I am in a car with a friend of mine.  We are in the back seat and he’s telling me how much he loves me and that I’m the best friend he’s ever had.  He then says that I’ve ruined his friendship with Ryan. Ryan?  Ryan who?  He says the last name and I recognize it as a mutual acquaintance, an arrogant guy for whom I have no time nor patience.  I ask my friend what did I do to ruin his friendship with Ryan and he explains to me that it isn’t so much what I did as what he did.  “I just can’t respect how he used you and just cast you aside as if you were nothing.”  Now I’m beginning to see the picture and I realize that I have to set a few things straight.  “He said he used me?  And you believed him?  Ryan?  Who brags about bagging everything he meets just because he thinks he can?  And just because I have something different between my legs from what he has between his legs he says he had me too?  And you believed him?  Even though you know me?  And you know I have better taste than that?”  My friend is obviously upset that I am upset and he apologizes, says I’m his best friend.  I say that he, too, is my best friend and I really need him in my life.  He steps up close to me from behind and wraps his left arm around me which I pull closer, wrapping myself in him as if he were a cloak.  “I need you,” I further explain, “to help me understand men.  Without you, I’m left on my own and you all are too confusing.”