From yesterday's Day and Night magazine in Irish Independent

It's impossible to know how to behave in the first few weeks you're seeing someone, isn't it? You have to be interested, but not needy; available, but not clingy. You have to open yourself up, yet retain some mystery. You must spend time together, but not compromise the other's independence.

The whole Game is just one giant head-wreck and, as I was reminded recently, I still apparently haven't mastered the rules yet. It's not all my fault of course, but I can't help thinking that I made the most rookie mistakes yet again. This is after spending years telling myself I would learn from the bitterly-acquired experience of every failed romance just how to do it right the next time.

But with nearly every new man-venture, I seem to be living the reincarnation of every previous courtship for the good, and, especially the bad. Old wine in a new bottle, if you will (and some guys would drive you to the bottle).

Yes, I'm in a bitter phase right now, but my best friend reassures me that it's all about kissing frogs to find a prince. Yet it seems to me that more and more frogs are slipping through the vetting process, and it's becoming harder and harder to distinguish between man-phibian and royalty.

I tell you, it's enough to make a man cynical. But something tells me that's not going to help matters. Sarky eye-rollling, pithy asides and a suspicious response to all nice gestures will expedite the end of a potential relationship just as quick as jumping into it all too soon will.

The solution is obviously some half-way point between the two mindsets: healthily-cynical kinda-availability with a non-man-phibian. I'm still figuring it out, and, burned as I am at the moment, I'll hopefully gain a little more temporary wisdom before I inevitably make the same mistakes all over again.