As you may have noticed from trolling 'round this trash bag of a column over the past few months, I'm single again.

Whoa there, ladies! Stand back! Not everyone can snag a slice of the Springmeister's hot oily love machine at the same time. I'm gonna need a single-file line! And please, Ms. Holmes...put your panties back on. It's not ladylike to toss them at a young handsome gentleman like myself!

I've actually been girlfriendless since last September, but I haven't been really single until just recently. When you first get slammed with the ol' dumperoo, you're not really single for a while, because your brain keeps wishin' and hopin' that you'll get back together with the dumper. It's like there's this sexy ghost rattling around your brain wearing only that cute bra she used to wear on nights when you were going someplace special, and that phantom just won't leave. I tried very hard to seduce that ghost in the hopes that some echo of a love I'd shared would magically appear once again in my life, but alas. Not meant to be. (I also simply thought it'd be kinky to have sex with an apparition. Sue me. And don't try to tell me you haven't thought about that yourself.)

By Christmastime, I'd finally cleared out all the ghosts and dusted off the love muscles in preparation for that most trendy of twentysomething rituals: dating. I figured, hey, a hot happenin' guy like myself gets tossed back on the market, and word's gonna get around pretty durn quick. I expected to be kicking PYTs away from my bedroom window at an alarming rate. I thought I'd be the ringmaster in a decadent sex circus, where new acts would just keep trotting themselves out onto the sawdust-covered center ring that's otherwise known as my bed. They'd be the acrobats, and I'd be the trapeeze. They'd be the tamers, and I'd be the raging sex lion. They'd be the clowns, and I'd be the really tiny car.

I was wrong. Girls are mean. They don't like boys. They make it hard for boys to talk to them.

So what's a single guy to do when he lacks the connections to meet new people and lacks the balls to talk to strangers? Two words, mon amis: PERSONAL ADS! That's what!

It started as an accident, really. I had been lamenting over my lack of concert-going partners; I just can't seem to find anyone who'll go with me to music shows. Since I wear deodorant and even comb my hair sometimes, this seemed unreasonable to me. I have plenty of friends who'll join me for my monthly cow-tipping excursions or my weekly screenings of Howard Stern's Butt Bongo Fiesta; why couldn't I find a pal who would join me in my trek to discover new music?

Then I read an ad in the Chicago Reader personals, someone who was looking for their "music boy." Thinking to myself, "I'll be your music MAN, baby, but I can never be nobody's BOY," I idly called the Reader personals response hotline, figuring I could at least listen to her recorded message and see what she had to say for herself.

"Hi," the recorded voice spoke to me over the phone. It was female. SWEET! Bonus! "I'm listening right now to the latest Elvis Costello/Burt Bacharach album, which is a good indication of my taste in music. I love Elvis Costello, but then I think everyone should..."

"AMEN, SISTER!" I screamed to the recording. Could this really be happening? Could it be this simple? Had I wasted the past few months stumbling around in the mawkish world of twentyyuppiesomething singles like a blind man in the dark for no reason?

Then I started thinking more rationally. Of course it's not this simple. Otherwise, everyone would be in love and not placing personal ads. It could go well, but it could also crash and burn like so many other dates do.

But what if it worked? To find someone to love at long last, after an endless couple of lonely months! Oh, but what if it didn't? To feel humiliated after seizing the bait dangled by a few random words in newsprint! What if I fell? What if she fell? What if only one of us fell? What if I fell and stubbed my toe?

My Ed Grimley impression was shattered by the beep on the Reader phone line, and I left Dream Girl a message. I then hung up the phone and went to bed.

Here's the interesting part. I then spent the next two weeks bathing in a torrent of pre-love jitters. It really felt like I knew this girl and liked her already; I was beyond excited for her call. When she did call, I was thrilled to bits. I've still got the phone message saved at home. She called again and we made plans to meet for dinner, which became just meeting for drinks the next night. Up until the date itself, I was full of anticipation and funny nerves. It felt just like that grand old feeling, when you like someone and you fall to pieces internally every few hours just pondering their existence.

The date happened. We had drinks and chatted for about two hours. Afterward, I felt kinda numb and empty inside. I had no strong reaction whatsoever; indifference filled my heart. I didn't call her. She didn't call me. She will live forever as a footnote in my eventual autobiography, which will be called The Importance of Being Penised.

It didn't take me long to figure out what had happened. I'd sketched her in my mind as some answer to all my romantic prayers, then inked the sketch and painted it in watercolor. When she turned out to be nothing special, or even just different from what I had hoped for, I mentally shredded the art and abandoned all hope. For all I know, she did the same thing, or she just didn't think I was worthy of her time. It's clear nothing clicked, which is fine, but that doesn't explain the emptiness I felt after the date.

That emptiness came as a result of that interior masterpiece vanishing forever from my head. Before that, as long as I could stare at the masterpiece and tell myself that a reality like that really existed, I was happy. After the non-event date, I had nothing to stare at in my mind, except myself and my own problems, which is an ugly mess of nastiness if I ever saw one. I came to love not the opportunity to meet new people through the personal ad experience, but the hope for romance and completion that personal ads provide in spades. I became addicted to an endless stream of romantic potential.

And that's where I stand right now. My name is Matt, and I'm addicted to personal ads. ("Hi, Matt!") I don't know when--if EVER--I'll get tired of replaying this constant cycle of baseless infatuation, unrealized expectations and pointlessly crushed hopes. Maybe never. I know I've trolled some online personals since the date and even contemplated placing an ad myself. I guess I could spend years swinging at balls inside the batting cages of love, instead of moving into reality and actually playing some frickin' baseball. Oh well. So I'm addicted to romantic hope. At least it's safer than a crack addiction.