disarray when a fellow military spouse’s death looks more like murder than suicide. Toss in her husband’s deployment and her daughter’s separation anxiety, and Ellie has to keep the home fires burning as she sort clues from chaos and proves that home is not for killers.

So if you like Jill Churchill or Ayelet Waldman, Sarah Rosett's for you – and check out her blog! And her other blog, which is called Good Girls Kill For Money -- and the tag line is "Coffee, tea, or murder?". This one especially amuses me.

An Abundance of Logans

Jennifer Lynn Barnes wrote Golden, which is a supernatural high school story about a girl who can see auras. She's an X-men fan (check out her Fly Survey), a former cheerleader, an autism researcher and a recent Yale grad. Her new book TATTOO, can be summed up thus:

Four friends
Four tattoos
One ancient evil

Sounds fun, eh? More details here.

Jen wisely refrains from telling us all about her ex-boyfriends on the internet, and instead gives us:
AN ABUNDANCE OF LOGANS, revealing a penchant for broody dudes with superpowers.

"In honor of AN ABUNDANCE OF KATHERINES by John Green, which just won a
Printz honor, I decided to do a boyfriend list on the abundance of
Logans who've won my heart. If only they weren't all fictional."

-- Jennifer Lynn Barnes

1) Logan from X-men. Oh, Wolverine. What can I say about him other
than the fact that he's played by Hugh Jackman AND has adamantium
claws? I mean, seriously! Claws! The come out of his skin! That
just doesn't get any less awesome as time goes by. Plus, like many
Logans, he has this broody bad boy thing going for him, and I love his
soft spot for Rogue.

2) Logan Huntzberger from Gilmore Girls. I'm somewhat of a fickle
Logan-lover, and I have to admit, of all of my Logans, this one is my
least favorite. In fact, I have some doubts about whether or not I
ever would have cast him as my fictional boyfriend were his name NOT
Logan, but it is, so I didn't stand a chance. He's spoiled and rich,
but he's got that essential soft spot, and if only because his name is
Logan, that's enough for me.

3) Logan Echolls on Veronica Mars. I didn't think there would ever be
another Logan who could give the Wolverine a run for his money, but
this Logan did it- and without the aid of any awesome claws. This guy
is the very definition of tortured. I hated him when I first saw him,
but I love him now. The road to redemption is rocky, and he's always
going to slip and fall, but he's got this wonderful vulnerability
about him that he hides under the snark and sarcasm that I find just
as delicious.

4) Logan Cale from Dark Angel. Of all of the Logans, this one is the
only on who has the distinction of having a last name almost as hot as
his first. Like most Logans, he's got the broody thing going on, but
unliike all of the others, he has this unfailing moral compass that he
somehow managed to make really unbelievably hot. Plus, as "Eyes
Only," he's got these great and very soulful eyes, AND he's pretty
tall for a Logan.

Kyra Davis dated some eccentric men

Kyra Davis wrote the lighthearted mysteries Sex, Murder And A Double Latte and Passion Betrayal And Killer Highlights -- but her new book is based on her own experience being married to a man with bipolar disorder.

SO MUCH FOR MY HAPPY ENDING asks: What happens when the man you love and subsequently marry turns out to be someone entirely different from the man you dated? How do you recognize the difference between mental illness and the usual marital problems that afflict all couples?

But never fear, Davis doesn't leave her wit behind. Romantic Times called it both entertaining and horrifying at once…hopeful and even wildly funny at times."

You can find Kyra's blog here on myspace , read her fly survey for Passion, Betrayl and Killer Highlights here -- and of course, when it came to writing a boyfriend list, she gave us the weirdest guys she ever dated!
(My favorite is the last).

Kyra Davis's ECCENTRIC boyfriend list

1) Jason---this guy lived in a warehouse with a bunch of friends. His “bedroom” was a self-built loft and he had to climb a ladder and then carefully walk across a plank of wood in order to reach it. If he needed to get down quickly there was a “fireman pole.”

2) David---He imported iguanas from Nicaragua so he could kill them and sell them as Iguana-jerky (I swear I’m not making this up—in my defense I didn’t know this until I went out with him which is why we only had one date).

3) David #2---He would stop and talk to people on the street in hopes that they might know some guy named Gary-the-homeless advocate. He never actually met Gary but there were times when he could “feel his presence.” (this was another one date deal).

4) Mark---Ah, Mark. Nice, cute, athletic, employed…unfortunately he had pictures taken of himself while he was playing lacrosse, had the pictures blown up, laminated and made into placemats.

