My ex-girlfriend is getting married.

People I know have been getting married for the last few years. 2003 even featured the un-singlehood of two of my fraternity brothers. Thankfully, one eloped and one limited his wedding to family, so I have yet to see any friends fall in person.

My oldest sister got married when I was still in high school. It was 1994; I remember that because her wedding coincided with the Rangers and the Knicks both making the finals of their respective sports (which, for Rangers and Knicks fans, have not been respected since). While my brother-in-law's family was ethnically dancing, I was crouched in the coatroom with a walkman, listening to John Starks miss the three-pointer that would have given the Knicks their first NBA championship since 1973. That's the year my sister was born. I still say it's her fault.

My brother got married a few years later. I was a senior in high school, and tux-clad Steve decided to take his yearbook picture at the wedding. But we had a wedding photographer, so my classmates will remember me looking like Al Gore: a fake smile while leaning slightly to the left.

This year, two girls I went out with got married. Not to each other though, cause that'd be even weirder to deal with.

Sarah was a rebound date a few years ago; we went out a week after a girlfriend and I broke up. Despite our distinct lack of anything in common, I still had a wonderful time. But to be fair, at the times I'd have had a wonderful time with anyone who didn't just break up with me. She, on the other hand, having been single longer than six days, didn't think it was anything special.

Tammy was a fix up. I was friends with a number of her sorority sisters, and one of them decided we'd be good together. But not in the "you'd be good together" sort of way. More in the "you're both single and I want to live vicariously through you" sort of way. My friend was trying to help us, but Tammy and I just didn't gel. We ended up friends, and I was happy to hear she eventually found someone much more gelatinous than I.

Sarah and I, on the other hand, completely lost touch, and somehow didn't run into each other for two years. A week before graduation, I stopped to say hi to a friend who was talking with her. Neither Sarah nor I even recognized each other until we were "introduced." Now that's awkward.

"Oh, you two know each other?"

"Yeah, we went out once. But we forgot."

As odd as it was to have girls I'd gone out with get married, I never saw myself ending up with either, so it wasn't such a big deal. Also, I wouldn't want to be any grooms' tuxedo shoes.

I see what my brother and sister have, and there's a part of me that's jealous. But there's a much larger part of me that is way too young to worry about a mortgage. There's plenty of time for that later; according to the census, I've got 47.68 years left if I stay in New York, or just over 50 if I move to North Dakota. The life expectancy for a guy in North Dakota is pretty high, which is surprising since it you have to factor in all the people that die of boredom. The longest average lifespan in America actually belongs to Hawaiian women. So if you're into beaches and old chicks, there's your place.

I'm dealing with my ex-girlfriend getting married the same way I deal with everything: by making jokes and avoiding the issue. The issue being that a part of me wonders how things would have been different if we ended up together.

We dated for nine months, but had a nasty breakup. A very nasty breakup. But I'd still like to take this opportunity to wish her the best of luck in her new life. She will always be my first love. Unless I get my hands on a time machine so I can date Bridgette Wilson before she got famous. (Take that, Sampras!)

Kim, may you find happiness, and prosperity, and a low-interest rate mortgage. And may you do it all in Hawaii, where you will be able to live the longest life possible - very, very far away from mine.

I imagine it's much more difficult to be a Jew on Christmas than it is to be a Christian on Hanukah. You don't find many Hanukah specials about families getting stranded in an airport learning the true meaning of the menorah.

But if there were lots of Hanukah specials, I'd be just as annoyed as I am at those about Christmas. I finally realized that I do not dislike most Christmas specials because they are about a holiday I do not celebrate - I dislike them because they're really, really cheesy.

I love the original Grinch cartoon. The Peanuts specials are always fun, and Seinfeld's Festivus episode is a classic. A number of sit-coms have simply had funny events happen at Christmas parties, which is fine considering that the holiday is a part of our country's pop culture. But the shows that have people changing their lives based on the true meaning of Christmas really exasperate me.

I am a very spiritual person, and I have never changed my life based on the true meaning of a holiday. And let's just say that learning the true meaning of a holiday, sans bastardization, was actually possible. Would we want that lesson to come from ABC Family?

Any holiday is okay in small doses, but TV networks go absolutely nuts on Christmas. I am pretty patriotic, and generally a big fan of the whole America thing. But I wouldn't be able to accept a bunch of sitcoms telling me the true meaning of July 4th. Imagine the final two weeks of every June filled with TV characters ending episodes with an arm-in-arm chorus of "My Country Tis of Thee." Which they couldn't do because no one knows the second verse.

