I’ve been hearing some grumblings around here and the BB&W fan page about how some of you are thisclose to buying 100 cats to keep you company because you’ve decided there’s absolutely nobody–in a world of seven billion people, NO ONE, absolutely NO ONE will come along who’ll be a romantic fit for you for a lifetime. And I’ll bet it doesn’t help things that many of the ladies in the BB&W Crew are happily booed up or married, huh? I bet you think we forgot how much it SUCKS to be single.

Let me be the first to say my single life sucked like rotten eggs, dipped in ostrich poo, after a llama peed on it. While some of my friends lived for the club, I was the one who’d rather go to a movie or just stay home and watch one on HBO. I only went for the one twinge, flicker, hope beyond reason possibility that THE ONE might be there, NOT looking for easy heinie, but because he, too, hoped against reason to find his Christelyn. Plus, you heard that fable about that one girl who met her husband at the club, a dude who was there every week, but when he saw HER, it was all over. It was the club version of Cinderella. And a complete load of llama doo-doo.

No chance in Dante’s nine circles does that happen. I ended up feeling (or should I say, being FELT up) and more disconnected and more depressed. And when I did find a decent prospect (not at the club) there were very few who had the sacred trifecta: physically attractive, knew three and four syllable words and upwardly mobile with signs of being able to outlive the three-month trial after he landed a job.

In all brutal and gory honesty, I made crappy choices in men. I made choices based on looks and earning potential (many times nonexistent), and less on character. And (gulp) I self-segregated in my early 20’s, so I was never in the circles of better pics. It wasn’t until Maxi-Me was born that my choices in men changed for the better. I thought “Well, if don’t think enough of myself to find a quality man, I certainly think enough of my daughter to!” So guess what? I changed my whole strategy. I asked myself: What kind of man would I want my daughter? Once I got that established, I met that man, and we’ve been married for almost a decade.

There; a bit of tell-it-like-it-T-I-IS truth from your blog hostess.

So with that, I’ll have to admit I’m not the best one to ask about what to do when you just feel like becoming a part-time cat herder, so that’s why I brought relationship expert, Ricky Cohen, author of “Attracting Your Extraordinary Love.” Play CLOSE attention to his wisdom about the four step to finding someone who is most compatible to you, and his advice about how to disengage from friend and family who might sabotage your future happiness.

Ricky Cohen by Christelyn