Laurie Stolarz takes the Fly Survey

Happy Halloween!
I have the PERFECT Halloween guest today: Laurie Stolarz, who wrote the Blue is for Nightmares series -- now available in a boxed set.

Laurie grew up in Salem, and I don't know if that influenced her supernatural imagination or what, but the series is about a girl whose persistent nightmares predict real-life horrors. Together the books have sold over 250,000 copies.

BLEED is equally eerie: it's ten interlocked short stories. Like these: Over the course of a single day, the lives of ten teenagers intersect.Among them are Nicole, whose decision to betray her best friend will shock everyone, most of all herself; Kelly, who meets the convicted felon she’s been writing to for years; and Maria, whose definition of a true friend is someone who will cut her. Derik discovers his usual good looks and charm won’t help him get the girl he really wants, while Joy, a fifteen year old waitress, hoping for true intimacy, narrowly escapes a very dark fate.

Here is Laurie's boyfriend list from last time. And her blog. And here's her Fly survey! (If you don't know already -- Fly on the Wall is about a girl who's obsessed with Spiderman. And then she kind of becomes a superhero. But only only kind of.)
Laurie's Fly Survey even includes CANDY and CATS. Very Halloween-esque.

Be safe tonight!

-E

The Fly on the Wall Survey
questions by me, answers by Laurie Stolarz

1) If you could be a fly on the wall somewhere, anywhere – where? I’d love to be a fly on the wall in TomKat’s mansion. Honestly, what’s the deal? Is Tom really that weird? Is Katie really that brainwashed? Or, are they just fabulously happy? Enquiring minds want to know.

2) If you could have one superpower, what? The ability to be invisible. It’d be very convenient to be able to shop in my pj’s or go out in a mud mask and not worry about getting weird stares. I’d also be able to eavesdrop on whomever I wanted.

3) What is your superhero name? Why? Yoga Girl, able to down dog, Chataranga, and drop crane in a single sun salutation.

4) Who is your favorite superhero? Wonderwoman. When I was little I wanted to be her - who else can use their accessories in defense?

5) Favorite non-super hero? My mom.

6) Recommend us a superhero movie. Superman. Who doesn’t love Clark Kent?

7) If you could turn in to any animal, what? Why? A cat – my cat. She’s a princess and treated that way.

8) Comic books? As a kid, I used to love collecting and reading Bazooka Joe bubble gum wrappers.

John Green's Girlfriend List

Mr. John Green won the Printz award for Looking for Alaska (that means it was the best young adult book of the year) and I like his second novel, An Abundance of Katherines, even more. It's got romance, a giant warty pig type of thing, the mathematical formula for predicting the outcome of a love relationship, child prodigies, anagrams, and the funniest sidekick since Vince Vaughn in Swingers.

John now adds to his various accolades by becoming the author of our FIRST STRAIGHT MAN girlfriend list, here at The Boyfriend List. Yes, it's true! We have had lists by men. We have had girlfriend lists. But this is the first straight man girlfriend list -- and it's LONG.

Because John has been dumped I think 53 times. Something in the 50s. This is not a secret. However, it is a bit of a mystery as he is officially a hot man of children's literature. (Fuse #8 has an ongoing series on the subject; scroll down and look in the right-hand column).

Anyway, I am very serious in saying this. Katherines is my favorite book of the fall season and you should read it.

John Green's girlfriend list
(which contains last names because he is utterly fearless about his ex-girlfriends googling themselves! a braver soul than I)

A brief explanation from John: My new book, An Abundance of Katherines, is about a boy, Colin Singleton, who has dated 19 girls, all of whom dumped him and all of whom were named Katherine. Some people may say, "Well, what entitles you to write such a book? Why do you presume to be such an expert in the field of getting dumped?" And so, to prove to you that An Abundance of Katherines is born of an Abundance of Experience, here are 19 sentences about 19 girls who dumped me.

1. Jennifer Keene was the cutest girl in third grade, and as such was really out of my league, which she realized after four days.

2. After it ended with my fourth-grade girlfriend Julie Baskin, I wrote in my journal, "my life is a waste" (seriously).

3. Tiffany-whose-last-name-I-can't-remember told everyone at camp I kissed like I was eating a sloppy joe, and then broke up with me during pottery class.

4. Davonne Raizor, the cutest Cure fan in all of ninth grade, eventually revealed, "I keep trying to be attracted to you, but it isn't working."

