Meet me at the magazine counter.

Where are all the single women? I mean the genuine, real-deal, never-been-married, never-had-children, approaching-middle-age, living-alone, single, independent women. It's not just that I barely know any. It's that our experience is either not represented or misrepresented by, among other things, those seductive, glossy magazines shouting directives and promises from their headlines every month.

With our new feminist icon Ally McBeal leading the way, we're either desperate to drown out the sound of our biological clocks, or we're self-centered, pleasure-seeking career women who just want to have the best sex of our lives. Me? I'm simply looking for a good girlfriend who understands the emotional, psychological and physical complexities of having somehow found ourselves living alternative lifestyles. Someone who won't dump me on a Saturday night for the first guy who comes along, who understands the long and contradictory answer to "do you want kids?," who knows that settling down doesn't necessarily mean with a man, but very likely at this point means becoming comfortable and happy as independent people. Someone, please, who doesn't feel compelled to say, "You don't need a relationship, you have your career."

To be honest, the biggest reason I'm looking for a single gal soul mate is because I need some realistic dating advice from a live human being with the same experiences and point of view as me. I seem to fall between the cracks of the twenty-something Cosmo girls and the domestic goddesses/superwomen of (yes, even the new) Chatelaine. Besides that, the ohso-subtle mixed messages underneath all the dating advice in these publications forces me into deconstruction mode, so I never do learn if I'm supposed to call the guy back or play hard to get, or whatever the tactic of the day is. I just end up flinging the magazine at the wall and vowing never to buy it again, ever!

You see, I'm not interested in manipulating a man, I just need a little friendly help negotiating myself around the initial stages of connecting with someone--those delicate and thrilling few months, which are fraught with ecstasy and insecurity. When I'm sure, especially at my age, that the answer lies in just being myself, except there might just be one little tiny bit of public wisdom that could give me peace of mind, and a bit of an edge.

The fact is, I have more male friends than female ones. And although I adore them, I sorely miss those days when an infatuation with a new girlfriend was as exciting as the early stages of a romance. The ...