Isn’t it Ironic

Two blog posts in one night? I guess tonight I am really enjoying the sound of my own “voice.”

So you, dear readers, know all about the erstwhile mancation. And you know that it was pretty much the worst mancation ever. While waxing poetic about taking time off from dating and time for myself and blah blah blah, what was I really doing? You got it – thinking about guys and wishing I were dating. I knew that I couldn’t jump into another relationship so soon after three back-to-back-to-back relationships (as the bad texter corrected me when I just said “back to back”) but this big strong part of me really wanted to just get into a relationship as soon as possible to keep from doing the scary work of looking at myself and taking care of myself. I guess you could say I went through relationship withdrawal. Like any addiction, it was mighty hard to give up. My single self was pretty deeply buried under my relationship self.

And, as you know, I ended the mancation a couple of weeks ago and have gone on a couple of dates. The most recent guy is the fabulous emailer who I met for drinks a week and a half ago. We had a fun time, laughed a lot, and are making plans to go out again.

But…….

I just don’t feel that excited about it. And you know what? I sincerely think it has nothing to do with him. He was funny and cute in email, funny and cute in person. There’s no real reason not to be optimistic.

But the bottom line is, I think maybe I just don’t want to date right now! Yes, you heard me — after struggling through a few months of forced and half-assed mancation, I am finally in a place where I feel so content on my own that I am hestitant to rock the boat. My life has (work aside) become incredibly tranquil. I don’t have the drama and stress that plagued my recent relationships. I spend time with friends, I read, I go to sleep whenever I want and eat whatever I want and watch whatever I want to watch on TV. It’s the first time in a long time that I can be truly, completely — I guess you could call it selfish!

I’ve always been a “why not” kind of person, so I’m sure I’ll go out with this guy again and try to keep an open mind.

But frankly, in my current mindset, someone’s got to be pretty damn awesome to compete with my all time favorite guy.

That’s right….

Noodles is by far the frontrunner.

At least he didn’t shoot the messenger…

This week, dear readers, I seem to have a lot of law fodder for the blog, since mostly all I’ve been doing this week is working!  Those of you who enjoy the “Law” part of Little Miss Law are in luck; those of you who enjoy something juicier will just have to wait until I emerge from my bubble and (maybe) have a life again.

 I had an endless morning in court today.  The judge’s calendar started at 8:30 am.  Since I was filing an ex parte application (which means you file it the same day, so the court doesn’t have advance notice) I was at the tail end of the calendar.  Some judges are speedy and just whip through their calendars.  Not so this judge.  If he were in the fable about the Tortoise and the Hare, he would make the tortoise look like a frickin’ racehorse. 

To top it all off, once it was almost 1:00 pm, he finally called our case.  Two minutes later, we were headed out the door, him having just DENIED my application to continue the trial date.  It sucks to lose in court.  It sucks even worse when the motion isn’t even opposed.  (I won’t go into that.)  But the judge said we can give it another go if we submit a declaration from our client explaining exactly why he’s going to be out of town when the trial was going to be.  “This sounds like a vacation,” observed the judge.

As it turns out, it was a vacation (which I didn’t know at the time, the partner having refused for some reason to answer my questions about this) and now, guess who gets to go in next week armed with a declaration from our client that says “sorry, I haven’t taken a vacation in a year and a half and I forgot to tell my lawyers that my wife scheduled it”?  Who is going to once again go down in flames?  Yes, yes, that would be yours truly.  Today the judge was surprisngly “measured” (opposing counsel’s description) with me, saying that he didn’t want to “shoot the messenger,” but if & when I go back again as the messenger, I have a feeling I will take a big ol’ shot. 

Sigh.

