What The What? I’ve dated, I’ve had boyfriends, I’ve been in love, I’ve broken things up, and I’ve made ridiculously dangerous choices as far as men go. Over the years I’ve gained weight, lost weight, changed my hair, changed my face, changed my style, changed my likes and dislikes and essentially run the gambit of life’s possibilities. I have attracted many various types of guys over the years, but I have never in my life been hit on so consistently as in the past five days since I’ve gotten braces. Are you kidding me? Every day I’ve had at least one guy—in some cases more—do something indicative of an interest. And it’s not like I’ve been hiding my braces either. In fact, I’ve found that I am far less embarrassed of my braces than I ever was of my snaggle-tooth. So they know I have braces…and why exactly the sudden influx of interest? It’s not something I would have even thought would be a problem with braces. You expect the ripped up cheeks. You dread the two hours it takes to floss each individual bracket. You plan for the impaired speech. And, to be truthful, I chose October to begin my sentence for many reasons, one of them being that it marks the beginning of the winter months and who smiles in winter? Another being that I just broke up with someone and was anticipating that awkward “readjustment to single life” phase to last most of the 8-10 months I’d be in these things. I had no intention of stirring up anything romantic when I put these suckers on. I certainly had no idea that they would be the cause of such attention. Bizarre. On the positive side, after only five days, I can already see a difference! I visited my parents for the first time since the braces went on and my mom even noticed the difference. Sir snags-a-lot is falling back in line—technically not ‘back’ since it never once was in line in all of its existence—and the teeth that were pushed back are now awkwardly crossing the front teeth in wonderfully painful way. Solid foods are still tough. Partly because of pain, mainly because I hate getting things stuck in my teeth. It’s cool though. I can survive on soup and protein shakes for 299 more days…right…?