When my one-hundredth boyfriend came and went, I realized I might be doing something wrong. Was I too insensitive? I wondered. Was I too controlling? A couple of short-termers had alluded in that direction whenever I'd let them speak.

When Raymond turned up, then, I decided I'd make an effort to be sensitive to his needs. I hated Woody Allen, but when I saw that he had a new movie out I figured I'd ask what Raymond thought. "Do you want to see the new Woody Allen movie?" I asked.

"Oh, absolutely," he replied. Well, no accounting for taste, I thought. Bored to death in the dark theater I congratulated myself on my generosity in between wondering if this was the worst movie ever made.

My sensitivity seemed to work, though, because the next time I called Raymond he jumped at the chance to go out. "Do you like karaoke bars?" I asked, just out of the blue, determined to find out everything about him. This was new territory for me: I had two ex-husbands at this point and didn't even know where they lived.

"Oh, absolutely," Raymond said, so that Friday night we went to one. It was by far the stupidest thing I'd ever sat through: I mean, if I wanted to see untalented people sing old Journey songs, I'd go to a Journey concert, thanks.

When we reached our six-month anniversary, though, I had to concede that maybe I'd been doing something right. Sensitivity! Sharing! Being interested in his interests! I figured we should mark the milestone in some major way, and the newspaper's travel section suggested a destination I'd never have considered in my life. "Do you want to go to the Bahamas?" I asked Raymond, just barely suppressing a shudder.

His eyes lit up. "The Bahamas!" he repeated. "Oh, absolutely!"

And so came three of the worst days I've ever spent on planet Earth. We gummed rubbery conch for dinner, got drunk beneath the mirror balls at hetero discos, and spent our days touring a poverty-stricken country where we tried to pretend the poor black people who catered to our whims weren't exactly like slaves.

Wandering a market full of suitcases woven from palm fronds I caught a bored look on Raymond's face. "Hey, you're the one who wanted to come here," I snapped. "It's pretty much the way I pictured it."

"I wanted to come here?" he repeated. "This is the last place in the world I wanted to come. You're the one who suggested it, and I just agreed to be nice."

And in an instant our entire relationship flashed before my eyes. While I was being polite, was he being politer? While I was asking about things I never wanted to do, was he agreeing just to be nice?

"So, you don't like Woody Allen, or karaoke bars, or the Bahamas?"

"Hate Woody Allen, think karaoke bars are hell, and if I wanted subservient minorities to wait on me, I'd go get my car washed."

I stared at him in disbelief, and then we both started to laugh. We'd spent so many nights trying to be supportive, when just being ourselves would have been the smartest move of all. It was incredible how much we had in common, including the part about feigning civility to get along.

All the barriers came down as Raymond and I reached an honesty I'd never found before. That night as we gummed our last rubber dinner and then headed for Señor Wally's Dancing Clam Shack it was almost like I could read his mind.

And when I asked "Do you want to break up?" I knew exactly what he was going to say.