Anyway, the upside of this whole thing is that the morning calendar in court was, for the most part, highly entertaining.  I could regale you with loads of stories – but any of you law nerds can put in a special request for that.  For now, I’ll just say that I saw some of the most atrocious lawyering I have ever seen.  And not just bad arguments — though there was plenty of that — but more fundamental mistakes like not listening to the actual questions the judge was asking (and so saying something totally unresponsive), interrupting the judge, and being generally, blithely unaware of the times when there was practically smoke coming out of the judge’s ears and he looked like he wanted to punch somebody.   As lawyers know, law school teaches you little to nothing about real lawyering.  Well, I think that a lot of lawyers (and people in general of course, but I’ll pick on lawyers for the moment) just need a seminar in good old fashioned people skills.  Seriously, people.

My favorite hearing was about whether a lawyer should be sanctioned by the court.  The facts were this:  the case was set to start trial this past Tuesday the 27th.  In a pre trial conference the lawyer (defense counsel) told the court that he had another trial in Burbank the same day, but that it might settle.  All last week before Thanksgiving, plaintiff’s counsel called defense counsel to find out whether the trial was going on, to find out if he had to have his 3 witnesses for the first day of trial fly out from the East Coast on Monday.  Defense counsel doesn’t tell plaintiff’s counsel until 4 pm on Monday that no, the Burbank case hadn’t settled so the witnesses didn’t need to come.  Of course, by then the witnesses were already flying in.

There was a whole dispute about who told who what, and when, and on not one, not two, but many occasions, defense counsel had the audacity to say “English isn’t my first language, Your Honor, but…”  What really sent the judge over the edge was when defense counsel remarked, “Your Honor, these witnesses didn’t really need to fly out, this was just grandstanding to pressure my client into settlement.”  I honestly saw the judge make a subtle movement forward as though inspired to leap over and tackle the attorney.  Instead, he told defense counsel firmly that the statement was “not to his credit,” picked up his pen and started writing.   And writing.  And writing.  For what seemed like an eternity, you could hear a pin drop in the courtroom as the judge wrote out his order.  Finally, he stopped writing and read the order aloud.  Bottom line: the attorney had to pay the other party over $6000 to cover the witnesses’ travel expenses.

Moral of the story:  1)  Return your phone calls.  2)  When the judge looks like he wants to kill you, keep your mouth shut.

I promise you more fun stories in the coming days, dear readers!  Happy almost-Friday!

Can’t We All Just Get Along?

Before getting to the meat of the post, dear readers, I just had to share this comic that my dad called and told me about tonight:

The only thing that confuses me is…does this mean that Little Miss Law isn’t a published author????

Anyway, today I experienced for only the 3rd time in my career the joy that is mediation. As you lawyers and non-lawyers alike probably understand, civil litigation is…well, not exactly warm and fuzzy. In the best case scenario, the relationship between the plaintiffs and defendants’ counsel is cordial; in the worst-case scenario, it’s World War III. Or there is the lethal combination — nice to each others’ faces with a vicious letter-writing campaign. (It’s much easier to be nasty in a letter when you have time to think about what snarky, well-phrased thing you want to say.) In this adversarial environment, mediation creates that glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe, the parties may overcome their disdain or outright hatred of each other and come to some sort of agreement.

Most cases settle before they get to trial; but most cases get very close to trial or arbitration before settling. In our case, there was a mediation provision in the purchase agreement, so absolutely nothing has happened in the case apart from us filing the complaint. In this type of situation, the chances of settlement at this point are slim. In our case, the chances were virtually non-existent. Our mediation brief asked for hundreds of thousands of dollars; the other side’s mediation brief threatened a malicious prosecution action and sanctions against us. Even our mediator, a seasoned retired judge who successfully mediated a different case for our (difficult and unruly) client, told us that when he read the briefs, he said to himself, “Oh, shit.”

Isn’t that encouraging?

