What Makes Us So Crazy?

If sane is the new sexy, I am in need of a character overhaul.

I have become crazy, it seems.

Frighteningly, many of my friends and even women I only have glancing social acquaintences with have become crazy as well. What's weirder, it's the exact same kind of crazy. What happened to us? What is happening to us?

For me, currently, the insanity involves a man I'll call the Sixth Avenue Kisser--when he (and I, for that matter) last appeared on this site, I had just been kissing him on lower Sixth Avenue.

The kissing continued. It was very good kissing. And you know, we all know, what kissing leads to.

That was very good.

And that continued as well.

Then, out of nowhere, it began:

Craziness. Out of the nowhere of my soul, it crept up. One moment I was casually daydreaming about what to wear on our next date--sort of looking at the backs of my hands, wondering how many days it had been since I'd had a manicure. Then that moment passed and in the next moment, with sinking dread in my stomach, I was thinking:

Wait: Why hasn't he called?

When was the last time I saw him / spoke to him / got an email / text / telekinetic message from him?

How long has it been?

Finally: Does he not want me?

This is the savage animal that drives us to craziness. Each of us has one; she knows us by name. Sometimes she knows us by ugly names. And we know her. This is the bitch who looks us in the mirror on bad mornings and tells us our face looks weird. No matter what clothing we put on as we're dressing for work, she says, too tight. You must be putting on weight.

There are times when she doesn't shut up, this bitch. She rips it all apart; she is a ranting tornado of destruction.

And when she digs her nails into why hasn't he called, out pours a symphony of ugliness.

With my rational mind--perhaps with all of our rational minds--we know that he probably hasn't called because he is a man. Thus he was watching the game/working on something on his computer/imagining your naked breasts or looking at pictures of someone else's naked breasts (or both). But our rational minds get drowned out by this shrieking cacophany.

I don't remember when this behavior started in me, but I know that I have not always been this way. Maybe it's that with certain men I am not this way? This makes me wonder if there is something toxic and scary between me and the Sixth Avenue Kisser...and why shouldn't there be? I seem to have become a specialist in toxic and scary. Perhaps I suck it into myself like metal filings to a magnet.

This makes me worried. The more worried I get, the louder the bitch symphony sings.

Here is what I want to leave you with.

The problem is not that we will never be able to answer, "why hasn't he called?" The problem is that it's the wrong question.

Here are the right questions:

If I weren't focused on him calling, what in my life would be hurting the most? What is it that I'm drowning out by obsessing about what he is feeling for me?

Why wouldn't he want me? How many strong beautiful sexy talented funny achingly alive MEs are strolling around this planet?

And if he's not smart or sane or savvy enough to be asking himself the same thing, why would I want him to call?

What makes the nasty bitch slip into the driver's seat of our brains and our hearts? Why do we hand over the keys and slide so easily into riding shotgun?

What makes us so crazy?