I have always liked Peter of Peter, Paul and Mary. He’s no Paul, mind you, at least not since I found out he wrote Torn Between Two Lovers, which is an earworm from 1976 that will never, ever leave your head once it enters.

You know the chorus:

Torn between two lovers, feeling like a fool
Loving both of you is breaking all the rules.

That’s how I have been feeling as of late. You see, I’ve been seeing two people at once, and man, I feel like the biggest cheater in the world.

As such, I needed to get this off my chest as it’s been hard on me, keeping both happy, making sure their needs are both met, all the while becoming more and more attached to one instead of the other.

I know that they have no interest in me personally. Sure, they pander to my need to have my ego stroked, but in truth, I know what they know: They are both trying to get into my pants and that’s all there is to our relationship.

This wouldn’t be such a problem if they were trying to get into my pants the old fashioned way. When I was a younger guy, it wasn’t all that unusual to have others trying to get into my pants.

But these days, well, suffice it to say that while they do indeed want to get into my pants, they only want my wallet.

You heard right. They are after my money.

No, I didn’t suddenly win Powerball. If I had, you wouldn’t be reading this tome – I’d be off somewhere on a tropical beach on my own private island.

Instead,I am trying to buy a house.

As with everything in Kat’s and my life, this whole house buying thing came about as a whim. We decided in November that it would be nice if we could someday have a house that we owned, not rented.

We even looked at a few houses online. Eventually we got a real estate agent. She showed us four houses one day. We made an offer on the fourth, and that sent us on the journey that has led to the hands in my pants.

Well, pants pockets to be exact. It turns out that signing a purchase agreement is the easy part. Then comes the hard part – finding a lender that will not only give you a good deal, but establish a level of trust where you actually believe they will deliver the goods on closing day.

It all started out fine. I only saw one person. We courted. They asked to see some of my assets and I showed them off without a second thought. It all looked very promising. Then I discovered that they really wanted to get deep into my pants, so deep that I wouldn’t have anything left.

Wow! Talk about highway robbery! I could have gotten a better deal with a hooker on Aurora Avenue.

So, I decided to see someone else on the sly. For a while I thought about taking up with a total stranger. I even went on a “dating” site. After filling out my profile, the emails and phone calls both rang like I had won an extra ball on a pinball machine. Everyone wanted to get into my pockets.

This was only getting more confusing by the moment. Finally, I decided to get an introduction. I knew someone else who was buying a house, so I thought, “Hey, they may have someone they love that they could introduce me to.”

They did. Within a day I was taking up with this new person. Oh, sure, the first one was still in the game; you don’t want to limit your options. But they really wanted in my pants, and I needed a fridge at the end of all this.

After all, I’ve been left out in the cold before. This isn’t the first house I’ve purchased or even tried to purchase. I’ve been to the rodeo many times, more times than I would like to count. But I’ll count anyway. Let’s see, one, two, three, four…

Yup. Six. Two were successful, even though in the end I didn’t end up with either. They turned out to be consolation prizes for my exes. The other four, well, it’s nearly impossible to buy a home when you’re self-employed, so once we got into the numbers game, I was an also ran.

It’s a lot easier with a state job. It’s not that I make any more money, but I guess the lending powers that be just assume I am somehow more stable now than I used to be.

So, here I am. Torn between two lovers, both with their hands in my pants, fumbling around for any loose change they can find in order to allow Kat and I to purchase a house together.

I’m only glad that dating wasn’t this hard. I think I’ve spent 10 hours shuffling documentation back and forth. Weird stuff like past tax returns, pay stubs and W-2s. Do you know how hard it is to find a pay stub in this day and age of electronic everything?

Imagine if you had to do all this just to get a date. We’d never even get to dinner, let alone procreation. Not only would our economy crumble, but we’d run out of future homebuyers who, like me, must go through this mysterious process of home buying.

Well, maybe not. After hearing my horror stories so far, my son says he has no desire to ever buy a home, condo, townhouse or even any property. He thinks we’re nuts to take all our hard earned money and plunk it down on a bunch of boards nailed together in a somewhat attractive fashion, filled with unknown pitfalls, unexpected repairs and replacement costs.

Yes, a money pit. And to think we all pay a premium for the privilege of owning our own home. One where if we need to call the landlord, our own phone rings. And at this point, I really don’t think I’m going to answer it when it does.

In the Emerald City, cross-stitching a lovely Home Sweet Home? pillow cover,

– Robb