Suffice it to say, we spent the morning in separate rooms with the mediator shuttling back and forth, spending about 15 minutes total (if that) discussing the case with us and the remaining time trying to soften us up — chatting about anything and everything. He couldn’t get the parties to settle today, but to his credit, he would probably have had an easier time if we had asked him to preside over the Middle East peace talks. The other side’s generous offer in the mediation brief was to “allow” us to walk away and waive their malicious prosecution claims. After the mediation, their generous offer basically changed to “F— off, see you at the arbitration.” (As they trot off to seek sanctions.) Now that’s what I call progress.

Does anyone have any fun mediation stories to share?

Little Miss Law in Training?

First of all, dear readers, let me comment on how many hits I received in the past day on my post about Jane Austen! I must say, I expected to get more comments in the vein of “What are you talking about? You’re not a spinster!” and I am very pleasantly surprised to find that nobody went in that direction, since that wasn’t the point of my post. (My mom did, however, email me with this excellent point: “Spinsters are pretty lucky these days because they have the internet……” Very true.)

Also, I find that my blog readers appear to be quite literary, seeing as how this post drew more attention and commentary than many of my more seemingly juicy posts about dating.

Anyway, one of my favorite things about the blogosphere is finding other kindred spirits out there, whose blogs reflect the same things I think about, worry about, dream about. I have found several — they’re the people who often comment on my blog (along with my “real life” friends) and whose blogs I read daily. It’s funny because even though I haven’t met these people and don’t even know their real names in most cases, I find myself routinely checking to see what’s going on in the worlds of Karalina, Jem1896, etc. When they write cliffhanger posts about a fight with a boyfriend or a worry about work, I find myself becoming anxious, waiting for the resolution.

Then a couple of days ago I got a comment from this blogger, a law student who is brand new to the blogosphere. The first post I read of hers was about the incestous and ill-advised nature of law school dating — totally spot-on, based on my one dating experience in law school. Then today I surfed onto her blog again and was astounded to find just how kindred of a spirit this girl is — first, writing about an unpleasant conversation where a non-lawyer tells her how bad law school is as a place to meet people, she says, “He continued on for awhile and by the end of the conversation, I had decided that I might as well buy a few more cats.” (As my readers may know, I have occasionally contemplated getting Noodles a sibling, but have never taken the leap because I determined that more than 1 cat per bedroom or per person may be pushing it.) Then, her post goes on to mention spinsterhood.

Ok, maybe this isn’t the world’s biggest coincidence. Cats and spinsters tend to be discussed together. Still, my friends, this is a girl after my own heart. And soon to be a lawyer, no less. I think I’ll keep reading!

Becoming Little Miss Law

Yesterday on the plane I began reading The Jane Austen Book Club, which I recommend if you’re a Jane Austen fan. For someone who considers herself a reader, I am ashamed to admit that I have read not even a single Austen novel, so that when the women in The Jane Austen Book Club discuss the plot points, I have to wrack my brain for memories of the movie version. In fact, I recall so little of Emma with Gwyneth Paltrow, which I saw so many years ago, that I had to fill in the blanks with my perfect memory of that awesome adaptation, Clueless, which I must have watched weekly in high school.

But I digress. The book made me think of Becoming Jane, the movie about Jane Austen’s life that was in theaters a few months ago. For those who haven’t seen the movie, it basically showed Austen as a headstrong aspiring writer who turns down a string of suitors until a mischevious guy, Thomas Lefroy, comes along and wins her heart. But of course, as in all of Austen’s novels, money, class and family come in the way, Jane won’t run away with him and so they part ways. Jane never ends up marrying, and goes on to write all her amazing novels. At the end of the movie, she is older and grey and seems sort of lonely but also peaceful. Jane Austen was the quintessential spinster, and died at the age of only 41.

This may sound strange coming from the girl who spends entry upon entry writing about guys and dating, but there was something sort of oddly…appealing to me about this. People talk about spinsters (to the extent anyone actually uses that word, these days) as unfortunate women who never meet a man and grow old and alone. They talk about spinsters as though they have no other choice but to be alone.

