FIRST DATE: 44

Jackie's story was typical. "I was waiting for a table at Blue Ribbon." she said. "He walked un to me and started talkine.

He was instantly funny. I thought, Omigod, we're really clicking. But I'll probably never hear from him again." Everyone nodded. After all, hadn't we all been there?

"He called at something like eight the next morning," Jackie said.

" 'Want to go out to lunch? he asked. He asks you to lunch at 44 the next day."

Sapphire, a blond divorced mom, laughed. "He didn't take me to 44 until the second day."

"While you think he's still funny and clever, he asks you to go away with him for the weekend," said Jackie.

"He asked me to marry him on something like the tenth day," said Sarah. "That was pretty quick, even for him."

"He took me to dinner at his parents' house on like the third date," said Britta, a tall, rangy brunette who works as a photo rep and is now happily married. "It was just me and his parents and the butler. The next day, I remember I was sitting on his bed, and he was showing me home movies of

him as a kid. He was begging me to marry him. He was saying, 'See, I can be a serious guy. And then he ordered some cheesy Chinese food. I thought, Marry you? What, are you smoking something?"

Ramona sighed. "On the other hand, I had just broken up with someone, and I was pretty upset. He was always there."

A pattern emerged. The women who had dated Peri had all just left their husbands or long-term boyfriends when Peri found them. Or, was it they who found him?

"He's rebound man," Sarah said, definitively. "It's like, 'Excuse me, are you broken? Let's get intimate. "

"He's the emotional Mayflower," said Maeve. "He gets women from point A to point B. You arrive at Plymouth Rock feeling enormously better."

His ability to empathize was a strong point. The phrase "He's just like a girl" came up over and over again. "He reads more fashion magazines than most women," said Sapphire, "and he's much more willing to fight your battles than he is his own."

"He's extremely confident," Maeve continued. "I think it's a mistake when men present themselves as helpless idiots who can't even find their socks. Peri says, T'm totally secure. Lean on me. And you think, What a relief! Really, it's all that women want. Most men don't understand that. At least Peri is clever enough to affect that."

And then there's the sex. "He's awesome in bed," said Sarah. "He's unbelievably great at making out," said Sapphire. "You thought he was awesome?" Jackie asked. "I thought he was awful. Can we please talk about his feet?"

Nevertheless, so far, Peri seemed to be the embodiment of the two things women always say they want most—a guy who can talk and be understanding like a woman, but who also knows how to be a man in the sack. So what went wrong?