Apparently my last essay induced half the Eastern seaboard to line up over the Sarlacc Pit (a reference that will not help me get a date), so many of you are expecting the usual wailing to God, gnashing of teeth and rendering of garments.

Except that, this time, there will be none of that. I�m fine. Dandy, even.

I really should get around to repurchasing my soul again, after selling it a few months back for the Red Sox winning the World Series. The good Lord can hold on to it, too, if October is equally full of victory. I figure on living another seventy years, at least, so we can go back and forth like this dozens of times. (Wait until I sell my soul for a full head of hair when I'm 75 - that should produce some drama.)

Thankfully, Valentine's Day is on a Monday this year. I can work and not worry about what everyone else is doing to show off and celebrate their VD. Really, you should get that looked at.

What did I miss over the weekend? For one, I didn't have to spend a cent on flowers, candy, or jewelry. I'm a cheap date, and Subway was on the menu. The one near me actually has pork BBQ now, but I have to go to KFC across the street to get the cole slaw to put inside. Man, the lengths I'll go to feel at home.

Meanwhile, all the lovey-dovey folks were probably at high-scale date places like Picadilly and the 24-screen theaters that let you pump your own butter. After all, EVERY motion picture incorporates some sort of romance, whether Ben-Hur or Police Academy or Alien. (Why else do you think those slimy aliens stalk Sigourney?)

The more likely guess was that couples would head to the theater to see a romantic comedy, so I caught Hitch at a Friday matinee instead of feeling woeful all alone over the weekend. I could just hear the pair behind me. She'd be all, "That is so you!" And he'd reply, "Yeah, but you let me do that!" And I'd be like, "These Twizzlers are too stringy."

Subtitled "The Cure for the Common Man Jeff," I decided to see for myself if he's got the ability to transform ordinary dudes into men capable of dating extraordinary gals.

The details:

2005, 1 hr 55 min., Rated PG-13. Dir: Andy Tennant. Cast: Will Smith (Alex 'Hitch' Hitchens), Eva Mendes (Sara), Kevin James (Albert), Amber Valletta (Allegra Cole), Julie Ann Emery (Casey).

The movie opens up with Will Smith spouting platitudes and statistics about men and women and dating. Ninety percent of communication doesn't take place with your mouth, "life is not the breaths you take, it�s the moments that take your breath away," yadda yadda yadda, and "any man has a chance to sweep any woman off her feet." (Nobody told me there would be brooms. I guess I do need aid. Hell, I don't need handouts, I need the daggum Berlin airlift.)

What Hitch doesn't tell us, enter Don Diebel and his 70s porn �stache, claiming he can tell if a woman is interested in you. By "you" I mean "people who are interesting, not counting Jeff." But let's just suppose a woman's body language could tell me something. Here are Diebel's signs, and what I really observe:

Big smiles with upper and lower teeth showing with a relaxed face.

Oh, great, now we're just buddies.

She gazes in your eyes with deep interest and her pupils are dilated.

How was your eye appointment?

Biting of the lips or showing of the tongue, licking her lips or touching of her front teeth.

Or she's a vampire, and I'm about to have two holes in my neck. Then again, that's the most making-out I've done in a long time, so it's worth the risk.

While talking to you she is slowly stroking her cocktail glass up and down with her thumb and index finger.

Right before the contents of the glass end up in my lap.

If she is wearing a see-thru top, you can see that her nipples are getting hard while talking to you and looking at you.

That certainly dilated my pupils, if you know what I mean.

She starts sitting straight up and her muscles appear to be firm.

Are her nipples still noticeable?

Her crossed leg is pointed towards you or if that same leg is rocking back and forth towards you.

What if the other is leg is rocking and the one I'm looking at is just pointed kind of to the side but in my general direction?

She raises or lowers the volume of her voice to match yours.

Yeah! Wooo! Blue Oyster Cult rocks! But "Reaper" needs more cowbell!

She rubs her chin or touches her cheek. This indicates that she's thinking about you and her relating in some way.

Based on my experience with food allergies, I think she has a rash. Maybe I give her some of my Benadryl I can get to first base (right after she tosses her cookies in the bathroom, but it's okay, because she'll wash up and be fine).

She blows smoke straight out from between her lips and towards you.

What does it mean if she spits her chew out in your glass?

She winks at you while talking to you or winks at you from a distance.

She should really get that twitch in her eye looked at.

She exposes the palms of her hand facing you.

Followed by the "hiiiii ya!" sound, and my vision going black.

She rubs her Adam's apple and blows kisses.

Adam's apple? But ... women ... don't ... run!

Let's look at this another way. Here's how men give signs:

Smiles: Wants you.
Frowns: Wants you.
Scratches self: Wants you.
Screams "aw baby!" from across the room: Wants you.

The theme of Hitch ends up rejecting these signs altogether, and the theme turns out not to be about the right things to say or what to do, but about giving yourself the opportunity to meet the person you�re interested in. For the rest, you�re on your own.

	I believe Steve Miller put it best when he said, "Abracadabra, I want to reach out and grab ya."

For a personal example on taking the opportunities as they're given, let�s rewind two weeks and head back to Jeffersonville, Indiana, when I was in town for my nephew�s fifth birthday party. It was there, at Tumble Station, that my brother-in-law and his aunt/boss decided to set up me and their friend/coworker, who we�ll call � Leah, because, well, that�s her name. Oh, great, not only is it a blind setup, it�s a surprise!

I kept thinking that every sentence would be the part of "Blind Date" where the bubble pops up over my head, "Jeff says something stupid in 3 ... 2 ... 1... 'Women generally reject me. Whatever, I don't need anybody. I think being nice is stupid.'"

