Looking back it may seem that dating was easier then. The practice is so prescribed and regulated that it hardly mattered what you did or didn't do. Tag-team relationships made their way around circles of friends, and rarely was it actually about dating someone than it was about talking to your friends about dating someone.

A hard truth to accept, though, is that these awkward initial stages of familiarity with the rules of inter-gender relations have had an immense effect on they way we date and relate today. How many of us play complicated games with those we covet? We send friends to scout out our chances by probing the word on the grapevine, or play e-mailing and phone message games that keep your pride safe and your intentions barely veiled through layers of "neutral" invitations to dinner/drinks/your bed?

Regardless, nothing outdoes the bizarre nature of middle school dating.

Testimony to its weirdocity is the overcrowded involvement of friends and accomplices in dating. After-dinner phone marathons, where nine of your bestest friends are all on the phone to collaborate, serve to establish the many "who likes who" of the group. Rumors become fact, and when your third best friend tells you she heard Jason telling David that he like likes you during the fitness test in PE that day, you know it's on.

Note passing then served as the only clear means of communication and the medium through which couples were made and broken. Once you knew Jason liked you, it was your job to write the note that said, "I like you, too" to give to Kerry so she could put it in his locker. His note back, passed to you by Reggie in Earth Science, complimented your bangs, assured you of his love, and confirmed your status of boy and girl forever.

Once boy and girl were paired off things got weirder. I recall group movie dates, phone calls with three friends on the phone muted while the couple chatted, entire Bar Mitzvah parties spent hiding behind balloon displays so as not to have to dance with my significant other.

And since all my friends at one point dated the same boy between 7th and 8th grade, we all had the same bracelet earring set, since his mom always bought his girlfriends gifts when the occasion required. It brought us all closer together.

Many middle schoolers of my generation (West Hills Middle School, Class of '93) participated, too, in various forms of sexual experimentation. I will leave aside the more marginal incidents of one classmate's pregnancy scare in 7th grade, and the advias of parents that willingly let their basements be converted into dens of iniquity for five hours a weekend, kids of my class would designate closets and corners as 1st, 1st and a half, and 2nd base. Only those with siblings in high school even thought they knew what happened at 3rd and home, but none were so daring as to try it.

Again, as we got older, chances you dated someone your friend dated increased. From my experience, one friend and I realized --while complaining about our men-- that we should just switch boyfriends, and all would be happier. The boys listened to our pleas, and after a five-minute private discussion, agreed with our analysis.

In college, though, something like that may not happen so casually, but many have watched their close friends move in on their exes shortly after the big break-up, and close circles of friends inevitably run into problems of incestuous intra-group dating.