5. Barbara wanted someone harder core.

6. Holly Brown liked Stuart more.

7. Fran realized she didn't like boys.

8. Jen Spears realized she still liked Gilbert.

9. By way of parting, Jeanette said, "You don't need a girlfriend; you need a robot who says nothing but I-love-you," and in doing so, made her way into "An Abundance of Katherines."

10. After several hours-long conversations about our relationship told me, Jenny told me, "I would prefer to HAVE a relationship rather than just discuss one," which proved impossible.

11. After two years, Major College Girlfriend and First Real Love Marie Ponzillo was like, "If we're not gonna get married, we should probably break up, and we are SO not getting married."

12. Jill dumped me because I couldn't get over Marie.

13. Annika dumped me because I couldn't get over Jill.

14. Then came the smothering trilogy: Jessi Johnston felt really smothered.

15. Carrie Sanders felt really smothered.

16. Lesley Martin felt really smothered.

17. After my junior year of college, Mary-whose-last-name-I-can-remember-but-she-is-a-lawyer-and-has-threatened-to-sue-me drove with me to Alaska, where we were spending the summer in a town of 18 people, and in pretty short order, Mary dumped me for one of the other 18 people.

18. Emily Chambers was my Alamo: there were no survivors.

19. Sarah Urist dumped me after two dates, because I was awkward and couldn't talk to her (but then we stayed friends and I got slightly less awkward and then four years later we got married).

P.S. Come see me and John at the Southern Festival of Books! if you are in Memphis. It's this weekend. The other thing John and I have in common is that he has reviewed many books about conjoined twins (see his bio) and so have I! Just a factoid for ya. True, I swear. /E

Diana Peterfreund's Literary Boyfriend List

Okay, I am TRYING TO WRITE A NOVEL about a secret society at boarding school,
and I'm doing serious research like watching The Skulls
starring Joshua Jackson as this dude who joins this hokey secret society where the initiation rites involve sleeping in coffins
and with prostitutes
and really, it's downhill from there --
and I decide that the secret society in my novel I'm trying to write had better be VERY RIDICULOUS and all played for comedy,
because this serious and uncampy Skulls movie was bad (except, maybe when Paul Walker took his shirt off) and I don't want to write a bad book.

But I am still halfway despairing of my project, and then along comes
the gorgeous and talented Diana Peterfreund, who is on the GCC with me and has written SECRET SOCIETY GIRL, about a girl who's one of the first females ever tapped to be a memeber of a secret society at an ivy league university
-- and we know Diana went to Yale where Skull & Bones is, and she's got the inside dirt.

So Diana proves that you can write a darn good book on this very very interesting topic, and it doesn't have to suck like The Skulls did, and I am not so despairing anymore -- except I better make sure my story is radically different from hers. Which it will be because mine is very goofy-ass, whereas hers is funny but also well-researched and intelligent.

Check out her reviews:

"SECRET SOCIETY GIRL is Peterfreund's titillating debut entry in a new series featuring plucky heroine Amy Haskel, one of the select few with the dubious distinction of being among the first females "tapped" for Rose & Grave. The author, a recent Ivy League Grad herself (Yale 2001), knows the world of which she writes and every page rings with an authenticity that will have readers immediately recalling their own giddy collegiate romances, fast friendships and late-night cram sessions."
- Bookreporter.com

"SECRET SOCIETY GIRL is a blast! Fun and witty, with an engaging theme, heartfelt situations, intriguing dialogue, and a cast of characters that you'll be cheering for, it's a story you won't want to put down."
-- Teensreadtoo.com

Diana's blog is also good fun; she posts the word counts on her various works in progress (including Secret Society Girl #2), the books she's been reading, her glamorous book parties -- and I've learned that she is a musical theater dork, which makes me love her all the more.

Sorry for all the rambling. This is an epic post. But now I give you Diana's literary boyfriend list -- which includes Odysseus! Who is never HOME! (not my idea of a boyfriend) and Colonel Wentworth (who is absolutely my idea of a boyfriend) and also, curiously, Edmund Pevensie.

A LITERARY BOYFRIEND LIST
by Diana Peterfreund

In my book, my heroine, Amy, has what she calls "A Hit List" or list of boys she's... well, you know. But since grandmothers know how to use the internet... I'm going to borrow another of my lit major heroine's traits and instead talk about all of my literary boyfriends.