There were several ABC sitcoms that have two Christmas episodes. Sure, ABC sitcoms are always ridiculous, but how long are they trying to celebrate this holiday? I know about the supposed "Twelve days of Christmas" thing, but I don't know anyone who actually celebrates the holiday for more than a day and a half. I bet someone in religion marketing noticed that Hanukah has eight days, and decided that something had to be done to compete. "They have eight days? Well, we can have twelve!" But if you're going go 150% on the Jews, you have to keep it up across the board. Every Yom Kippur, Jews don't eat for 24 hours. If you can go 36, I'll give you 12 days of Christmas. In the meantime, forget about your golden rings and admit that Christmas is a one-day thing.

I wonder if any Christian kid actually enjoys all of the Christmas sitcoms. I doubt that there are any 19-year-olds watching TV during winter break saying, "you know, I completely missed the point of this holiday. Come on, everybody - let's go caroling!"

TV execs should realize that the way Christmas is portrayed on the majority of their shows is not how it's celebrated in a majority of the country. First of all, more than half the marriages in America end in divorce, which destroys the notion of the large family meal with everyone accounted for. Right there, you've already entered minority territory. Then there's the realization that not everyone is Christian (gasp!), and some of the people who are Christian don't have a dozen relatives that want to come over for dinner. And most importantly, a lot of people out there don't get along well enough with their extended family to do anything but hurl insults and mashed potatoes.

In a rush to beat each other to the holiday punch (ba-dum!), TV networks have been airing Christmas episodes earlier and earlier. It used to be the week before Christmas. Then it was two weeks before Christmas. Now, they air the first week of December. Pretty soon, Christmas specials will start so early that they'll air during the Christmas prior. And the year in between will just be one continuous commercial.

Uncle Jesse can tell DJ all he wants about how Christmas is about love and selflessness and family, but not until after Macy's tells you about their one-day sale. There is a certain irony to running all those sale ads during the heartwarming story of a family learning about the wise men. The only wise men here are the ones in the ad department.

Christmas TV teaches you that you should give. And to help, it also directs you to the nearest store. Driving up profits in the retail sector is the true meaning of Christmas sitcoms, and that's something I discovered without the help of a snowed-in airport.

Learning this true meaning has made me all warm and fuzzy inside. Come on everyone - let's carol. How does that Macy's jingle go?

I was at a bar the other day, and it hit me. I know what I need to do.

I'm going to start working out more. Not just a little bit more, but a lot more. So much so that my arms become the size of Emanuel Lewis. My chest will be just as big, but I won't have abs. No, abs are for suckers. Because you can't get abs when you drink as often as I will.

But arms and drinking are not enough. With Emanuel Lewis-sized muscles, I'll need shorter sleeves. I'll buy shirts with sleeves so short, they will actually go the opposite way of normal sleeves, so that they rise up and cover my neck. No, that won't work - I won't have a neck to cover, because my bulbous shoulders will have out grown it. It won't matter - necks are for suckers.

So I'll instead buy shirts that don't even have sleeves. But not just any sleeveless shirts. Shirts that were designed to look like they once had sleeves, and my arms were just too big for them, and POP! The sleeves exploded, leaving fabric corpses strewn everywhere! But there won't really be fabric corpses strewn everywhere because these shirts will come without sleeves, remember? It's just a trick to make my arms look even bigger. Shhh, don't tell.

And I will take my best sleeveless shirt (which could be any of them because I won't care what it looks like as long as it doesn't have sleeves) and I'll wear it to a bar, even in the winter. Because I'm that tough. Cold won't hurt me! It will just make my nipples stand up on my muscle breasts, which look great in shirts that never had any sleeves, even though they look like they had sleeves. The shirts, not my muscle breasts.

I'll get to the bar, and alternate between ramming people I don't know with my bulbous shoulders and high-fiving acquaintances who act like they're my friend simply because I'm bigger than them. I would shake their hands, but the muscle mass on my shoulder blade will be so dense that it's difficult to do anything other than bench press or high-five. So dense, that I won't be able to touch my arms behind my back. Which will work to my advantage, since it will be hard for the police to handcuff me after I get arrested for constantly ramming people I don't know with my bulbous shoulders. High five!

But I need to make sure I don't forget the entire purpose for my Emanuel Lewis muscles - sex with stupid women. That's right, the whole reason I will work out three hours a day is because growing Webster muscles and wearing a previously-ripped shirt is the easiest way to have sex with stupid girls.

Once I'm that guy, I will no longer have game with smart girls. I will only be able to hit on utter idiots, who are distracted by puppies and shiny things and bare arms. And I'll hit on them by ignoring them when they're looking at me and grabbing their ass when they're not. It's a delicate game. I have to balance ignoring with the exact right amount of grabbass. Everyonce in a while, I will grabass too much and I lose the game, and sulk for the next two minutes before I set my sights and palms on someone else.

