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Ladies and gentlemen? Love sucks.

No--I take that back. Love isn't the thing that sucks. Rather, men who decide to let love intentionally slip through their hands suck.

I have spent more time in 2011 mourning love lost than I care to admit. For a while I was hopeful and Disney Princess-like to a fault. I was all sorts of starry-eyed, believing that love would triumph over adversity and that The Boy and I would make it through a tough spot in our relationship because of our love, our strength and our ability to burst into songs about our love and our strength. (Ok, I made that last part up. Though I do like to burst into song randomly. My life will resemble a musical, dammit!) It quickly became evident that I was the only one who believed in "us" and thus, the relationship fell apart. And by "fell apart" I mean that the man I fell in love with stopped calling, texting, emailing and dating me without so much as a word about his charming plan. He faded "us" out.

I did what any girl would do: I cried. Lots. Often. I went over the minutes on my cell plan calling my friends-cum-therapists nightly. I journaled incessantly. I even petitioned the Universe. (I am a bit of a hippy, you should know, readers.)

And when none of that worked I got angry. Not angry enough to slash his tires or call him screaming at three in the morning. But angry enough to call my friends and have them yell with me. During one of the yelling sessions I had an epiphany.

We have to give a list of references to potential employers. We can review products we purchase on websites. Why can't we get reviews or references for the people we date? And why, for the love of God, why can't former flames give love references to their exes?

If we can see all the rants and raves for a friggin' coffee pot before we buy it, I think we should be allowed the same level of information about the people we see naked. I think that's only fair. There should be a website or blacklist or Secretary of Lost Loves where people can log their complaints against the people they've dated. Because I know what I would say...

Name: The Boy
Age: 26

Rating (out of 5): **

Overall impression: He was sweet and charming during the first few months of the relationship. He was happy to spend time with me, eager to try new things and a fantastic cuddler. Things began to go awry after three-ish months when cracks began to show and he showed an aversion to adversity. His unwillingness to put any energy into the relationship caused us to fade away, forcing me to end things after no communication for more than a month. Bottom line? Only date him if you can handle relationship problems by yourself.

Would you recommend this man to other women? Only if you like not talking to your partner for long periods of time. Autonomy can be awesome, so they say.

In my perfect world, I wouldn't have to write something like that. But life doesn't always work out the way I'd prefer. Who knows, though. Perhaps by posting this I'll be able to get past the anger and find some cute sucker to have a fling with in order to help bandage my wounds. Though I would like to see his references before any sexual healing would commence.