1. Edmund Pevensie from the Chronicles of Narnia books. Now, most of you think of him as the petulant traitor from The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, but that was just the beginning of Edmund's story. After that whole debacle, Edmund became one of the wisest and most noble characters in the series. Edmund was more interesting to me than Peter because he knew what it was to have almost lost everything and so seemed to value it more than the others, when he speaks to other characters who are teetering on the edge of making wrong choices, we don't see him as acting all holier than thou but rather, honestly trying to help a bloke from making the same mistakes he made. He was always the most practical of the four children, and you can see his thoughtful and intelligent reasoning at every crossroads in the book. He's always the one making the right decisions, from there on out. He was the only one to stand by Lucy in book two, gives solace to Eustace and keeps King Caspian from getting too hot-headed in book three, and rocks my world as an adult king in book five.

2. Gilbert Blythe from the "Anne" books. If you stopped reading Anne of Green Gables after the first book, you are missing out on one heck of a hero! The bad boy who teases Anne and pulls her hair in the first book turns into a gentle, intelligent soul who becomes one of Anne's closest friends in the second book. The third, in which both Anne and Gilbert travel to the mainland to attend college, is a gorgeous romance, in which Anne almost misses out on true love because she doesn't see wonderful wonderful Gilbert for the amazing man he is. And THEN he becomes a doctor!

3. Dionysus. Okay, say what you will about those drunken orgies, but Dionysus was there for Cretan princess Ariadne when that jerk Theseus abandoned her on Naxos. (She should have let the Minotaur eat him!) He married her, made her a goddess, was faithful (unlike most of the rest of his godly family), and put her crown in the stars. What a great husband!

4. Odysseus, from the Odyssey. Okay, he basically sleeps his way through the Greek islands, but he does eventually come back to Penelope, and man, he's a hottie, and clearly good in a crisis. He's like the Indiana Jones of ancient Greece.

5. Gwydion, from The Mists of Avalon. He grew up to be King Arthur and everything went to hell, but there was a part of him that would always remain the adolescent Gwydion that made our hearts pound just as much as Morgaine's. Too bad they were related.

6. Peregrine from M. M. Kaye's The Ordinary Princess, because he fought for Amy, and saw the acorn necklace underneath all her jewels. Plus, he's got his own kingdom, which is always worth bonus points in my book.

7. Finny from A Separate Peace. Can't even talk about this. Major tragedy in my adolescent life. I cried; oh, how I cried! I loved him!

8. Phillip Ammon from A Girl of the Limberlost, because anyone who wants a woman enough to risk brain fever is my kind of guy. It took him a while to realize what Elnora meant to him, but once he did, watch out!

9. Mr. Darcy. Duh. Who doesn't have a huge crush on him?

10. Colonel Wentworth, because if there is anyone who can knock Darcy off the top of my Austen crush pedestal, it's him and his remarkable letter-writing skills. Still makes my heart pound, and I've read it dozens of times.

Lauren Barnholdt's boyfriend list

Lauren Barnholdt wrote REALITY CHICK, which is about a normal college Freshman girl, Ally, who agrees to let her entire life -- uncensored -- be videotaped for reality television.
Even though she has a long distance boyfriend and a devastatingly cute housemate....

“This book was hilarious! I could not put it down! Barnholdt is a fresh new voice in teen fiction.” -- Sarah Mlynowski, bestselling author of Milkrun, As Seen on TV and Bras & Broomsticks

I've read Reality Chick, and it's funny and romantic and kind of creepy in that it explores all the complications that come from total invasion of privacy -- a tradeoff for temporary fame. So if you've ever wondered what it would be like to be on one of those shows, this is the book for you.

Lauren has a blog, which is about shopping and writing and La Vie de Lauren.
She's had some bad, bad boyfriends.
And she wrote them all down for us! With crying and everything.
And she pretended to like heavy metal! Which I have done, too!

LAUREN BARNHOLDT'S BAD BOYFRIEND LIST

These are not all the boys I've dated, just the ones that have been bad and/or have broken my heart in some way.

Ryan -- Second grade. He had spiked hair and got in trouble for writing "bite me" on his chair at school. He liked my friend Lisa better than me.

Mark -- Fifth grade. I had no chance. Everyone wanted him, and he was dating a sixth grader. But I did get to sit next to him in school.

Luke --- Seventh grade. My friend asked him if he would go out with me, and he made a motion like he was going to throw up. Then he started dating this girl who sat next to me in study hall, and I had to listen to her tell all her friends about how awesome he was.

