Illustration by TIM SOUERS

Last year I attempted to get back in the saddle. A single gal. The dating life. Like frightened soldier who is chicken enough to hide behind a knoll or in one of those deep foxholes until the gunfire stops, I had taken a hiatus from the battlefield of bars and one-liners and set-ups. It's not that I had been dating someone and broken up. No, I wasn't so lucky to have been injured in the filed of action and been granted a justifiable leave of absence; it was more like voluntary sick leave. I was sick of dating, and sickened by it. I had gotten my life shpiel down to a lean, confident paragraph that perfectly camouflaged my real, neurotic self; I had prepared sound bites on everything from road rage to Ritalin; and I was simply all out of bull.

In my 6 years of Los Angeles , I had had one serious, love-type relationship; two JV, botched attempts; and at least 200 base-level, comically tragic encounters fronting as "fun!" or "what-ever - NO BIG DEAL" or "meet him for a drink" or "it's only lunch." I had way too many smugly married friends who had settled so far into their cushy, paired-off abysses that they had forgotten the trauma-inducing hell of dating. "C'mon," one yenta might say, while subconsciously fondling her emerald-cut engagement ring. "Just one night of your life." Then there was the requisite "You never know!" and the ever-popular "What've you got to lose?" UGH. My friends practically put sayings on coffee mugs to lure me on dates. Someone actually cheerleaded to me once: "You've gotta be in it to win it!!!"

The 200 encounters had seemed less like people and more like a smattering of bad roommates on a Friday-night WB sitcom. There was IF-Guy - the guy who couldn't carry on a regular conversation, but instead demanded answers to fantastical questions straight out of those check-out counter "If" books: "If you could have dinner with any person, living or dead, who would it be?" (Answer: Anyone but you.) "IF you could un-know one thing you know, what would it be?" (Answer: The phone number of my friend who set us up.) Or, more suggestively, after he downed his third trendy martini: "IF you could try anything - just once - what would it be?" (Answer: Jumping off that rooftop balcony behind you.)

There was "Stabby" - a guy who called me on my cell phone as I sat at the sushi bar waiting for him to tell me that he had to call off our date, because he had been "stabbed" by a jealous ex-girlfriend. My concern for his well being later turned to amazement when I realized that he had concocted this fictitious scheme to... attract me! How could I resist him if he brought out the Basic Instinct in other women?

And there was a string of earnest "writer/trainers", a genre of L.A. guy who talks about the three screenplays he has been "shopping around" to agents, but eventually reveals that he spends most of his time in the private gyms of B-level actresses overseeing their toning and burning. The "writer/trainer" engages in irony-free discussions about how seriously he takes his life pursuits and about what close attention he pays to Zen wisdom and... his horoscope.

By year five of goin' dutch on weeknight decafs, I had had my fill. I had done a lot of nodding/relating/fake laughing, when I really felt like eyerolling/screaming in horror/running into the night. I powered into my work and friend mode, and didn�t look up for a year.

So, I was determined to make that year end with a bang one Saturday night, somewhere between fruity cocktail number 3 and 4, somewhere on Sunset Blvd., somewhere among the sex-deprived masses. The night went a little something like this... 9PM: Standing in front of the full-length mirror, rejected outfits surrounding me on the floor, black skirt that used to fit every weekend barely reaching zipper enclosure, face turning red. 9:30PM: Miraculous discovery of stretchy dress and long jacket. 9:45PM: Triumphant arrival at funky bar, aimless searching for date. 10:30PM: Date arrives late. I barely notice, since my new best friend Constance, a drag queen on the next barstool, is pitching me fascinating ideas about her local cable access show. 10:33PM: Turn to date, who is in profile ordering a Martini from the bartender, and then... everything starts to go into so-mo... a glimpse of the double-breasted jacket... a squint for better focus... a flashback to another time and place... and I realize, as he turns back toward me, that this is not deja vu, but my worst dating nightmare.

IF you remember someone by a funny nickname - like, say, "IF-Guy" - but didn't remember his actual name, would you recognize his voice on the phone? (Answer: No.) IF you could imagine regressing in the worst possible way, what would it be? (Answer: To unwittingly agree to a date with the same guy, five years later.) IF you were five years older and wiser and more experienced and yet still single, would you be able to laugh it off and have fun with this guy despite the awkward circumstances? (Answer: Yes.)

With an arsenal of cocktails and a battalion of laugher, you - the single gal - forge back into the battle, armed with some desperate from of innate hope - akin to the endorphin that gives panicked mothers the strength to lift heavy cars off their dying children, you - the single gal - equip yourself with a never-ending supply of date stamina. You are a soldier, a warrior, and you march on with your battle cry: "In it to win it! In it to win it!" It's a war out there.