But Jane Austen did have a choice. If she had wanted to be married for the sake of being married — or for money, status, security — she had more than one chance. But instead, she declared that she would live by her pen.

I know what you’re thinking. She just didn’t meet the right person. If she had been able to marry Tom Lefroy, she would have married him and they would have lived happily ever after. I say: perhaps.

The movie made me wonder, at what age in today’s society does one transition into spinsterhood? And I don’t mean that in the bad, freaked-out Oh-my-God-I’m-heading-towards-30 way. I just mean, at what age now does someone gain the status of someone who is tranquilly, perpetually single, as opposed to someone who is still on the market and just temporarily single? And is it even possible to choose and embrace singledom and not have to eternally defend that choice?

In The Jane Austen Book Club there is one character in her 50’s named Jocelyn who never married. She says she is happily unmarried. She breeds dogs.

“Each of us has a private Austen.

Jocelyn’s Austen wrote wonderful novels about love and courtship, but never married. The book club was Jocelyn’s idea, and she handpicked the members. She had more ideas in one morning than the rest of us had in a week, and more energy, too. It was essential to reintroduce Austen into your life regularly, Jocelyn said, let her look around.” —The Jane Austen Book Club

I feel like I may have to, for the first time, read some Jane Austen instead of just watching the movies. Introduce her to my life…let her look around.

Feeling Thankful

It’s Sunday evening, dear readers, I am back in my apartment after spending the Thanksgiving weekend up in Oregon, and I hope you all had as lovely of a weekend as I did. It was very relaxing, save the few hours of work I did on Saturday — lots of eating, watching football (somehow, despite having a college-football-player father, I never understood football, much less actually liked it, but now, 27 years later, I genuinely enjoy watching it), shopping, and more eating. I even got to play mini golf with my 92 year old grandpa, which is something we used to do together all the time when I was growing up. (I beat him, but he demanded a rematch over Christmas.) And I got to meet the guy that my mom has been wanting to set me up with (in a group, and he has no idea). I’ll give her this – he was actually quite cute and outgoing. One small hitch, though: he lives in Oregon. I know I haven’t had much luck with L.A. guys of late, but I think it’s a little soon to start dating out-of-state.

As the plane began its descent into L.A. this evening, I was overcome with this intense sense of well-being and contentment. I felt happy and excited, but not about anything in particular — getting back to my apartment, to Noodles, to the week ahead. And that’s when it struck me: I am not just fine with my life as it is, I am affirmatively joyful. And not because some guy called me or emailed me or asked me out (which was so much my focus for the past year), but because I am so incredibly blessed. I have an amazing family, wonderful friends, a great apartment, a good job. I’m really so lucky.

More to come, dear readers, but for now, I must get some shut eye. Have a happy Monday!

Let’s See How Far We’ve Come

A quick aside, dear readers, before I get into the meat of this post– I have noticed that my posts that use song lyrics seem to get a lot more hits than the other ones. I guess it’s sort of cheating…all these unsuspecting fans of a certain song (tonight, Matchbox Twenty’s latest — yes I listen to Star 98.7, what’s it to you?) coming to look for the lyrics of the song and instead they stumble upon Little Miss Law’s latest ramblings. Welcome, Rob Thomas fans, welcome. Take off your shoes and make yourselves at home.

Anyway, the real topic of this post has been inspired by the trip I’m about to make up to see my family for Thanksgiving. Even though I graduated from high school and moved away close to 10 years ago, whenever I go home for the holidays I feel like I’ve been magically transported back to 1998 or earlier, sleeping in my old room, looking through old photos, seeing old friends, and just having general flashbacks to how it felt to be the angsty, teenaged version of Little Miss Law.

