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but I held it just out of her grasp. If stripping off my kid gloves was the only way to reach her, I was keeping them off.
    â€œNo, you don’t. But he won’t be calling. Not for a while, anyway.”
    â€œWhat are you talking about?”
    â€œLisa, he’s looking for some space, obviously. Or else he wouldn’t have left. By texting him constantly for the last several hours—and I’m assuming for the two days before that since he left—you’ve given him exactly the opposite. You are now the enemy, keeping him from getting what he wants. And he will avoid you.”
    Her face crumpled like a sinkhole. I’d stepped too far over the line, and was losing her again. I backpedaled fast, softening my tone. “You’ll get to talk to him—eventually. But you have to make it a good thing in his mind—something he wants. And that means giving him room when he needs it. How can he miss you if you won’t leave him alone?”
    â€œI... He...” She swallowed again, clenched her jaw. “Okay.”
    â€œGood girl!” I burst out before I could censor myself. But Lisa didn’t take offense. Instead, she preened. I made a mental note: Responds to praise .
    It was going to be a later night than I expected. I leaned across the table.
    â€œLet’s talk about what you’re going to do next.”

    Â Â 
    Once I’d broken past Lisa’s hard outer shell, she was insatiable for advice. It was nearly eleven o’clock by the time I wrapped up our session and headed out to my car.
    I found Kendall sound asleep in bed when I crawled in beside him twenty minutes later. I didn’t want to disturb him—this was his firm’s busy season, and I knew he was exhausted with the long hours he’d been working. I hovered over his face, propped on one elbow for a few moments, hoping he’d rouse enough to kiss me good night. He didn’t even stir. I gave up and lay back, snuggling up to his side and whispering, “I’m home.”
    Kendall slumbered on, blissfully unaware, in the mummy pose he always slept in—on his back, arms crossed over his chest—while the word home echoed strangely in my head. Was this my home? Nothing of mine was here except for some clothes and a few toiletries. My own run-down, neglected house had never felt like home either, though—just a storage unit for my things. And I’d long since moved out of my parents’ house.
    What was “home”?
    I studied Kendall’s face, soft and untroubled in sleep, and gently touched his warm arm where it rested over his chest, but still he didn’t stir. The neediness that washed over me left an unpleasant feeling in my belly. I was styling myself as a confident, knowledgeable relationship expert, and here I was craving reassurance like a child.
    â€œI’m home,” I tried the word out again, more softly.
    Kendall just slept on.

four

    Â Â 
    My first article for the column was much harder to write than I expected.
    Fifteen or sixteen inches, Sasha calculated for me, was about six hundred words. So far I had three of them on the page.
    Â Â 
    Dating is hard.
    Â Â 
    Oh, that was excellent. Wonderful insight from a professional therapist. When I was a kid, chewing the end of my pencil always helped me think when I was stuck, but the blinking cursor just laughed at my frustration. I couldn’t gnaw on my keyboard. I started over.
    Â Â 
    In the wild, wide world of dating, it’s hard to navigate the ups and downs.
    Â Â 
    Eh. I couldn’t even have the satisfaction of crumpling up the page and throwing it away. Computers sucked. Deadlines sucked. My writing sucked.
    Â Â 
    There’s no such thing as a how-to manual for dating. Anyone who tells you different is probably—literally—selling you something, like one of hundreds of self-help books sitting in bookstores—and probably on your shelves at