THE EX FILES

Stories of relationships gone awry

By Erin Clements

If you need a reason to be glad you’re single this Valentine’s Day, What Was I Thinking? 58 Bad Boyfriend Stories, a spirited collection of first-person tales edited by Barbara Davilman and Liz Dubelman, offers dozens. Many of the volume’s anecdotes read like rants straight out of Sex and the City (in fact, in one essay, SATC scribe Cindy Chupack expounds on the merits of marrying bad boys). Other highlights include “The Yogi,” in which Keri Cesene recounts an intimate encounter with a yoga instructor who corrects her posture at an inopportune moment; “The Unibrow Breakup,” in which Judith Dewey unhappily discovers an attractively hirsute suitor’s newfound affinity for wax; and “Norm Crosby Syndrome,” Lynn Snowden Picket’s argument that malapropisms can be a deal-breaker when a date ruins an otherwise romantic dinner by ordering a “crèche” of wine. Hey, beats watching an episode of Tool Academy.