Damn, I thought to myself. There's one more guy I won't be fucking.

The majority of the men I've run across in England are one of a few types. There are the hooligans with giant, thick necks and shaved heads who have an affinity for darts and pinky rings, or the ones I more commonly come across--boarding school boys who are very sweet, studied Greek, and give the impression of custardy innocence. They make me feel like common people, if you will.

I've since found out that all of my English dream boyfriends were actually from Northern England. I am now considering the idea that I may have made a slight geographical mistake.

My ex-bf, known to many as the Swede, and known to others as that incredibly controlling maniac with no sense of humor, was certainly a thorn in my side. I can't deny that I was a terrible girlfriend, though. I was as far from being supportive as one can possibly be, and I still cringe when I think of the blank journal that he cut and pasted, ransom note style, letters rebelliously spelling out "Fuck you, it's art." It sends a shiver down my spine.

This was the man who famously--seriously--accused me of cheating on him. With my brother.

Anyway, as you might have guessed we had an acrimonious breakup. Within a month, he started dating another Lina. (Not, luckily, The other Lina). One of our main things we liked to argue about was his propensity for facial hair, and after taking up with the new Lina, he grew a full beard. I can't help but be pleased, as I'm convinced that this, and nearly everything else he does, is somehow in reaction to me.

He's also, apparently, gotten his first tattoo. As someone years into the tattoo removal process, I generally try and dissuade those that I'm sleeping with from getting tattoos, especially when those people are tattoo-less and in their thirties. So when he recently attempted to befriend me on Facebook, after years of silence and despite the fact that I thought we were mutually not on speaking terms, I was granted the limited opportunity to see his profile pictures and his new full sleeve tattoo. Getting your first tattoo in your thirties and going for a full-sleeve? Please. He is, as they would say in Ireland, a try hard.

I've written this in the hopes of keeping Brandy happy and of keeping all previously burned bridges burnt as my ex is also in London, with his new Lina, beard, and tattoo, and I don't want there to be any concern about small talk if I do happen to run into him.

Check out my Valentine's Day Compilation. The theme is sort of like, reciprocal love. I'm totally into that. It's so hot.

1. I Will Follow Him - Little Peggy March
2. Obsession (Special Dub Mix) - Animotion
3. Every Breath You Take - The Police
4. Give Me Your Love - Junior Murvin
5. You'll Be Needing Me - Nino Tempo
6. Following - The Bangles
7. Climbing Up the Walls - Radiohead
8. The Stalker - Green Velvet
9. Dust (Rocque Wun Remix) - Recloose Feat. Joe Dukie
10. I'm Gonna Make You Love Me - Diana Ross & The Supremes
11. Run For Your Life - Nancy Sinatra
12. Never Gonna Give You Up - Rick Astley
13. Infatuation - Rod Stewart
14. One Way or Another - Blondie
15. You Belong to Me - Carly Simon
16. Need Your Love (Live) - Cheap Trick
17. Private Eyes - Darly Hall & John Oates
18. I'm Your Puppet - Jimmy London
19. You Belong to Me - The Duprees
20. All Strung Out - Nino Tempo & April Stevens
21. The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get - Morrissey
22. Fate (Tynneterje Edit) - Chaka Khan

I'm never sure what to post about anymore, which is why I've been reduced to wry observations about the Irish and other untermenschen. The only things that I can think to post about are my family, love life, work and minorities.

Since my family and at least three ex-boyfriends read this site, and since I'd get fired if I wrote about my job, I'm reduced to spouting bigotry and gibberish.

I'd like to post more about boys, but every time I start, the fear takes over. I've been traumatized by boys, and now at the age of 28, think I'm completely incapable of having a real relationship ever again.

The most annoying one ended with me saying "go fuck yourself" over the phone and never speaking to the fellow again. During our relationship, he had accused me of cheating on him with my brother and any other male I may have come into contact with. We broke up four times before it finally stuck. At one point I had decided that playing Snood for five hours a night was preferable to his company, which understandably enraged him. During one of our last calls, I broke up with him while playing Snood. "Are you playing that fucking game?" he screamed into the phone. "No," I lied, and unable to resist, shot another snood onto the screen. The click was audible, and the relationship was clearly doomed.

I heard from him 18 months later when he wrote to me to ask for the record player back that he had given to me. I looked it up on ebay and found that it was going for, on average, $7, and decided to move the email to my spam folder.

