Sleeping Single In A Double Bed

I have disclosed here previously my relative lack of success with the ladies. I was not the cool guy who got laid. I was the guy who took the phone calls from girls who desperately needed to throw themselves at my roommate. "No," I would tell them in a reassuring tone, "He really wants to see you again, he's just," a quick interpretation of my friend's hand signals, "performing emergency cardiac surgery in Idaho this weekend."
And so it went for many years. I was the nice guy who was asked by countless women, "Why can't I meet a nice guy like you?" Then came New Year's Eve, 1987. Right before Christmas that year I had bid adieu to my good friend Lothario, and I was at last on my own - a successful single guy on the hunt for a girl with "a certain morally casual attitude." Ironically enough, on that particular New Year's Eve, I found myself at a party being thrown by one of my roommate's prior conquests. We had remained friendly and commiserated over the departure of Mister Ladykiller.
As the evening wore on, it occurred to me that there was a distinct difference between this party and most of the other gatherings I had attended in the past few years: It was not being held in my living room. Aside from Miss Jilted, I was with a group of relative strangers. That's when I met Laura. I am relatively certain that was her name, because after that night, I never saw her again.
Laura was my only one-night stand. I have always felt it was primarily an attempt to exorcise my Mister Nice Guy persona. It was all the things that a drunken, late-night tryst should be. Most of all, it was one night that didn't include the baggage of guilt and responsibility. 1988 was going to be a New Year after all.
The next morning, however, Mister Nice Guy returned with a hangover. I felt bad that I hadn't even exchanged phone numbers or some other meaningful data with Laura. We had shared so much the night before, hadn't we? I spent the next week trying to catch up to her and make a "real date" for us to go out, have conversation, then it would match up with the night of animal lust that had preceded it. I was consumed by guilt. For about a week. Then I got a phone call from the East Coast. My good friend had spent New Year's Eve alone - well, alone in the sense that he missed having carnal knowledge with anyone on the premises. That's when I let Laura go. I still think about her sometimes - I just don't remember exactly what she looked like.