It’s better to have loved and lost then never to have loved at all because then at least you’ve gotten laid.

In the interests of full disclosure, I’m married, with two kids. I have a fairly normal relationship, which means we don’t always get along, but we “keep it real” to use the vernacular. But at various points in my life, I’ve done the lonely hearts thing and the broken hearts thing. Personally, I’d take broken heart. At least there’s a cause there, not a vague uneasiness. Anger vs. emptiness. And with a broken heart, after a breakup at least you get taken out drinking a few times.

Of course, for most of the guys on NakedVillainy.com, a broken heart at this point means litigation, custody battles, lawyer’s fees, and psychiatric bills for the kids. So lets hope this is all behind us.

To begin with, I’m going to assume we’re talking single folk here. Secondly, my experience is with hetero couples. Not making any judgments here. I’ll leave pompous, arbitrary and absolute moral judgments to Max Leader. I’m just staying with what I know.

I think for most of us, romantic life goes in phases. You have times when you are actively dating, or in relationships, and times when you aren’t. So most of have had a broken heart or a lonely heart at one time or another.

As for broken hearts, people deal with it in different ways. You have the people who want to jump right back on, and you have the people who need time to purge the hatred and resentment out of their system before they can trust someone of the opposite sex.

But I’ve noticed several recurring themes in people who fall into the “Lonely Heart” category.

Consider the female perennial lonely heart. We all know the type. “Why can’t I ever find a man?” “All the good ones are taken.” Most of the time, from my experience, women who are consistently lonely hearts suffer from one of several maladies. I’ll look at two common ones.

First of all, you have the woman with absurd standards. Forget the standard “all I want is a guy with a sense of humor” crap. That series of lines is what she wants to want. Her guy has to be absurdly smart, and witty. He has to have movie star looks, with an edge. He has to have an incredibly successful career, though he can drop work at a moments notice to follow her whim. He has to be able to read her mind, so that he can give her what she wants, without her asking for it. He has to get along with her mother. He has to be hung line Ron Jeremy, yet not look like Ron Jeremy. He has to be able to give her multiple orgasms on demand, yet never ever ask for sex when she doesn’t want it. He has to love Nora Ephron films, and he absolutely hates video games, because he’d rather spend time doing whatever she wants to do.

If you fall into this trap, I have news for you… that guy DOESN’T EXIST. GIVE UP. Look in the mirror. That’s where the problem lies, not with the men of the world. Causes vary. Maybe it’s her mother.

Secondly, you have the piners. These females think that there are no men out there for them. They think that all the single guys have something wrong with them, or else they wouldn’t be single. Hey, babe, if that logic holds, then it works in reverse true. The corollary applies to you. So then you hear the “I wish I had a man like yours” when they talk to other friends.

As a guy, these women come out of the woodwork hen you are in a relationship. These are the women who flirt with you incessantly when they know you’re dating their friend, yet these same women wouldn’t give you the time of day when you are unattached. Despite a world of romantic opportunity in front of them, these women are lonely and unhappy.

Of course there are male lonely hearts too.

First, there is the guy version of the absurd standards case. Except in the guys case it’s a bit more simple, yet just as contradictory. It’s the whole whore/Madonna thing. This guy wants a woman with a drawer full of sex toys, lube on tap in the bedroom, the flexibility of a gymnast, and oral skills that rival the greatest of Porno stars… but she’s a chaste maiden who has acquired these skills without practice, and finds our virginal, acne ridden, 35 year old hero attractive.

Don’t know what to tell you. The real world is pretty fun if you give it a chance. If you prefer video’s and Kleenex to real women, that’s your issue.

Guys have a peculiar variant on the piner. This is the guy who thinks of himself as so studly that his current girlfriend is never good enough. I think this falls into the lonely hearts category, because although he’s technically attached, he doesn’t think of himself this way, and this guy is truly lonely in the sense that he’s never happy. This is the guy who always finds something wrong with his girl, yet is almost never without a girlfriend. The technical term for this guy is “asshole.” Yet women seem to fall for him.

For more Men’s Club entries check out Phin, The Wizard, and later this week, Puffy.

For the Demystifying Divas hop on over to Sadie, Chrissy, Silk, Kathy, and Pam.