The following can also be found in the book Chicago Stories 1996. Click here to learn more, and to download a free electronic copy.

Part I. I have this really annoying habit -- a terrible habit, really -- of assigning titles to women I like. It all came about because at any given moment, there are about five or six girls in my life that I have the hots for, and my friends can never tell them apart-

"Hey, I saw Rachel today."

"Okay, now, is she the one that you work with, or is she the grad student?"

"Neither -- she's the one with the leather backpack."

This led, as you may imagine, to-

"Hey, I went out with the Backpack Girl last night."

"Oh, the Backpack Girl! And how was that?"

"Oh, well, you know... it was... well, it was really..."

And then when it would fall apart as it always does, I would start to use the title as an object of scorn, and ridicule --

"You'll never guess who I ran into at Sweet Alice last night."

"Who?"

(Pause) "Backpack Girl!"

"Oh no!"

A friend once remarked that I used the titles much like a comic book line would use them to describe their supervillains, and I found this metaphor so entirely apropos and cosmically just that the concept stuck.

So, in honor of Anti-Valentine's Day tonight, I will be presenting, in installments, all the supervillians that have graced my presence in the last six months. I hope you will find them as amusing and psychotic as I have.

Part II. The Backpack Girl. Rachel is a friend of a friend of mine, a student at Columbia College. The first time I met her, she was wearing one of those Barbie doll dresses with one of those patent-leather backpacks with the four straps that go all the way around your body. She introduces herself as a poet... (Pause) You know, as in her profession.

Now, my teeth are already starting to grind together, because unfortunately for about eight months, I had to live in the middle of Backpack Girl Land when, freshly arriving to Chicago and not knowing any better, I moved into the heart of Wicker Park. And I guess I have an additional bias against the Backpack Girls, because my roommate there, who I found through The Reader, which should tell you something already, was also a Backpack Girl, but a psychotic one, so psychotic that for the last two months of our lease, I had to sleep every night with my bedroom door locked, in fear that she was going to sneak in in the middle of the night and hack me up with a butcher knife. (Pause) But that's another story.

I was strongly attracted to Backpack Girl yet wanted to just throttle her every time I saw her. I didn't know what to do about this, so I did what any of you would do, which is to half-heartedly hit on her and every time she'd ask me to go do something with her, I'd go, schlepping my poor exhausted body over to Crobar at one in the morning when I had to get up and go to work at seven the next morning, which was never a consideration for her, 'cause she's a poet, you know, and poets with weekly checks from their parents don't have to worry about middle management assholes that didn't get any last night so they're going to take it out on somebody, and you become the perfect target when you stumble in to work about 9:45, so hungover that you could almost be considered legally blind.

Eventually Backpack Girl started dating some dork that constantly wore one of those "ZERO" shirts like Smashing Pumpkins and had long, stringy hair and a ring through his eyebrow, which really should come as a surprise to no one. But by then I was fully busy with the battle over the next supervillain, The Chemist.

Part III. The Chemist. It's funny how we, as a society, have about a dozen different definitions of what constitutes a date. To me, I had always thought of a date as a specific episode where two people go out, exclusively, to an event of culture or entertainment, as an excuse to spend the evening heightening and combining their level of intimacy, presumably as a first step towards involvement of a romantic and/or sweaty nature. I never knew how wrong I was until I started seeing The Chemist.

The Chemist possessed many of the traits that melt my heart -- the same age as me, short hair, boyish looking, and most importantly, she was a hard scientist, which I find so sexy that it could almost be called a fetish.

The Chemist and I went out on four or five dates, ranging from dinner at this really nice place in Lakeview that was actually pretty good, to a play that we both agreed could have been better. You know... (Pause) things like that. We would always wind back up at her place, sipping tea and listening to soft music, discussing the state of the world and the state of our lives. At no time did I try to make... (Pause) "The Move," and I was so proud of myself. I was really starting to like her.

Finally, I could sense her impatience, and one cold night I attempted... (Pause) "The Move." As my lips were slowly moving in to her face, she said, (Backing away from the microphone) "What are you doing?" I explained that... well... you know... we've been... hanging out a lot and... well... you know... we've gone out on like four or five dates now...

