Meet Heath. Briefly, Heath is the sort of friend that leaves anonymous buttercups at your doorstep at the end of your first Valentine’s Day alone at which point you’ve admitted defeat, realized no one will be coming to surprise you, and you’re shuffling up to your door hoping that this time there will be a note, flower, or that, ya know, your ex-boyfriend will be standing there with two tickets to London and a firm promise that he’ll never break your heart again, or any other hope that adds to a long ridiculous string of hopes which create run-on sentences when you try to write them down.

You don’t, however, fall for Heath. He has at least four other chic friends like you and he keeps them all happy in the same way. Still, it is just as flattering to be part of his posse; you just take these gestures as comforting acts of kindness and not indications that you’ve found your Leonardo DiCaprio (The Romeo and Juliet version, not Titanic, but then they both die, don’t they? At least in Titanic the girl lives and gets a big blue diamond out of it. Titanic it is).

So Heath, inadvertently, brought me to his friend Clark. Clark came into the scene following the part where two of my guy friends I’d invited over to my apartment (on separate occasions, of course) in my time of vulnerability, had ended up consoling my lips more than my heart, thus leading to my “no more boys in the apartment!” rule. This changed with Clark as he seemed harmless?he was, after all, a 26-year-old who had never been kissed. I couldn’t have had a safer plan. Here was the guy who would wait until marriage to kiss a girl, so he would be the kind of friend I could have over without feeling pursued.

Wrong again. Within a couple weeks, I learned Clark likened himself to the type of shark known for being small but fierce. It wasn’t long before the misleading thought of being safe around Clark the Shark led me to having some sort of odd crush acquired in the name of security and Clark gave up his lip virginity to me. *sigh* The rest of this story isn’t fun, so I’m gonna speed through it: A week later, to be exact, Valentine’s Day (the same day Heath had to clean up after his pal and mend me with buttercups), Clark decided to fill me in on the fact that we were too physical (let’s make it known here?nothing happened but kissing. Doesn’t too physical typically involve less clothing?) and he “might” give me a call “if” he ever wanted to go somewhere public and see a movie or something. My pride took over, of course, and I relieved him of his offer and haven’t spoken to him since.

I know what you’re thinking, reader, and you’re wrong; damn it, I am a fantastic kisser. This guy just . . . well, why don’t you tell me what happened with him: message or comment me at myspace.com/elleoaks. Any tips on being a better kisser will immediately be rejected.