Before the Polack, I hadn't titled with anyone in a year and a half. The last one absolutely destroyed me--at one point he admitted that he thought it was a game to get me to fall in love with him. "That's just what you do, isn't it?" he asked, confused as to why I was upset when he broke up with me after realizing that his plan had been successful. He left me, sitting on my bed bewildered and in tears, hopped in a cab and flew across the country. He's probably reading this right now.

Since then, I've only gone out with younger men. This has been my way of combating serious relationships and coming into contact with taut skin. I have an unfortunate habit of getting into relationships with men who are clearly unqualified for the task. I really don't mean to, I'm just bored and an emotional black hole. I have intense friendships, an intense job and intense feelings about everything from snack cakes to synthetic fabrics. It stands to reason that my relationships would be the same, but it's exhausting. I just don't know how to avoid falling into relationships that I know won't work. I took my record-player-demanding boyfriend to meet my parents after just three weeks of dating. I just wasn't sure how I felt about him, so I thought that maybe they could provide some insight. My dad (rightly) pointed out that he was the first reasonable date I had brought home--he had a college degree (albeit in physical education) and a real job. He didn't have tattoos on his neck or a drug habit. My mother worried that he didn't have enough "edge" for me. As it turned out, he didn't have enough of anything for me, really, and I was what could only be described as a shitty girlfriend. I wouldn't be surprised if he were reading this right now.

It's funny, though, when I look back on these relationships. It seems that the more reasonable the candidate is, the more I hate them once it's over. Interestingly, the ones that I still like are the Americans, a small subset of my sweethearts. The only exes I've really managed to stay friends with are the one that married the stripper while we were dating and the one that managed to leave heroin under my mattress and in my shoes on a regular basis while he was hanging out in gay nightclubs. These are the ones I love, and the others I just resent. And the more I resent them, the more likely they are to be shutitdown readers. Funny like that.

Lina: what
Lina: untermenschen is also cute
Lina: sounds like a diminutive
Spot: i like it - he is only a part of the inferiour people - not even entitled to be labeled one of them himself. it's like being nigger-esque
Spot: or nigger-ish
Spot: you do know you will lose him if you keep up this approach ?
Lina: seriously?
Spot: did you bring your self-help books with you ?
Lina: he sent me a text referring to my big jewish nose
Lina: this is a 2-sided street, my friend
Simon: drive on sister!

Airports are funny places--the normal rules that apply to one's life seem to be discarded the moment one enters the airport. 10 days ago, I found myself eating tempura udon at 8 am at SFO. I wasn't the only one, though. I was surrounded by seemingly normal looking people eating triple-decker burgers and refrigerated sushi platters at a time that most of us would be warily eyeing a coffee. A full meal before a flight, no matter what the length, seems perfectly justified. At any other time fast food tempura udon would not be acceptable, but in the airport, it's breakfast.

I've been spending a lot of time in airports lately. I know which ones I hate (Charles De Galle makes me want to tear my eyes out, Heathrow's 2 mile walks between terminals, shopping mall and depressing food choices have added it to the list) and which I like, (Zurich has got to have the cleanest airport I've ever seem in my life, and both Munich and Hamburg were so orderly! so effecient!).

I was looking through my passport today while filling out another customs form, and started to finally realize that I'm getting the life I had wanted for so long. In my early twenties, my inability to travel had me sobbing in fetal position more times than I could count. I resented my parents for getting to travel and live abroad without having to actually work to get there. I resented them for their refusal to give me the same opportunities that were handed to them on a silver platter. I'm not going to lie, I still resent the hell out of them for this. But I'm really freaking proud of myself for creating these opportunities for myself, without anyone's help. In the last two-and-a-half years, I've gotten 27 stamps in my passport.

In the last year or so, I've been to Spain, Italy, Mexico, Ireland, Scotland, Germany, Turkey and the Czech Republic. And save for the trip to Rome that nearly destroyed my life and psyche, I did all of it on my own. I got to live in Ireland for nearly four months with an expense account, and my teeth are like gleaming Chickets lodged in my gums. I've been granted a work permit to the UK, and I have one for Ireland pending. If all goes well, I hope to move to Dublin permanently in March.