"Dates? Those weren't dates. That was just two people going out together to an event and having a good time and getting to know each other better.

Oh.

Needless to say, things quickly fell apart after that. The Chemist kept wanting to get together and have our... (Pause) "Getting to Know You Nights," I guess you'd call it -- I don't know, 'cause they sure as hell weren't dates -- but I was having none of that. There's something mortally embarrassing about reaching in to kiss someone and having them say, (Backing away from the microphone) "What are you doing?" We never saw each other again.

But soon was to come my greatest test of my superpowers. Within a month, I was about to have sex again.

Part IV. The Writer. To understand this story, you must know the following information -- Before December of 1995, I had had sex two times... (Pause) in two years. Both times were with an extremely frustrated ex-girlfriend who would blow into town, get all sweaty with me, wipe her brow and take off again.

By December of 1995, I had pretty much come to grips with the idea that I was never going to have sex again... (Pause) for the rest of my life.

But then at a Christmas party this season, said ex-girlfriend, who has now moved to Chicago and is in her first lesbian relationship, which is a whole can of worms we won't even open tonight, decides that she's going to set me up with a co-worker of hers, because we're both writers, you know, and we're both cool, and frankly, we're both a little desperate.

Brynn (the ex) warns me that The Writer is a little skittish about dating and that I should take it nice and slow. Which, of course, means that we end up sleeping together on our first date. And for another three days in a row after that. The sex is... (Pause, then laughing) Well, it's fantastic! What do you think I'm going to say, the sex was (holds out hand and wiggles it in the air) oh, so-so? I leave for Christmas with visions of more than sugar plums dancing in my head.

As you've already guessed, I received... (Pause) The Big Blowoff when I got back -- no communication at all from her for a week. And just when I'm about to perform (Pause, then acting like he's writing in the air) The Big Write Off, she calls out of the blue and wants to explain why she's been acting like an asshole. When we get together, she launches into this strange, rambling story about how every time she has sex, right as she reaches her climax, she has the thought, "What if my mother knew what I was doing right now?" and she is overcome with a wave of guilt and disgust and has an immediate urge to flee from the bed. (Pause) Which is why she hasn't called me.

Needless to say... (Pause) I have no response to this.

About two weeks ago I got together with The Ex, and she says, "You know, the more I get to know Amy, the more I'm starting to think there's something wrong with her. So... you know, just forget that idea I had about setting you two up. I was wrong."

Okay. Great. Thanks, Brynn.

Part V. The 19 Year Old. I turn 27 in two weeks. For a number of years I've had a standing rule not to date anyone under the age of 21, which is what makes the following story so pathetic, in that I am so desperate that I will break one of the two or three only rules I have ever made about dating.

For the record, let me just say that I didn't know she was 19 when I met her, nor even when we went on our first date, although I should have guessed something was up when I took her to a bar and she acted really nervous and ended up ordering a cup of coffee. I, of course, took it as a sign of (In a really goofy voice) "Gee, she must really like me!"

Now, I'm not going to lie and give you a line like, "She was an old 19." I mean, she was nineteen, and acted accordingly in that realm. Really, how can one not act their age?

I would tell my friends and they would shake their heads and go, "Oh, Jason. (Pause) Oh, Jason." But oh God was she cute. These clunky black glasses and vintage clothes and couldn't understand the concept that in a former life, Sting was actually considered cool. And who wouldn't be attracted to someone who wrote a zine that the head of Matador Records buys?

Eventually the traits that I found so charming in her started turning simply annoying. Her obsession with Barbie memorabilia and recapturing the childhood she never had made me feel, frankly, a bit pedophilic in the boudoir. And having to pay every time we went out because she was broke, because she still hadn't gotten a job in four months but would take her weekly checks from her parents and go to four or five live shows a week... well, you see what I'm saying.

I ended up doing something I've never done before, which was to be the breaker, which I found such a horrible experience that it makes me reconsider the idea of ever dating again. Which I haven't, to this day.

Hmm -- I guess by my own definition, I now am a supervillain. Well, I leave it up to you to come up with a suitable moniker for me. Suggestions will be taken after the reading.