Jim -- Ninth grade. My first kiss. We kissed at the mall after going to a movie. He broke up with me a week later, and then I caught him trying to hit on my best friend. I cried. A lot.

Brian -- Ninth grade. (Ninth grade was a bad year for me.) My first real boyfriend. We dated for a month, and then he broke up with me. I wrote him a sappy love letter to get him back, and it almost worked, until my supposed best friend hooked up with him instead (Yes, the same friend who Jim hit on. She was evil.) I cried. A lot. I stayed friends with him, though, and pretended I wasn't in love with him for ... hmm.. yup, pretty much all of high school.

Ian -- We dated my junior and senior year of high school, off and on. We fought. A lot. I cried. A lot. Finally, we broke up and he got another girlfriend like two days later. It ended with him saying to me, "Never talk to me again." Yikes.

Bill -- Freshman year of college. He had a girlfriend, but I still thought he was hot. Then they broke up, and I thought I was in. I even pretended to be interested in heavy metal music so that I could borrow some of his CDs. Finally, I told him I had a crush on him, and he wasn't interested. It was very awkward for the rest of the year.

Robbie -- Right after college. He told me wanted to marry me someday, then broke up with me after four months. I was so upset, I went away for the summer to an all-girls camp so that I wouldn't have to look at boys.

Shanna Swendson's Boyfriend List

Shanna Swendson is on the GCC with me and her sequel to Enchanted Inc. is finally here. It's called Once Upon Stillettos and here's what I can tell you. Manhattan career girl works for giant magic corporation because she has a special immunity to magic. Hunky wizards. Romance. Magical sleuthing. High heels.
What's not to love?

Romantic Times Bookclub says: "Swendson offers a fresh spin on a genre in this exceptional Manhattan fairytale."

So anyway.
Boys.
Shanna's boyfriend list reads like a catalog of superheroes. You gotta love that. The Incredible Disappearing Man! Lingerie man! Jabberjaws! Sleeping Bag Guy!

My list of bad almost-boyfriends
by Shanna Swendson

I haven't had a lot of real boyfriends, mostly because I manage to either
weed them out before they become real boyfriends or because they disappear
on me before they become real boyfriends. So here's my list of bad
almost-boyfriends. Names have been changed to protect the guilty (or because
I don't remember them).

1) The Incredible Disappearing Man #1 -- He might have actually made it to
boyfriend status, but it was hard to tell because he kept disappearing for
weeks at a stretch, usually right after doing something that convinced me he
really might have been a real boyfriend. After he finally disappeared for
good, I ran into him at a wedding reception a year later, and he not only
acted like nothing odd had happened, he acted like we'd never been more than
acquaintances. I suspect alien abduction.

2) Sir Galahad (Not!) -- I'd had a crush on this guy for years, and then
just as I'd given up on him, he noticed me. We went out for a couple of
times before I had to have knee surgery. A week or so after the surgery,
when my knee was still swollen to about the size of a basketball, I was
still on crutches, and I was living in a third-floor apartment so that I had
to really, really want to go out before I made the effort, he called to ask
me out on a date. I explained to him that I didn't really feel up to going
out on a date, seeing as how I was on crutches, my knee was swollen, I was
on heavy painkillers, etc., and he said, "When I'm dating someone, I like to
actually go out with them." It apparently never crossed his mind that this
was his chance to be a real hero and show up with a take-out dinner and a
movie rental and then wait on me hand and foot. I'd just taken one of the
heavy painkillers, so I don't remember what I said to him in response, but
it must have been good because he avoided me after that.

3) Sleeping Bag Guy -- I met this one at an out-of-town conference. We
really hit it off, hung out together through the whole conference, and
exchanged e-mail addresses. We e-mailed back and forth a few times, then he
announced that he'd be on vacation in my area and he'd like to see me. We
made plans to get together for some sightseeing, and I invited him to my
place for dinner. Very late that night after dinner, I was starting to make
the "it's getting late" hints, and he said, "I brought a sleeping bag. Can I
crash at your place?" It turned out that my house was his planned hotel for
his "vacation." I ended up kicking him out after two days and never heard
from him again.

4-6) Incredible Disappearing Men #s 2-4 -- I went through a phase where I'd
meet really great guys, have fun first dates, have great second dates where
we seemed to truly connect, and then he'd end those second dates by talking
about how much he wanted to get together again, going so far as to plan the
next date except for the exact time and specific logistics. And then I'd
never hear from him again. When it happened several times in a row, it kind
of gave me a complex.

