By Suzanne Baran

I'm the gateway drug--marijuana. Myth would have it that smoking weed leads to other drugs--but in my drug and love life, the myth is closer to the truth.

I've been the woman who attracts your downtrodden, your lost, your hurt, your divorced and newly-separated men. I attract the depressed men who haven't had a date or sex in two years. I give, I listen, I heal. I make them feel comfortable in their own skin when they're feeling more feminine than masculine. I show them love when I can. I attract some men who sometimes aren't sure they're attracted to women. I open doors leading to rebirth. I am Spring.

It all began with Joe, a young divorce. His marriage ended but he bears fruit of his union--two precious little girls under the age of 12. Joe hadn't dated much when I met him online. He was striking, funny, gorgeous and insightful. We talked for ours on our first date. We revealed things about ourselves with ease. The pitchers of Sangria flowed along with our conversation. Joe told me he wasn't with anyone sexually in a long time. I was two months out of an intense two-year relationship. I was lucky to have met a man who was so easy to be with, so caring, so giving, so beautiful. We made love that night. It was awkward and over quickly. I couldn't lose myself sexually; thoughts of my ex popped into my head and wouldn't leave. Joe wrote me a poem the next day and I thanked the universe for his mode of expression, one that boyfriends of yore never used.

But Joe lived an hour away, he had commitments and kids and money woes. His stress eeked out in his writing, his off-beat humor, and on the phone at 2 am. He said I was his muse…I helped him write when he'd lost his will. Soon he was sending me elaborate essays, stories and passionate poems. His talent was reborn and radiated off my computer screen. I fell hard. Then I sabotaged what little we created. I overanalyzed everything. "Over-thinking…overanalyzing…separates the body from the mind," James Maynard Keenan once sang.

I thought I wanted to be his world, haven, and solace. This made me too jittery around him, I quickly became uncomfortable in my own skin. I hid my better sides. One night another man was hitting on me so strongly, the way I wanted Joe to be--the aggressor. I kissed him in front of Joe and then grew angry at myself. Why was he not jealous? I played female games and suppressed my beauty only to use my anger to destroy what little was left. Joe went on to say he wasn't sure how he felt for me, but that I opened his soul to writing again, and someday I should pursue a career as a literary agent. Another suggestive comment--I’m the ever-present cheerleader.

Meanwhile, I was putting my sorrows on paper and mailed him a poem about loss and how I would envy females in his future because they could have more than what I could have had with him. A year later, Joe emailed me and asked how "my crazy self" is doing. He also inquired whether I still wrote about death in my spare time. I told him he knew me during one of the most difficult periods of my short life and to "fuck off." He did.

Lucius came shortly thereafter. His gentle ways and soft-spoken manner did little to win me over at first. Over time, I began to care for him and led myself to become involved and then intimate with him. I fed off of the way he opened himself up to me. He hadn't dated a girl in years. He was obsessed with someone who lived in Russia, whom he met briefly nine years ago. He broke his ties to that obsession when he met me, he said. He trusted me, he said. "Why don't you love me?" I couldn't find it in my heart to love a mouse in a man's body. He didn't seek help. He wore old, baggy clothes and cab driver hats; he only ate certain foods and disdained the texture of others. His room was dark and littered with mannequin parts, busts of statues, dusty books and dead, stuffed birds. His pale skin and thin frame called out to me to hold him, shield and protect him from the ills of the world. This fragile soul broke my heart as much as I did his.

Which brings me to Kevin. I still love him but it wasn't enough. He's my soulmate spiritually and emotionally. I'll always hold a torch for him. I don't want to write about him yet, he's still untouchable. He hadn't dated a woman in a year before I met him. He had difficulty expressing his true self. Aggression and assertiveness were his kryptonite. He never slept with a woman and I wanted to be his first. Still do, in many ways I guess...but not so much to feel honored, but because we're so similar and the universe would be set in motion through one physical act. But I'm too much of an idealist. I digress.

J. shared the same first name as my deceased brother. He even possessed similar mannerisms. When he smiled it was more of a shy smirk. Physically, he was lethal--black hair and bright, intense blue eyes. His quiet, silent ways intrigued me. Halfway into our date I thought he was bored or disinterested. His silence was deafening and he asked little about me, and revealed little about himself--except that he had been married and his wife betrayed him after she discovered they could not conceive. He played the wounded card, but he was honest and I melted. J.'s self-revelation of pain, emotional turmoil and tragedy lured me in. Back at his apt, we smoked some pot, and fooled around. But I didn't want to sleep with him because I wanted to start something that wasn't based on sex.

He drove me back to my car, held my hand the entire time and we listened to a band called REGIA and tears formed in our eyes. The next morning at 9 am he called me, said he couldn't stop thinking about me. Finally, I thought, I preserved myself properly and a budding relationship could ensue. He was a serial Internet dater; I knew this. I would check his profile on the site where we met and could tell when he would log in--it was daily. After a long, relaxing day of kayaking and smoking great pot at his parents' private Malibu beach, I met his mom. She was thrilled that I was Jewish, from back east, and what she termed, "down-to earth." She handed me pictures of J.'s sisters and their kids, goading me to stay with her son and form a family of our own. She was an intense, Jewish mother. A bright one, too. She knew I was a prize. J. let me do all the talking and put me on display for his mom. I held my own.

We drove back to Santa Monica, and disrobed after he gave me a massage. This was his signature pimp move. Give the ladies a rub down on a massage table by a licensed therapist. This Renaissance man graduated early from graduate school and taught the blind to read Braille. He played guitar and harmonica and knew how to take poignant photographs. He made two CDs, played with a band and worked out nightly. I handed him a box of condoms one day. I told him he was running low and that he doesn't have to just use them on me, I know he's got to date a bit after his tumultuous divorce. Three days later, he called to go out again. Two days after that an email in my inbox said he was sad but had to break it off with me and wouldn't say why. I called him. "You break up with someone in an email--J.?" "Are you a pussy?" "There's a device called the phone which you're using right now--why email?" He explained he was sorry that we connected so well and that I was such a cool person with "wonderful taste in music." He was dating another woman who demanded a serious commitment and while he wanted to continue seeing me, he wanted to grant this woman Exclusivity. It was more like waving a wand or snapping his fingers and "going steady" would appear.

Did I imagine our brief but intense connection--I asked. "No, no, Suzanne." His voice was distant and shy. He returned my CDs in the mail five days later with a note apologizing for his behavior (his words) and regret at having to cast me aside (those are my words). He complimented my musical tastes a second time.

After J., I satisfied myself with different men. None of them were what I needed; they were simply superficially available and cute. Jeremy was two years out of his divorce--hot, blond, muscular and bright. He didn't know how to satisfy me. He was never good with women, I sensed. Florida was his haven and he joined college kids on spring break at the ripe age of 30. But I digress as he regresses...

One striking pattern—I was intimate with each guy twice to three times and then the abrupt end. Old habits, old patterns—they’re all the same. I break through to the other side but the other side breaks me. Maybe I should slather on some mental lubricant to keep the dating wheel in full swing. Or maybe I need to let the gears rust for a while…

Lately it feels like I’m the indiscriminate bouncer who never checks ID, doles out dating advice and grants access to those sporting smiles and mild manners. They filter in one by one—dance, laugh, smoke, drink and party. But I’m still left standing at the door when the night ends.

They take that last hit on my joint. Images of new women, new experiences and new drugs color their thoughts. It’s the ongoing finale of my dating life—I’ve been smoked.

They’ll soon discover cocaine, contenting themselves until they’ve snorted, swallowed, inhaled and injected the next woman.

In the meantime, would you care for a hit?