Let�s just say that there are things I wish I�d done differently to diffuse the awkwardness. Thankfully I didn't wimp out completely, and joined my brother-in-law after the party to go bowling with his brothers, aunt, and Leah and her friend, Pam. Not only did the opportunity offer a second chance to make a first impression, I totally bowled awesomely.

Of course, that I�m actually writing about this means that Leah will lose my email address � right � about � now.

As Self-Deprecating Jeff, you are no doubt aware that I�m the client, not the consultant in this essay.

Will Smith is The Man, but the so-called Date Doctor isn�t as smooth in a relationship as he teaches his clients. Thankfully, actually, he isn�t �perfect� because no one wants an Eddie Haskell-esque smarmy and pathetic charmer. Smith is just so darn likable, and his issues are just to not get hurt. (Flashback to Loserville University � �Tell me what I did wrong.� �You�re doing it now.�).

Smith meets his match in Hispanic hottie Eva Mendes, a gossip columnist who is down on relationships, one of those �no time for boyfriends� types.

My match: this perfect woman, though she's unlikely to be available with hundreds of men beating down her sesame-seed door. If you don�t want to click on the link, it�s a 100-lb woman eating a six-pound burger. Happily. Mmm, carnivore babe.

The best stuff is between Smith and his guys who need serious help. (Call me!) His biggest project, his Sistine Chapel, is the King of Queens, Kevin James, which shouldn�t be difficult, since James already gets to smooch megababe Leah Remini every Wednesday, am I right?

Anyway, Smith needs help, too. Everything he tries with Eva starts out great and ends up a disaster, but at least he fails with flair. For some reason this works for him. It does not for everyone.

And this is where I pull out the big guns, my eHarmony catastrophe, an unrivaled disaster in the lore of Jeff's dating history, intermittent and undistinguished though it may be.

We spent a grand total of two hours at Six Flags here in Atlanta. The first ride we went to was the only one I really, really wanted to check out, the new Superman coaster where you are tilted forward as if flying. Sounds cool, eh? I couldn't fit. And she doesn't like roller coasters. Oops.

Now that it's been established I can't fit into any of the coasters, we tried the log ride. Wrong-o decision-o. It was really the Thunder River, complete with rapids and a waterfall, and we were on the ride with some sadist dude who turned us into every single drop of water. Now we're drenched.

Thankfully, after trying to dry off and collect myself, I ran into a couple of co-workers and their wives and kids, which gave us something to talk about for fifteen minutes. Then again, during this time I introduced her as Michelle, and no doubt Jennifer wondered why, since her name is, well, Jennifer. This is where the date jumped the shark.

(Funny thing is, I still call this my "Michelle" date. I don't even really know any Michelles, and certainly never dated one.)

One last attempt at restoring my dignity, we walked to the Batman coaster. There's a seat outside to check whether you'll fit, and this time I was too friggin' tall to get the harness over my head. Now I'm humiliated, fat, tall, and still soaked, and quickly losing all ability to see the bright side.

I tried to be peppy, but the whole time Jennifer was very quiet and not exactly starting any conversations with "this is funny," and I can't tell if she's subdued or trying to use morse code for help from passers-by to get away.

I can almost always make the best of any situation. I'm like Chandler in that "Friends" episode where he tries to end the others' fighting by drawing attention to his silly dancing. I can manage to find a silver lining or provide a distraction, but not this time. I'm sure it could have been worse, but only if it involved me dangling naked from the Six Flags Superman ride. Actually, at least then I would have ridden the ride in the first place.

(Note to self: Stop writing paragraphs a sentence or two earlier.)

I decided it was best for both of us to cut our losses and leave. On the way out, just to salvage something, anything, the only thing she wanted was a funnel cake. We walk up to the stand, and it was closed for twenty minutes. Of course it was. Then birds started pecking her eyes out, and crapping in the empty holes. (Okay, that part was a lie, but it's hard to tell by now, isn't it?)

When we pulled up to the Target parking lot where we met up I asked if she wanted to go home, change and meet for lunch and try again. Wow. You should have seen the look that she gave me. I would have had better luck asking if she wanted to join the Manson gang. Or watch "The Simple Life."

Did I mention that after being ill earlier in the week I had - count 'em - three cold sores on my upper and bottom lips? This greatly hindered my sex appeal, tremendous as it is. I looked like a monster from a 50s sci-fi flick.

Even with two more weeks on my eHarmony account, I closed everything then and there and wiped my hands of the entire franchise. At that point, I decided I couldn't even get good advice from On Star on the direction for a successful date.

Unfortunately, the biggest deal seems to be having confidence. Can't we go back to tying women to trees next to the cave entrance again? Is it too late? Would anybody be against this?

As for Will and Eva, blah blah blah, there's a big misunderstanding and all turns out well and wraps up in less than two hours. If only real life was so neatly packaged within two hours of cute romance instead of awkward sentences and flirtation.

That said, sorry if my dating existence has been too much "Hallmark Hall of Fame" and less "The Man Show." I'm trying my best to let you married folks live vicariously through my swinging single lifestyle.

You know what they say, once you go Jeff, you go back quickly to whatever you had before.

Just kidding. No worries. No time to feel down. I'm happy this Valentine's Day. I'm confident in the future. You just never know. As Hitch says, �one moment you�re enjoying your life, the next you wonder how you ever lived without her.�

Live for the moments that dilate your pupils, but don't wait for any certain one, you know? When opportunity knocks, sweep her off her feet. (Again with the brooms, I know, but feel free to use a mop, too.)