A few months ago a fellow intern/friend ended a brief courtship abruptly, after several dates which she had described to me as wonderful. He was, on all accounts, on par with her intellectually, professionally, and religiously. It seemed infalliable. But without warning, she, who advised me never to cry over a boy, was crying inconsolably.

And only until recently do I understand the circumstances that led to the end of the affair; can sympathize, rather than empathize. It seems, when initiating courtships, we as the fairer sex are treading on thin ice. And not entirely of our own doing, of course. I have traced this problem to that nefarious word -"expectation", or the fear thereof. And although we may not (albeit consciously) be exerting the pressure of expectation, its presence is felt - ubiquitously, unequivocally. And it is met with terror, amplified to disproportionate magnitude, and becomes reason to abort mission, no matter how successful the take-off.

And this is what I believed to have happened in her case, and is occurring, recurring in my own melodrama, like a movie stuck in a loop. It is the curse of this age, this stage in our lives, that women are expected to want to settle, while the thought of "expectations" renders their unwilling suitors veritable deers in headlights, that they feel compeled to begin courtship with a series of disclaimers.

And to add insult to injury, they justify their said disclaimers with their own self-proclaimed fear of "hurting you", perhaps not realizing that, by the very act of agreeing to invest time, intimacy (the very acts which have largely been performed previous to the disclaimers), we have already positioned ourselves in the line of fire, that there is no way to dodge ths bullets, no matter how well-meaning the other claims to be.

I do not mean to be bitter. I trust that these are good people. But to some extent this sort of behavior is nothing short of cowardice. While it is acceptable to wish to wade before one dives, it is unrealistic to expect that, because one did not wish to hurt (honestly, who does?) that hurt will not happen, that these sweet disclaimers will curb the disappointment and that one can remain inculpable.