So, how far have I come in the past 10 years? In some ways, I’m definitely not the adult that I expected to be. If you had asked 17-year-old LML what she saw her 27-year-old self doing, I guarantee I would have envisioned myself married, maybe with a child, living in a house in the ‘burbs. I would have said that 27 year old me was certainly either a teacher or a social worker, certainly using my Spanish, probably living in Oregon. If someone had looked into a crystal ball and told me that I’d be a lawyer living in Los Angeles, working for a corporate law firm, I would have scoffed. That was so far afield of what I could have envisioned. Not to mention, if you had told me that I wouldn’t meet the love of my life in college, I think I would have been crushed. (Actually, I thought that my high school boyfriend was the one well into my freshman year of college.)

All through college and even in law school, whenever I’d go back up and see my friends, I felt the need to bring my cutest clothes, dress trendy, prove that I’d come out of my semi-nerdy shell from high school. Now I don’t do that anymore. First of all, let’s be honest, I’m still a little nerdy and not incredibly stylish. Also, I think I’m finally at a point where I can say that I’m happy with who I am, and I don’t need to prove anything to anyone.

The true test of that will be my 10 year high school reunion, coming up in ’08. For a while I was thinking that I wouldn’t want to go because everyone else would be married with kids. The last thing I would want, I thought, was for people to look at me with pity because I’m single. Then a lightbulb went on. First of all, as I said, I’m very peaceful with my life. Also, everyone has their own neuroses. Some people will be worried about being single, some people might be divorced; some will be unhappy at their jobs; some will have gained weight since high school; and on and on. And I’m sure that everyone will be too busy either thinking about themselves, or enjoying catching up, to be judging the other people. In fact, at my 5 year college reunion people were really impressed that I’m a lawyer, which I found funny (since almost everyone I know these days is a lawyer, it just seems so unremarkable to me) , but I bet I’d get a similar reaction at my high school reunion.

I’d love to let go of all the insecurities and neuroses of the 17-year old LML…but I’d also like to hold onto parts of her. The innocent, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed part. The undyingly optimistic and romantic part. Maybe it’s getting older, maybe it’s the last 10 years of experiences, maybe it’s the logic that comes with practicing law…but those parts can feel hard to hold onto sometimes.

At any rate, with that navel gazing I will wish my dear readers good night and Happy Thanksgiving!

PS. Since one of my most loyal readers (ahem, Mom) complained to me the other day that I tend to leave my readers hanging, I should share that I met my cyber-crush, and yes, he translates quite nicely in real life. 🙂 More later…

Friends Don’t Let Friends Wear Boleros

This has been a fantastic weekend so far, dear readers, and I feel extremely content as I sit on the couch with my laptop, comfy in my favorite old college sweatshirt, Noodles on his new-favorite perch in the window looking out at the partly-sunny day. Friday night J. and I went to see American Gangster, which I highly recommend. Russell Crowe, who normally bugs me a little because of his offscreen, hot-shit persona (ok, women of America, scream in horror that I don’t adore him), plays a Jersey cop who is flawed and yet impossible not to root for. They definitely uglied him up for the role, too, with some pudge and clothes that included a blue Hawaiian shirt. And Denzel, as Frank Lucas was perfectly terrifying. Two thumbs up.

Then on Saturday night I went to see Wicked, which I thought was incredible. I had no idea till I got there that Knittikins had bought seats in the second row, but we were right in the action, and the singing and costuming were fantastic.

But the real highlight of the weekend was round 2 of wedding gown shopping with Knittikins. After round 1, in which she tried on some gorgeous gowns, she decided that a floor length gown with a train was just too– well, gowny for a backyard wedding whose menu will include ribs (I see her point), and she began suggesting that instead she might wear a “sundress.”