The Polack and I have titled, and I am now officially be introduced as "the girlfriend." This is terrifying, but at the same time I feel optimistic (the self-help books must be working!). At least, it gives me hope that I can successfully date men that are freaking hot even if this one doesn't work out. My last run-in with a real hottie was approximately six years ago--a male model who shouted "I'm married" during an intimate moment that quickly became a me-running-out-the-door moment.

I was at a party with the Polack on Friday night and two separate girls pulled me aside to tell me how hot he is, how lucky I am. One of them used the term 'gorgeous' which in Irish-speak can mean either incredibly attractive or just generally wonderful. Another also tried to physically molest him in my presence, which I was less thrilled about. The whole thing is just so weird, still. I'm so happy about it, about him, but that's usually how I feel just before some emotionally manipulative egomaniac stomps on my heart. So I'm trying to relax and think about all of the horrible things that may happen to me in the future as little as possible.

As part of my attempt to chill out, I'm currently flying from Dublin to New York where I will spend a week (and my birthday!) before going back to California. I plan to engage in any number of decadent activities, most of them food-related and all bound to be incredibly gratifying.

I'm excited about the possibility of moving to Dublin, though. I'd like to get as far away from my life as possible. Having been here three months now, I've started to create a new life--completely inadvertently of course. I wonder how long I will be able to stay before I have to run away from this life too.

I'm still happy, really. I still want to stay here. But I live my life perpetually in fear; I sit in bed most mornings and wait for something terrible to happen. And it inevitably does--but is that only because I was waiting for it?

The pseudo-relationship I am in right now scares me. I haven't dated anyone in a while because I'm terrified of having my self-esteem completely destroyed again. This boy that I am seeing, though, is so [redacted] that I can't see any other outcome. A very Seinfeldian question, but can a relationship with [redacted] disparity ever truly work? My impulse is to destroy things as quickly as possible to pre-emptively end things so I won't get hurt. Sabotaging myself seems so much neater than just waiting for someone else to crush you.

Usually I start smoking every time I get dumped. But I have an unusually severe case of bronchitis, and really need to recover before I can start smoking again. Hopefully, the hottie will understand this and hold off for a while, at least until the antibiotics kick in.

Lina: anyway
Lina: do you think that counts for Holland?
Ryan: I'd say so
Ryan: unless you absolutely have to sleep with them
Lina: hell no
Lina: I'm not a whore
Ryan: I don't know how your book works
Lina: 25 countries in the EU and new additions in January
Lina: what kind of girl do you think i am?
Ryan: adventurous?

From the American gal's fear of foreskin to the Swedish superiority complex and the Englishman's love affair with alcoholism, Lina explains why she's left every accented man in her past, leaving us to wonder why she's seeking even more of them. Did she actually gain anything from the relationships? We don't know, as she comes across as having a heavy case of Battered Woman Syndrome that leads her through one bad relationship to another. That's not the type of writing with an ultimate positive or enlightening message I like to see in my reading material.

I just got back from New York where I stayed with my brother for a little while. I would patiently wait until 5 am, once he was exhausted, and then bully him into talking about his feelings. He did not like this, and tried to punch me.

He did weigh in on my (many) boy problems. About one he said, "You know that the only reason you like him is because he doesn't give a shit about you, right?" He took a bite of the EggMcMuffin he had just made from the EggMcMuffin machine in his kitchen and turned away from the computer to face me. "One person always likes the other one more. That's just how it is." He turned back to the computer and began typing, and said as an afterthought, "He's a sleaze, anyway."

When did my little brother become a relationship expert, I wondered? What he said had struck a cord. I've long thought that there are two types of men in this world. Men that I like, and men that like me. There's almost no overlap. I know, I know, this isn't news. This has been the content of my incessant bitching for the last decade or so.

Oddly, it's also the content of one of my favorite (and oft-quoted) books, 'Of Human Bondage.' There's always one who loves and one who lets himself be loved. If that's the case, how does anyone ever make a relationship work? I wish I could like the people that like me, but I keep dumping them.

The next night was worse, but due to confidentiality, I'm not able to repeat most of it. What happens in Miami stays in Miami, after all. Attendance at Gloria Estefan's club happened, partying in South Beach happened, dancing happened, and my targeting of the Latino market culminated on the dance floor when I met a cute Argentinian who works for my company's largest competitor. A hopeless case, of course--star crossed lovers and all of that. However, I'm starting to consider that I may be limiting myself with the 'Flags of Europe.' There are many other continents that I could potentially explore, it seems.

