To judge from women’s magazines, finding and keeping a man is a process only slightly less complex and treacherous than building a life-size model of the Eiffel Tower using lit sticks of dynamite. You must wax, tweeze, lotion, file, volumize, tone and exfoliate. (Heaven forbid you wear above a size eight or have scaly elbows.) You must flirt in just the right way — daring but not predatory, attentive but not needy, tantalizing but not slutty. You must arrange the expensive and exquisitely coordinated d?cor in your fabulous apartment so it’s a man-friendly space, as if men are zoo animals that go into decline in an unfamiliar habitat. You must tune your conversational style to the exact pitch guaranteed to drive him into your yoga-sculpted arms, not screaming into the woods. You must know sex secrets that would shock Dr. Ruth into a whimper.

Who would ever do all this? Who can do this and still have time to earn a living? Who buys $17 shine serum?

Apparently the magazines assume the average reader is willing to spend her time and energy controlling every aspect of her life, appearance and behavior in order to attract a man. And that the men so attracted are worth getting, instead of being the kind of men who are satisfied with a woman so deliberately generic, she’s not even Barbie but “11-Inch Fashion Doll.”

Why?

Loneliness. More specifically, fear of loneliness.

You can’t blame the magazines for appealing to what is, as far as I can tell, the human condition. Men’s magazines probably do it too, in between T&A spreads. They’ve got to sell issues. They’ve got to please their advertisers. And what appeal could all those creams, sprays, lip plumpers, cellulite zappers and kicky handbags have in themselves, without being the key to something greater?

It’s like voodoo. Perform these rituals faithfully and maybe you’ll be able to ward off the darkness. Conform yourself to the sacred mold and you will find what you seek. Your tweezings and incantations will secure for you a place among the anointed.

Too bad it’s all a load of hogwash. No matter how many chickens you kill, you’ll still be lonely. From everything I’ve seen and heard and experienced, the only reliable way not to be lonely is to be dead — and then, of course, you have different problems, like decomposition and the nature of the afterlife.

But that doesn’t seem to stop anyone. We read the magazines and we decide how hard we want to try — how loudly we want to chant, I guess — and we forge out into the community, flirting and seeking and reaching, all of us, and maybe someone grabs on and we say, “Aha! I have found the key!”

And approximately one time out of several bazillion, this statement is not a lie. The other, um, several bazillion-minus-one times (how many nines would that have?), the hurting begins.

Think about it. Out of all the couples you have known or belonged to, how many can you name where at least one member was not constantly trying to keep/ jettison/ become resigned to/ decipher/ impress/ tolerate/ upgrade/ murder the other? Or where apparently the only thing keeping them together was a shared passion for ugly heartbreak? Can you name any? (And if you name your current relationship, will you be able to say the same in two years?)

And yet we keep trying. And the magazines fly off the newsstand.

Maybe it would make more sense to me if I thought in terms of seeking an unattainable ideal — “we will uncover the whole truth and dispense justice” rather than “we will give a ruling based on the evidence presented,” or “we will love our neighbors as ourselves” rather than “we will stop saying quite so many mean things.” Maybe in searching for an end to loneliness, the point is the search. Maybe it’s like a mathematical limit that you can curve ever closer to as you near infinity, but never touch.

I don’t know. I look around and I don’t see a lot being gained from the search. Heartache and STDs, mostly. Cupboards full of decaying cosmetics.

But there has to be a point, doesn’t there? There has to be a chance, at least a small one, at happiness — something worth striving for. Something worth whatever it takes to find it.

Let’s hope.

Hey, maybe I’m being pessimistic. Maybe most relationships are wonderful, happy, fulfilling things. And makeup is its own reward, and true love comes to everyone sooner or later, and women’s magazines just think their readers deserve to have fun with fashion, and the Tooth Fairy is going to twinkle up to my front door and give me a pet giraffe and a modeling contract, and, and . . .

Jackie May ([email protected]) is a sophomore majoring in English. She assures you this article is purely theoretical.