One of the neurotransmitters playing a key role in addiction is dopamine. As a chemical messenger, dopamine is similar to adrenaline. Dopamine affects brain processes that control movement, emotional response, and ability to experience pleasure and pain.

Nothing is ever enough. Not the earth. Not the stars. Not the fairy tales that remain indistinguishable from reality in spite of all the therapy.

Sex, for example, has to land with the force a military-grade bio-weapon, short-circuiting brain chemistry and permanently damaging emotional intimacy. The highs are never high enough because the thresholds keep increasing, rendering dopamine more important than, say, food.

Celebrity obsession alone pressures outpatient psychistric care. Jane Doe knows more about the life of Jessica Alba than she does about her own borderline personality, which she denies. Of course, there’s no denying the fact that her husband spends his evenings locked in a closet for his own safety.

With this in mind, many of you guys have been around long enough to spot persistent narcissism in women who are well past their prime.

“Ramona” used to be blonde, but now does a black-on-black over-dye, which screams civilian porn star. Her last orgasm was at the hands of a convicted felon with a predilection for grand larceny and tattoos of reptiles with their teeth in his spine.

But the fight goes on in spite of the delusion that’s more painful for us than it is for her because she has no idea what you mean by delusion.

She never gets her emotional needs met because the man the wants won’t share the stage. He wants her, but he doesn’t want her to push him around. Of course, she comes full loaded, which creates a problem for both of them. She has everything he wants, but the two of them are like opposing magnetic forces attracting identical things. Unfortunately, they both feel entitled to one another, so it’s a fucking conundrum no matter how you couch it.

Yesterday I was shopping at Whole Foods with my sister when she caught me staring at a woman in the next isle.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she says.

“What’s that?”

“You know exactly what I’m about to say.”

“What? That she’s hot?”

“Try again.”

“Let me guess… She’s marriage material!”

“Bingo. And she’s the only one in this entire place that qualifies.”

“What makes you say that? I already know, of course, but I’d love to hear you spell it out.”

“She comes across as having it all. Great hip-to-waist ratio, as you’d put it, well balanced facial features, great skin, cute haircut, understated, but confident, sophisticated, stylish, educated and pretty in a classical way.”

“There should be an equation for that look, because every man on earth with an education and background that includes a physical mailing address wants to marry someone like that. No wonder they always have rings on their fingers, there are so few of them. And the ones without the rings are either fucked-up or they choose to be single…even when they’re not aware of making that particular choice. Anyway, when we figure it out we should have it silk-screened on t-shirts and sell them on Ebay.”

“So would you pick her over Ramona?”

“No.”