Miami is a strange place. Everything is really expensive, but in an underhanded, annoying sort of way. New York is expensive. London is expensive. They are upfront about their expensiveness. Don't bother, they suggest. Miami fools you though--the $14 drink seems do-able, until you realize there's a mandatory $2 gratuity charge tacked on to it. Everything has mandatory gratuity charges of 18%. Since I'm a pretty standard 20% tipper, I could actually save money on this city, except that they are banking on the probability that you won't noticed the gratuity charge, and tip on top of it. Which of course I've done at least half the time. The bagel I ordered via room service (a Jew to the very last) totaled nearly $30 when the delivery charge and gratuity fee were added. I could give a shit as I'm expensing it anyway, but I don't like the sneakiness of it all. Just say that the fucking bagel costs $30--I feel like less of a chump that way.

Tonight we had 'authentic' Cuban food for dinner; it was wonderful. While we were eating, a flash rainstorm poured down into the 90 degree heat, and I tried to imagine living here. I can't, of course, but I do like the tendency of men here to wear white fedoras.

Aimlessly wandering around the miles long parking lot in business attire and heels while being pounded by the blazing California sun makes one, even a grown woman, reflect. Being Lina, my mind drifts to the ghosts of boyfriends past. I'm not sure what it was about the situation, perhaps the large amounts of dust I was inhaling had some sort of psychotropic effect or maybe I was just so enraged with myself for losing the car that I had to take it out on someone, if only the men of the world.

So many of the boys I go out with read this site--I've often speculated that my only readers are family members and dating victims that aren't on speaking terms with me--that I often don't include what should, and would, be my best material. Of course this leaves me feeling oppressed and with a deep sense of frustration. Why shouldn't I write about the painfully awkward things these boys do? What, really, do I owe them?

I'm not talking about anything big. The things that bother me most about the men that I date are the tiny, painful instances of awkwardness that make me release a grimace of a smile, like a dog baring its teeth, in my attempts not to openly cringe. I usually close my eye for a second and try to compose myself. I open them again, stare blankly ahead, and adopt a fake smile as quickly as possible. I can't say anything, after all; I'm too critical. Seriously stupid behavior doesn't bother me as much as these small acts of pretension gone awry that make my skin prickle and my fists clench.

Recently, I went on a date to see the newest Lindsey Lohan movie. The movie is about how this girl has good luck and some dude has bad luck and when they make out, they trade and their luck switches. Typical teen fare. I hadn't yet formed any strong feelings about the fellow sitting next to me until he started making grunts of derision at the film. "That would so never happen," he declared in a loud whisper more than one. "That's not realistic," he claimed while Lindsay frantically tried to reclaim her good luck. It was so painful as to be unbearable. Of course it was unrealistic, it was an effing Lindsay Lohan movie for gods sake. Finally, I leaned over and hissed, "Suspend your fucking disbelief, could you?"

My tolerance for pretension of any kind is shockingly low. Art is often a catalyst. I've never been so embarrassed as to hear these boys that I generally (or at least sometimes) respect talk about art, especially their own. I used to have a boyfriend who was as pretentious as he was low-class. He bought an expensive camera and began taking pictures, mainly of his friends, which I approved of, and of his shoes, artfully formed rocks, and people's eyelashes, which I did not. He bought an expensive journal cum photo album and began pasting his more creative works in it. He then cut letters out of the metrosexual magazines he subscribed to and embossed the cover of his album, in the style of a ransom note, with the words, 'Fuck you it's art!'

My reaction was visceral. I vomited a small amount into my mouth, swallowed it again, and closed my eyes. A moment later I opened them, flashed some teeth and artificial smile and said, "Good idea. Can we go out to dinner now?"

He wrote me back, and claimed, among other things, to be a doctor, and from England. The perfect pedigree for me, right? So I replied, and expressed an interest in seeing him doing a singing, dancing chimney sweep impression. It could only be improved upon, I added, if he did it in blackface. Typical Lina banter.

Our repartee continued for a few emails, when we decided to exchange pictures. He sent me his, and I immediately realized the gaff I had made.

He was black.

His email said, "This is a picture of me and my friend. I'm the one in blackface."

Oops.

But unable to stop myself, I wrote back that something seemed off about his blackface routine. Something just wasn't right.

"Oh," he wrote back. "I couldn't find any white lipstick that day."

Perfect. Absolutely perfect.