While I am ever the obedient, supportive friend/bridesmaid when the situation calls for it, Knittikins has admonished us that we have to use tough love with her and that, as she told her younger sister Adorable yesterday, we are charged with the responsibility of making sure she doesn’t wind up looking ugly on her wedding day. Now, I have no doubt in my mind that she will look beautiful, whether in a gown or a sundress or anything in between. (Knittikins — note that a T-shirt and khakis are NOT on the list of options. Ahem.) But in my mind, when one is hiring a professional photographer to capture the event for time immemorial, one wants to look as perfect as possible. And wedding gowns, beasts that the are, are structured in such a way that no matter how much you move and breathe and eat and laugh and dance and greet people, the dress supports you. So, to that end, I suggested to Knittikins that she try on some more casual and/or tea length gowns, rather than moving away from gowns entirely.

From there ensued a morning at Alfred Angelo, which is much more user-friendly and down-to-earth than the environment at Renee Strauss the prior weekend. While the Renee Strauss lady had seemed borderline-horrfied that we all wanted to sit around in the giant dressing area together, the AA lady had no qualms about letting Knittikins, Adorable and I squeeze into the tiny dressing room together with her. I was also allowed to wander around at my leisure, choosing out gowns for Knittikins to try on, which was fun. And best of all, unlike most bridal shops, AA lets you take pictures, so I was able to be the paparazzi (paparazzo? hmm) I love to be. Knittikins’ other sister, my best college friend/former roommate C., had to work, so we were able to take lots of photos to show her in anticipation of her going back with Knittikins soon. (C. informed Knittikins that, understandably, she would never forgive her if she bought a gown without C.)

There were some good choices — the best, in my opinion and Adorable’s, was a tea length strapless dress that gave Knittikins a tiny little waist and was just, for lack of a better word, so damn CUTE. We’ll see what she ultimately decides to do. But the biggest fashion disaster of the day, that took some definite tough love to steer Knittkins away from, was her inexplicable desire to ruin the gorgeous, simple strapless dress by wearing a bolero. I wish I could locate a photo of this, but you’ll just have to take my word for it. Long sleeved, heavy satin-y material (can we remind you that the wedding will be in June in the Valley?)…just unnecessary. Knittikins exclaimed, “But it’s so comfy! I feel like I’m wearing a T-shirt!” (Wearing a T-shirt on her wedding day is her deep-seated desire, that we will absolutely not allow.) As Adorable asked, “Why in the world would you want to Pretty In Pink your dress?” Aka, why take a pretty dress and mess it up? Well put.

Anyway, dear readers, I really want nothing more than for Knittikins to have her wedding exactly the way she always imagined it. And I will support her and help her do anything to achieve that vision.

Unless, of course, that vision includes a bolero…

Cyber-Crushing

Is it actually possible to have a crush on someone you’ve never…well, actually met?

I posed this question to T. today in the context of the new guy I’ve been emailing with, and she reassured me that yes, if it’s acceptable to have crushes on celebrities, it is definitely OK to crush on a guy you have actually talked to (albeit only online and once on the phone). Whew. Glad I’m not completely crazy.

This guy’s passion is writing, so it’s no wonder that his emails are nothing short of excellent. Witty, cute, unpretentious, sly movie references — what’s not to like? Sending lengthy emails back and forth, though, tends to create this odd feeling, where you feel that on the one hand you know part of this person’s life story (way more so than someone you meet at, say, a bar) but on the other hand, again, you haven’t actually met them.

Anyway, after a week of emailing, I am ready to take this out of cyberspace and into the real world, and on Sunday we are meeting up for coffee. (Or, as I suggested to him in my last email, maybe we could just go eat a bunch of caramels. See, I can make sly movie references too!!) Here’s hoping that he is as fun & cute in person as he is over email & phone. When we talked on the phone, we were discussing writing and I mentioned my blog. I almost — almost! — made the lethal error of revealing my identity as Little Miss Law, but thankfully bit my tongue. Talk about him knowing my whole life story before he meets me! (Also, then I couldn’t write about him, which is just too fun.)

Noodles is snuggling up to me so close that I can’t even type anymore, which is a clear sign that he misses me and that it’s past our bedtime. Till later, dear readers, have a fantastic weekend!

