B E B E R E

Reality based fiction for women not otherwised covered by product already out there:

After college, living with her seven-sisters alum roommates, girl's pretty convinced she's gay. The devastatingly handsome, annoyingly macho mediterannean neighbor wears down her defenses and proves otherwise.

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Happy in her little world of satisfying work and relative domestic comfort, girl doesn't give much thought to romance: would be nice, but probably more trouble than it's worth as previous experience has shown. All is turned topsy-turvy one week when both the adonis-like trumpet teacher and the awfully cute but totally not her type software sales engineer both ask her out. Each has his pros (both are cuter'n anything. The teacher loves college hockey, and the engineer indulges her in her love of the beach in the middle of the night in winter). Each has his cons (the teacher says her friends are all snobs. The engineer's a Republican -eeuh-). Ultimately, it's for the girl's cats to decide.

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After a string of unhappy romances, girl calls it quits on love. Her best male friend (who she honestly thought was gay) eventually sets out to prove to her that nice guys do actually exist and that she was just choosing the wrong guy for the job.

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Office politics, clear (but unprovable, the wily dog) cases of sexual harassment, departmental transfers, coworkers running interference for one another... Another forbidden romance blooms in the inhospitable conditions of corporate America.

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Girl goes away for a while to get over the heartbreak of a romance gone sour with a hot-shot visiting professor in her department. Gets a cheap flight out to whereever her rail pass will take her, wanders around the mediterranean. Meets and befriends a sweetheart law student and they embark on somewhat of a "before sunrise" story. Returning home and getting back into the groove of things proves a lot easier for the girl. End of story? No - just the beginning: runs into the fellow she met in in Europe, who, as it turns out, is studying at another university in her city, or so he says. Is he on the up-and-up or is he a stalker-type (you never know)? Is this destiny?

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Yeah, all pretty trite. Fun to come up with, though. Certainly better than bitchy twenty-somethings working for a fashion magazine, in my opinion, anyway.