“You are playing cards with three Jeffs. One is your father, one is yourbrother, and the other is your current boyfriend. All of them have seenyou naked and heard you talking in your sleep. Your boyfriend Jeff getsup to answer the phone. To them he is a mirror, but to you he is a room.”

“I don’t know what your type is. I don’t know what your deal is. I don’t even know if you have a boyfriend. I know I like you and I want to be in yourlife, that’s it, and if you have any room for a boyfriend, I would like to be your boyfriend, and if you don’t have any room, I would like to be your friend.Any room you have for me in your life is great. If you would like me to start out in one room and move to another, I could do that.”

“One of the advantages of having an imaginary boyfriend is that he exists only for you, therefore he can not be stolen. The disadvantage is that you can not introduce him to your friends.”

“Borderline means you’re one of those girls……who walk around wearing long sleeves in the summer because you’ve carved up your forearms over your boyfriend. You make pathetic suicidal gestures and write bad poetry about them, listen to Ani DiFranco albums on endless repeat, end up in the emergency room for overdoses, scare off boyfriends by insisting they tell you that they love you five hundred times a day and hacking into their email to make sure they’re not lying, have a police record for shoplifting, and your tooth enamel is eroded from purging. You’ve had five addresses and eight jobs in three years, your friends are avoiding your phone calls, you’re questioning your sexuality, and the credit card companies are after you. It took a lot of years to admit that I was exactly that girl, and that the diagnostic criteria for the disorder were essentially an outline of my life.”

“The boy in the closet is your boyfriend. He loves you and will tell you all about last night.”

“Jeff, I have a problem.” “I’m glad you’ve finally realized I’m your answer, Merit.”