I will glare at any other guy that tries to talk to the girl whose ass I'm grabbing, especially if he's her boyfriend. And I will flex my muscles so much that my sleeves would have ripped off, if they hadn't already been removed by the factory. If I actually get introduced to another guy, I will grip his hand as if I was holding onto it to prevent myself from falling off a balcony when I was drunk, which I will have done. But it will take me a while to extend that grip because of my bulbous shoulders.

If the other guy has still not left yet, I may be required to have a conversation with him. This conversation will most likely consist of me saying my name and then grunting to any of his questions. I will be very proud to pronounce my own name correctly, having forgotten everything else I knew in favor of the correct way to do lateral squats. I will also have forgotten how funny the phrase "lateral squats" is.

I will eventually bore the other guy into leaving, at which point I will have sex with the dumb girl. It will be my right as a guy who doesn't wear sleeves. By then, her boyfriend will want to kick my ass, as will all the guys I will have been shouldering all night. But he can't because one of my arms will be bigger than he is, unless he is Emanuel Lewis, in which case he will be the same size. No one in the bar will be able to kick my ass. Well, one person. I will be so muscular, I'd probably be able to kick my own ass.

And if I ever get like that, I sincerely hope that I do.

Did you know that Felicity went back in time? That's right - the bright-eyed girl whose New York City coming of age story the WB inflicted upon us decided to time travel in the fifth year of the series. I know, I'm shocked, too. I still have no idea how that show could have lasted five years.

I watched half an episode once. It was one of those moments involving a female friend that I was probably trying to date at the time and her persistence that I not pre-judge something simply based on the over 400 commercials I'd seen for it. So one Wednesday night, I ventured to her suite and sat and watched, partially due to the lure of free food and future dates. And after watching a half-hour of half-baked plot and half-assed dialogue, I could take no more.

Noel, or Ben, or NoelBen, or whoever the hell Felicity was dating and yet simultaneously not dating at the time, was explaining to his roommate how he was still in love with Felicity, even though she had walked out on him or blocked him on Instant Messenger or ran over his cat or some such nonsense. "But I still like her," BenNoelBen said. And the roommate responded with the only true piece of dialogue the show had ever seen.

"Only idiots like Felicity."

It was at that point I said, "amen," and left the room. And I know that this is going to get me hatemail from people who just love an unrealistic teen drama brought to you by the network responsible for keeping Sister Sister on the air. But before you write me angry letters filled with alternating capitalization and several incorrect uses of the apostrophe, please finish reading this column. I can assure you that by the end of it, I will both adequately explain my point and predictably end up dating Ben. Unless its sweeps week, in which case I will time travel and fix it.

I learned about the time traveling thing this week. While visiting my friend Melissa at her sorority house, I stumbled upon the TV room, where she and some of her sisters were watching the Felicity DVD. The bonus features of which include Keri Russell's Felicity talking about how much she loved going to NYU, before the school told the WB they can't shoot there and they should screw off. My alma matter, Columbia, told the WB the same thing, though I'm guessing they didn't end the sentence with a preposition.

Felicity ended up at UNY--the University of New York"”a fictionalized version of NYU that she attended with at least seven other students. And I, in turn, ended up having to defend my anti-Felicity position to a portion of Melissa's sorority, which has more people than the student body of UNY.

I pointed out that the conversation I witnessed between BenNoelNoelNoelBenNoel and his roommate took place in an apartment the size of Giants Stadium. In New York, apartments are usually much smaller. My apartment, for instance, is so small that Superman routinely uses it to change.

They told me that to enjoy the show, I needed to suspend my disbelief when it came to the set. Just like I had to, for instance, when Felicity time traveled in the final season.

"When she what?"

Apparently, the show finished after four seasons, wrapped up into a nice little package that anyone who'd ever seen one commercial for the series could have seen coming. Felicity and Ben got together. Yay. Yeehah. Yipee. Everyone was happy, especially the people who never had to watch the show again. But then the show was renewed for six more episodes. Suddenly, the writers needed some more drama to goad viewers into watching, and Ben having an affair with Paco, the poor yet striking cabana boy was out of the question. So the writers invented a way for Felicity to get with Noel, too. How could that be possible? Time travel, of course.

But it would be ridiculous for Felicity to have access to an actual time machine. So instead she found a witch who helped her go back in time so she could date Noel. MUCH more believable.

If you like Felicity, I won't try to stop you. That's your decision/guilty pleasure/inherent character flaw. I will not question why anyone watches it, or even buys a DVD with bonus features. I will, however, be shocked and appalled when someone is surprised that I don't like it, too. As NoelNoelNoelyBenBen's roommate said, "only idiots like Felicity." And I may watch Sportscenter six times a day, but I am no idiot.

Hey - if I've got to suspend my disbelief, you do too.