I read Simone's post and thought, "Maybe I should give online dating a try!"

Well, I googled "online dating for large women" and a number of websites came up: big beautiful women, more to love, and, of course, Dimensions, the same folks who publish the magazine that featured my pin-up shot and once featured my comic strip, MS. HIPPS, when it was just a newsletter.

I chose "more to love" and was going through the registration process when I suddenly realized, "I don't want to meet men online. I don't even want to men offline."

I just had my heart broken into itty bitty pieces and I'm not up for an encore right now.

I have had some success with dating services and once placed an ad in The Detroit News that got nearly 500 responses the first time it ran. I chalk that up to my good copy writing skills - hey, they must be for me to get 500 guys to answer an ad that promised to satisfy their fantasies about big women.

Granted one or two were just calling to see if it was legit, but most were actually curious about dating large women, specifically, about having sex with large women.

Back in the mid-1970s I was doing a play about several couples and my onstage "husband" and I found ourselves attracted to each other. He actually asked me, "How do fat people have sex?"

I was a single young teacher living alone, so I invited him over to my apartment and showed him how we do it! He must have been satisfied with the results because the next day we talked on the phone for hours before he left to join the Navy.

We kept in touch until he told me he'd become a "holiness" (Pentecostal Christian). Back then I was pretty anti-Christian and sure didn't want anything to do with one of those "born-again" Christians.

That was one of the questions asked on the registration form at moretolove.com, religious preference. However, they distinguished "born again" from "Christian." According to my beliefs, you have to be the latter in order to be the former, which I am now -both; actually, I'm that oxymoron, a liberal born-again Christian. Wonder where that sailor is now?

Dating services can be dangerous, too. I once met a guy through an ad in Dimensions who lived in Detroit. We talked on the telephone and I could feel this man was in great pain and wanted to do someting about it.

So I had my best friend and housemate drop me off when she went to spend Thanksgiving with her lover in Detroit. In our telephone conversations, this guy had eluded to him and his mother being nudist when he grew up, but I wasn't prepared to see a photo of his naked mother on his living room wall next to an almost identical one of his former fiancee who he'd made over into his mother.

He also showed me photos of him and his mother having sex. I tried to maintain a neutral, non-judgmental attitude because I realized I could be in real danger. He locked me in his apartment while he went to work and he didn't have a phone. I just watched television until he returned.

He didn't do anything to me because, being an actress, I kept him entertained with portrayals of everyone from Cleopatra to Mae West. Besides, he was really looking for a submissive or, if I couldn't do that, a dominatrix.

Years ago, I got mail from a Chicago-based organization called SPEACA. One of those letters stands for Amazon and the group wanted me to join to support their belief and practice of dominating men.

I turned them down, although I have a definite dominatrix vibe that scares me a little. I once pushed a lover away after he became too clingy and he landed on the floor and started crying.

I felt really bad and went over to comfort him and one thing led to another and I realized we both got off on the whole abuse/abuser nature of the encounter so I've eschewed such behavior. Don't want to go there!

Anyway, I told this guy who revealed that his mother used to wake him up as a small child by performing fellatio on him that I did not want to either submit to or dominate him. So, we decided we'd just be "friends."

Yeah, right! As soon as he let me out of the apartment, I found a pay phone and called a cab and went to the bus station to come home. When I got back my housemate was in a panic because she couldn't remember where she'd dropped me off and made me promise not to ever do that again.

That guy actually called me about coming back to see him for the Christmas holidays. There were many other strange encounters far too numerous to recount here (I may write a book some day!).

I met a couple of guys from Indiana through Dimensions that were really into menage de trois and both thought since I lived with a female, I'd be amenable to that kind of encounter. Many of the guys who answered my ad in The News thought so, too.

Well, they were wrong. I'm adventurous in my poetry and even in my own mind, but in reality, I'm pretty conservative. Two to a bed, that's all this diva will allow. These days, it's one to a bed.

I'm spending another weekend writing at my favorite hotel (look in my links for my guide to "Urban Camping) and there are two beds in my room. One of them has my suitcase and various catalogs and newspapers on it so I can start my Christmas shopping.

The other one has just me in it. There are several men in Toledo who'd love me to call them up and tell them to come over for an hour or two, but they're all  married (except my ex and he's drunk!).

I have a strict rule against dating or sleeping with other women's husbands. Aside from the morality issue, it's just not sisterly. My father cheated on my  mother and I swore when I found out that I would never do that to another woman.

Unfortunately, I didn't find out until I'd had a couple of affairs with married men. One was totally innocent because I didn't know he was married. He was my first lover. I was twenty-three and naive enough to believe him when he said the beautiful professor at the college where I attended grad school was just an acquaintance. She was his wife and my friend. What a jerk!

The other guy was from Ethopia, attending college far away from home and just wanted someone to spend time with occasionally. We had a very brief affair because his heart just wasn't in it and I let him off the hook.

Since then, any married men I've dated have lied and as soon as I found out, they got dumped. I have married male friends in Toledo who are wonderful men who would never cheat on their wives and then I know some who are just waiting for an invitation.

They won't get one from me. I'm not interested in hurting another woman like that. In fact, I go out of my way to assure women that I'm not interested in their husbands because many women assume that every woman who doesn't have a husband wants theirs.

Because of my notoriety as a reporter and my little cult of fans, I am admired by quite a few men, many of them writers. One of them is a young poet who is married to a woman that makes Halle Berry look dowdy. We were at a poetry event and he came over and hugged me with his wife in tow, then proceeded to introduce her to everyone but me.

When the event was over, he came back to hug me good-bye, again with his wife in tow, but that time I insisted he introduce me to his wife. She was so grateful to be acknowledged it made me a little sad that she was being treated so shabbily by her husband, brilliant poet or not.

Recently, another recently married male friend texted me about a concert his wife's gospel group is having tonight and I asked him to email me the information so I could send it out on my network.

I got an email from her two days later stating that I asked her husband for information about the concert and she was sending it. I ignored the possessive tone in her voice, realizing her insecurity, thanked her and told her I'd be sending it out to everyone in my network so they could come hear the best gospel group in the city.

Generally, I try to stay away from married women because I don't want to even be suspected of wanting their husbands. My current bff is divorced (with good reason) and, although I have friends who are married, my real friends know I love them and would never hurt them.

Besides, I'm not interested in being with any men right now. The last man I cared about ground my heart up into hamburger, so I'm cool. That's why I ditched the online dating idea.

You really need to want a date if you sign up - and I don't. Not any time soon. Not until the hole in my heart closes and I'm completely healed.