My late mother once said to me, "Play the field. Until you've got a ring on your finger, you can do what you want." She had never taken her own advice, of course, and wanted her daughters to get out there and rip it up. The problem was that I never wanted to put her advice into practice. I am a one-man woman, a serial monogamist. I put all of my emotional eggs into one romantic basket, no matter how self-centered, dishonest, or irresponsible that basket eventually turns out to be. I don't play the field, I examine it -- one cornstalk at a time, searching for any sign that that cornstalk might be the one for me, before abandoning it in a huff and moving on to the next one. The bumper sticker on my heart reads ONE MAN AT A TIME.

So it was with shock and disbelief that I recently found myself dating three men simultaneously. I don't know what cosmic switch was thrown to enable this to happen; it just happened. One guy asked me out, then a week later another one did, then the first one asked me out again, then a third showed up. I normally would've declined the invitations from numbers two and three, but over the past year I had the misfortune of meeting a series of men who seemed incapable of calling after the third date, so I decided to shelve my qualitative dating strategy in favor of a quantitative one.

Those for whom multi-dating is a way of life may shrug and snort "big deal," but for me it was an unprecedented opportunity. At last I was playing the field, just like Mom advised. For the first week, I felt like Doris Day in one of those movies where she wears fabulous organza frocks and accompanies Cary to the theater on Thursday, Rock to cocktails and dancing on Friday, and Henry to the country house for the weekend. I replaced the bumper sticker on my heart with one that read BRING IT ON.

My heart, however, had other plans. The first date with each man was fun, light-hearted, and stress-free. But when a round of second dates came along, I was riddled with guilt. Why should I feel guilty when I was doing nothing wrong, when I was, in fact, following the sage advice of my mother? But from the minute I stepped out the door for a date with l'homme du nuit until I stepped back through it at the end of the evening, I was terrified that I'd bump into one of the other hommes.

Providence looks a lot different when you're skulking around. And since these men all lived within a half-mile of each other, going out was especially tricky. I chose obscure locations for dinner ("Say, have you ever been to Woody's in Narragansett?"). I avoided the neighborhoods where they lived ("Federal Hill? Hmm, there's really nothing going on there. Why don't we go out in Exeter?"). I suggested long, circuitous routes through the city. I wore hats, even in 80-degree weather.

Then there were the protocol issues. How far to go past kissing? When do you tell them that they're part of a "field"? Too soon is presumptuous, too late is cruel. And what do you do if you run into one of the other men? During the most exciting and exhausting week of my life, I had seven dates in seven nights, believing that eventually one of the men would emerge as a finalist in my affections. By round four, lack of sleep had me praying it would happen soon. My friends thought I was bragging when I told them of my plight. In reality, I was just trying to make sense of an utterly unfamiliar situation.

Fortunately, a finalist did emerge. He said he wanted to be exclusive, and since he was the one I liked best, I agreed -- if for no other reason than to finally get some sleep. Neither of us saw much long-term potential in our relationship, but we had a lot of fun together, and we figured that was sort of the point. I disengaged from the runners-up as gently as I could.

Mr. Finalist dumped me two weeks later.

No one likes to get dumped, but, dateless again, I found myself reveling in my aloneness. I walked through town, my head held high. I brazenly entered bars and neighborhoods I'd avoided just days before. Then, unbelievably, it happened again -- two invitations within a day of each other -- and, determined to multi-date without guilt, I said yes to both. Perhaps, I thought, practice is all it takes. I could be Doris Day, dammit.

But on my first date with a handsome Welshman, my resolve shriveled. In a conversation apropos of nothing, completely out of nowhere, he announced, "I don't understand this American thing where people date more than one person at a time. In the UK, if I ask a girl out, she assumes that I'm not dating anyone, and I assume that if she says yes, she's not dating anyone."

I lamely replied, "Well, multi-dating is just how we do it here."

I lied. That's not how "we" do it here. It may be how some other people do it, but it's not how I do it -- at least not anymore. In that moment, I realized the reason I'd been feeling so guilty is that multi-dating flies in the face of the unspoken dating contract that the Welshman was talking about, but which I'd been ignoring. With that, I abandoned multi-dating in favor of the time-tested, if not entirely successful, qualitative method.

If you can date more than one person at a time, best of luck to you. But my days of multi-dating are over. Relationships are hard enough when I take them one at a time. So, Mom, if you're out there somewhere reading this, I just want to say I'm sorry. I'm no Doris Day.

Kris Frieswick can be reached at krisf1@gte.net..

Issue Date: December 13 - 19, 2001