7) Lingerie Man -- I met this guy soon after Thanksgiving, so we'd only had
a couple of dates before it was Christmas time. I was still pondering
whether a card might be too much so soon when he announced that he had a
gift for me. I got suspicious when he said I had to open it when we were at
home alone and managed to avoid such a situation. Good thing, because his
gift turned out to be the ugliest, sleaziest get-up from Frederick's of
Hollywood. It was so not me it wasn't even funny. He did try to pass it off
as a joke, saying he'd just wanted to see my reaction (red flag #1). Later,
when he started calling me to ask me out on Friday afternoons and accused me
of avoiding him if I'd already made other plans or if I was sick (I even had
a doctor's note), more red flags came up and I dumped him.

8) Jabberjaws -- I met this guy at a party, and he was a fun
conversationalist. But then when we went out, he told the same stories
again. And then again on our next date. I'm a good talker, myself, and I
couldn't get a word in edgewise. All he could talk about was himself and his
experiences. He couldn't even discuss the movies or concerts we'd seen
beyond "That reminds me of the time I ..." I actually fell asleep once
during a date, and he didn't even notice, he was so busy with his monologue.
I didn't go out with him again after that.

9-10) The Planners -- Another weird streak. Two different guys I dated
within months of each other did almost the same thing. They asked me out to
see a specific movie. Then they suggested getting dinner beforehand. As we
were coming out of the restaurant, they said, "Let's go see if the movie is
playing at that theater over there." It turned out they hadn't bothered to
find out where or when the movie they'd invited me to see was playing. With
one guy, I ended up driving from theater to theater (he claimed car trouble)
to see if that movie was playing, only to find out it had just started at
each of those theaters, so then we went back around to all the theaters to
see what else was playing, until I got tired of it and called it a night.
With the second guy, once we found that the movie he'd asked me to see
wasn't at the two closest theaters, I called it a night. I'm all for
spontaneity, but I feel like if you invite someone to do a specific thing,
you should at least find out where and when that thing is happening.

P.S. Shanna's blog is here, on LJ. And it is very fun reading.

Johanna Edwards' Boyfriend List

Johanna Edwards is on the GCC with me. For the release of her first book, The Next Big Thing, she did a reality-TV boyfriend list that's highly amusing.

This time, she gets a little more personal -- since her new book, YOUR BIG BREAK, is about a woman who's an expert at romantic breakups. In fact, she "facilitates" them for clients of Your Big Break, Inc. In other words, she dumps people for money. But company rule #5 (do not get personally involved) is getting harder to obey....

"People often ask how I came up with the idea of writing about a breakup service," says Johanna. "'It's so far-fetched,' they say. Or, 'Gosh, I wish these things really existed!'...Here's the surprising part. They do. You actually can hire someone to dump your lover. Crazy, huh? A brief background: Breakup services started in Japan. The Japanese call them Wakaresaseya, or "Love Separation Services." In Asia, Wakaresaseya businesses are so popular they've even spawned a hit TV show. These zany companies have only recently started to spring up in Europe and North America (Cosmo recently ran an article about them). In the US, there are currently breakup services in San Francisco and New York. But if business keeps booming, more of them could crop up soon."

Anyway. Johanna's love life is full of heartbreak (see below) but becoming a bestselling author is the best revenge. Here's her list:

Horrible Boys Who Broke My Heart
by Johanna Edwards

Mark #1 - First serious boyfriend. Broke up with me on Valentine's Day.

Robert - Really obnoxious, evil mean guy who said "I want to date you, but I'm embarrassed of what my friends will think. So can we have a secret relationship?"

Zach - My first big crush. He was the "it guy" of the fifth grade. Zach used to buy me magazines and lend me nintendo games. We hung out after school a few times and talked on the phone...I luved him so. Then one day, for no reason at all, he started ignoring me. And we never spoke again.

Mark #2 - Didn't "officially" dump me -- just told me he loved me and then chose to never, ever speak to me again. (This was when I realized it was time to stop dating guys named Mark.)

Jacob - Realized he liked my best friend better than he liked me. So he dumped me in the hopes that she would go out with him (she didn't).

John - When I caught him cheating on me, he defended it by saying, "I cheated on you FOR you. I didn't want to breakup with you because I knew it would hurt your feelings."

JJ - Decided we should have an open relationship. But didn't bother to inform me of this until AFTER he'd slept with someone else.

P.S. Johanna has a blog!