Dating in L.A.: a Recap

Good evening, dear readers. In yesterday’s post I mentioned that I’ve been dating in L.A. for five years. (Actually, it’s almost 6 years. Even though I first moved to Southern California in 1998, I went to college in the Inland Empire (good ol’ I.E.) and I didn’t do any dating in L.A. proper until my senior year of college, after I turned 22. At any rate, I have been on my fair share of dates, and I thought that by way of background, as I embark on this round of dating, I’d fill you in on the people I’ve dated in the past. These, by the way, ranged from a single date to a 3 year relationship and everything in between.

1. First real L.A. guy I dated could not be more stereotypical L.A. My friends and I came out to L.A. to go out on the Sunset Strip and I met him at Miyagi’s (which, in my younger days, I used to love). He was from New York, an aspiring screenwriter, and lived in Hollywood in a tiny, messy 1 bedroom apartment. He was (shocker!) incredibly narcissistic. He wore — wait for it — white T shirts with the sleeves rolled up. Do you think my friends have stopped teasing me about this, six years later? Think again.

2. A guy who lived in Culver City with his mom and brother and drove a preposterously tricked out rice-rocket type car (he was a tall skinny white guy). On our second (and final) date we were hanging out at his condo (I think Mom was out of town) when his brother walked in with – guess who? – my date’s recent ex. I spent the next hour listening to my date tell all his friends on the phone what a bitch his ex was, and what a jerk his brother was.

3. A guy who was a few years older than me (probably 28 to my 22) and liked to repeatedly say “So is that what you kids are listening to/watching/etc these days?”

4. A guy I met through a friend, who when we first met, lived in a filthy fraternity house at UCLA. I frankly just wasn’t that into him, and this time it was me who pulled a disappearing act (after he had cooked me dinner at his new apartment, on a red and white checkered tablecloth no less.) Ouch! Can we say dating karma?

5. A guy who lived in Manhattan Beach and worked at Toyota and drove, lived and breathed Toyota. He was very cute, and I really liked him, but after 3 or 4 months of seeing each other I still didn’t feel much closer to him and it fizzled. Still, we had some truly fun dates — he always liked to try new restaurants.

6. A guy I went to law school with who told other people I was his girlfriend, but whose idea of a date was meeting up with each other at a bar. For my birthday that year (#23), he came along and played boyfriend and even gave me a pretty little necklace. Then, a week or so later, he dumped me — after we had just watched High Fidelity, no less. Unsurprisingly, given his vision of himself as a lawyer-slash-party boy, he now works at the fraternity of law firms. Oh and he is the infamous guy who made me pay $260 for my half of the meal.

7. An Australian guy who approached me in a coffee shop I used to study in, lived in a guest house in Bel Air, and whose claim to fame was one line in one action movie.

8. I guy I met on Friendster, went out with a few times until he dropped off the face of the earth. At the time I was confused and annoyed, but in hindsight, he WAS at least an inch shorter than me.

9. A friend of a college friend, who I emailed with at length, we knew each others’ life stories…but on our date we went to dinner and a billiards bar. He was uber competitive at pool, then looked over my head at the sports on TV all night. At the end, he realized he wasn’t over his ex.

10. A friend of a law school friend, who I had met previously when he was dating someone, and then we reconnected when we were both single. We went out a few times, but again, not over his ex. He was also very cute. Our mutual friend told me that I wasn’t really his “type” because his ex was a “big girl.” Well, within a year after things fizzled between us, he was dating a new girl…and my friends, looking at her picture online (they discovered this through the wonders of Myspace), declared her to be my twin.

After that I met my ex-fiance, we dated for 3 years, and I think you know, at least roughly, what has happened since! Has dating improved since I was 22? Well, I guess that remains to be seen, but given recent events, Little Miss Law’s Magic 8 Ball is reading “Outlook Not So Good.”

We’ll see, dear readers!