I just needed something here, it's been five days. But soon, shortly, when I have the time to run through and edit for length and content, I will add a summary of my recent excursion to the tobacco lands of Greensboro, N.C. Four days as a minor league ballplayer for me � well, almost. It's not like I actually played any games. But I was on the road, riding the bus, flirting with Leila, the waitress at Ruby Tuesday, browsing at Best Buy just to kill time on a day with no game, a rainout under sunny skies.

A long bus ride � eight and a half hours to get back, leaving at 10:30 after the game and arriving back in Lakewood at 7 a.m. � gives you time to think, the road rushing beneath the bus, rubber on asphalt, trees shooting by in the darkness, the lights of Richmond and Washington and Baltimore skirting along in the early morning hours. An entire team of ballplayers stretched across the aisle asleep, one solitary conscious passenger on the phone for an hour with a girl back home though, for the time being, her home is different from his.

So I started thinking about how, according to what the movies and shows display, the books and magazines say, this shouldn't happen this way. I should be scared off by a girl who tells me she loves me the night we meet, our first night together. I should be wary of what I tell her, how much I call her, how often I write her and think of her and tell her what I'm thinking. I should take things slowly, not move too fast, not want to rush things. I should understand what the editors of Maxim are saying about the signals I send and those I receive.

But I don't, and I'm not. All I feel, all I say is what's right. What I read, what pop culture shows me, continuing to portray the stereotype of men afraid of committment and women insecure in themselves and their relationships, does not apply. It's not like that, and I don't see any way it would be. And who would want that?