Jonathan Kay

Betty Cooper or Veronica Lodge? Take your pick -- I sleep with both. Or at least I wake up with both. Betty, my perfect wife, shares my bed; Veronica, who sleeps 10 feet below in a separate apartment, is the one who gets me up in the (very) early morning -- usually with much screaming of obscenities and smashing of glassware. "You selfish son of a bitch!!" Veronica recently told her live-in boyfriend (I call him Reggie) during a 2 a.m. confrontation: "How the hell [crash] could you be so [crash] stupid?!" [crash]. (Sob sob). "Get out. Just get out!" (Crash). I hate you. I hate you. I hate you! (Crash, crash, crash).

"And another thing -- why do you always wear that stupid tuque?! Why can't you dress like a gentleman?!"

My heart goes out to Reggie. He's in the Veronica phase -- or, as I call it, "hell." It's a male rite of passage -- in real life as well as in the Archie comics. At least once in our lives, we become romantic serfs, pledging our heart to a haughty, uncaring liege.

I met my Veronica in law school. She wore cashmere and silk. When we went to Mexican restaurants, she'd insist I eat my sizzling fajitas in a separate booth -- true story -- because dry cleaning is pricey and my love was free. Sitting by myself, glumly piling cheese and sour cream on top of beef shards -- that's when I resolved to become a Betty man.

What took me so long? A friend of mine -- who once lived in my apartment and shared the same downstairs neighbours -- described the appeal of Veronicas succinctly. "She was screaming all the time when I lived there, too," he told me with a knowing nod. "She's got to be a devil in the sack."

He stated his conclusion as if it were a matter of casual inference. And, I suppose it was -- for the idea that rageaholism is simply the flip side of primal sex hunger is well-accepted among the sort of men who exchange knowing nods. Reggie (or, "the gentleman," as my wife now calls him) sticks around because he likes the bargain: Dodge a few plates, absorb a few epithets -- then wait for the whimpering to stop, pick the glass out of your chest and get ready for love. "Women have difficulty distinguishing their strong emotions," a Lothario I met at a hotel bar once told me during a lengthy and wide-ranging monologue on the subject. "Getting them angry is a good way to get into their pants."

Yet I doubt that. My building has thin floors that transmit the sound of even the most uninspired sex act. Unless "Why do you always wear that stupid tuque?!" is an esoteric form of dirty-talk that accompanies otherwise inaudible coupling, Reggie is definitely not getting his.

Still, my co-worker's suspicion is more than just male-bonding claptrap. Having sex is a lot like listening to a joke or awaiting a sneeze: an accumulation of tension concluded by a cathartic payout. The greater the tension, the greater the catharsis -- which is why sex is always best following bitter arguments, dangerous adventures, ambiguous flirtations and forbidden rendezvous. Veronica addicts -- like my neighbour Reggie -- are not entirely irrational. What they really want is endless make-up sex. The fact that this also means an endless emotional trauma that makes day-to-day life unendurable is pushed to the background.

Which brings me to Betty Cooper, the perfect woman. Because Betty doesn't mind getting a little bit of salsa on her blouse, you can get fajitas for two. Tuques are permitted on cold days. And demolishing the wedding registry is not a regular part of foreplay.