It's official.

I am giving up on men. No, I'm not becoming a lesbian. Although sometimes I think that would make life easier. But you can't make a quiche out of a bowl of cereal, and my middle name is Froot Loop. (Well, it was, before I went Gluten Free. Now it's Chex. But Froot Loop sounds better, so we'll go with that.)

What caused the Great Giveup of 2009? We'll call him Spike. See, Spike and I dated about a year and a half ago for a few months. Things were going great! And then I got the best dump line I've ever gotten: "Now that my confidence is up, I'd like to see what else is out there."

Fast forward a year. He and I are getting along again. He calls me a couple of times, and asks if I want to go see a movie. Great! I repeat the mantra to myself - "this is only friends hanging out...this is only friends hanging out..."

Midway through the movie, I notice movement out of the corner of my eye. It's his hand, creeping closer to mine, the way we did in seventh grade. You know, the ol' brush up against the other person's pinky and "Oh well, we're here, might as well hold hands."

It was weird. It was holding-hands-with-my-brother weird.

Maybe there's still something there, I told myself. I did pine after this guy for awhile. So when he invited me over for dinner one evening, I accepted.

Again, the hand thing. I asked him to pause the movie and said, "Hey, what's going on here? Are we...?" He said, "You know, sometimes in life it's good to have a mulligan."

Well that's true. I can understand wanting a second chance with me. I am that awesome.

But as we're sitting there, holding hands, something wasn't right.

A few days later, he called me. I opened my cell, before realizing who called. "Oh crap," I muttered, reflexively flipping the phone shut. I spent the evening torn between hoping he hadn't heard my "oh crap", and deciding whether or not to return his call.

I finally did what any confrontation-adverse person would do - I sent him an email.

"I don't get the feeling that you actually want to be with me," I wrote. "It seems like you're bored, and I happen to be around. It's like you'd just be biding your time until something better came along."

I got back a response, which I wasn't really expecting. I wasn't expecting the exact wording, either:

"Wow, you're pretty good!"

But, this experience has been good for me. I learned my instincts on men can be trusted. I was spot on with my feelings. And, now I don't have to hang out with him or return his calls if I don't want to. Can you imagine the guilt I'd feel if he called in the middle of "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown"? I mean, call him back, snoopy, call him, watch snoopy.

Eh, that's a no-brainer. Everyone knows that THIS year the Great Pumpkin will rise out of the pumpkin patch.