Monday, Jul. 07, 2003 | 1:04 PM

I�m going batty. WHY hasn�t she rung me on the phone or emailed? WHY did she say we couldn�t and then jump me and tell me all sorts of lovely things and then not a word from her all weekend? WHY did I stay up until 3:30 in the morning biting my nails and trying to talk myself out of obsessing about this. What�am I in 7th grade or something?

Here are basic facts of the case.

Ivy had a boyfriend for a long long time. They broke up several months ago. At the beginning of the summer, they decided to get back together. The Boy is going to be out of the country until September. The two of them came up with a standing agreement that both of them could see whomever they want while they are apart, but that in September they will be monagamous.

All fine and good.

So enter me. Ivy and I were in Cabaret together, and I was completely fascinated by and in awe of her. When I am captivated by someone I get so tongue tied and nervous that I basically just ignored that person (hey�I said less than 100 words to Mr. Wonderful during the entire first half of rehearsal period because I would transform into the intellectual equivilent of vanilla pudding in his presence.)

When rehearsals ended and we began running performances, Ivy and I were thrown together more. We began talking and hanging out after shows and during the day. I was enchanted by her intelligence and sense of humor, and she reminded me very much of the first person I was ever in love with�a woman I knew in high school. It�s funny because the two of them actually graduated from the same college and were casual acquiantences. They are both photographers, too. Coincidences, coincidences.

Anyway, I was attracted to Ivy and such, but I was also fooling around with multiple people and having a grand old time. It didn�t occur to me that we would hook up or anything.

Then at the cast party, she kissed me. And the chemistry was insane. We ran into the other room and wound up hard core making out. Later that night after she left I made out with someone else, too�a boy. I was good fun but didn�t compare to what had happened between Ivy and me.

Right after the cast party she flew out to the west coast to do a photo shoot and was gone for a couple of weeks. Having had the perspective of multiple make-out partners since January, I knew I wasn�t just romanticizing when I couldn�t stop thinking about Ivy (I think sometimes people tend to feel all gooey about whomever they fuck around with simply because they seldom get any action, but that�s another story.) There was a chemistry there that was intense and overwhelming�it was like nothing I�d ever felt before�completely unique. I tried to talk myself out of it, to no avail.

When she came back to Boston, she and I and a bunch of the Cabaret cast went out one night, which I described in this entry. Ivy made out with someone on the dance floor (the guy I played opposite in Cabaret and whom I�d been madly in crush with during the production.) I was disappointed that what I�d thought was a beautiful moment between Ivy and I, possibly leading to future encounters had just been a drunk fuck-around session aand that it hadn�t meant anything to her.

But I was wrong in my assumptions. Ivy made out with Co-Star as I would later learn, because she was trying to get her mind off me�she�d been thinking about me the whole time she was away.

A week or so later she came over for dinner and we had an amazing intense fantastic romantic evening together. A couple days after that, I went away on vacation.

When we became lovers, Ivy freaked out. Although she and her Boy had agreed to be non monagamous, she had been expecting to have a string of merely physical encounters with various people. She realized she was falling for me, which wasn�t the plan. She told me we couldn�t be romantically involved anymore I was devestated but accepted it, and told her I would love to be her friend. Then she seduced me anyway. I was more than happy to oblige. We had another fantastic night.

That was Thursday. No word since then. She told me she has to think about it. That she is terribly confused.

Now granted, when you assume, you make an ass out of you and me, but my gut instinct is that she�s even more freaked out than she was before. She�d had this safe plan with her boyfriend, and now I�m gumming everything up. I am bracing myself for her telling me that she can never see me again. At that point will I pull a Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate and whisk her away? I don�t know. This certainly wasn�t in my plan either. And having had such bad drama in the past, I am attempting to err on the side of caution (well, what constitutes caution for me would be the emotional equivalent of Evil Kneivel high-jinks for most mere mortals, but it�s all relative.) What I do not want is to manipulate her into being with me. You may assign me altruistic motives if you wish, but to be honest, I�m looking out for my own welfare here as much as I am hers�I want to be absolutely 100% sure if I�m going to be with someone in any serious context that the person really wants to be with me and is in the situation of his/her own free will�not because I made it so easy. Not because I wore down her resistance. And I�m not even sure what exactly I want. I don�t want to pick out flatware. I don�t want to refer to anyone as �My Girlfriend� (or Boyfriend�what a noxious term in my humble opinion.) I don�t want to make plans. I don�t want to have any of that crap.

I don�t want labels. I don�t want rules. I don�t want to define anything. I just want to love her. And I want to be loved by her. Why can�t it just be that? For as long as it lasts, and for exactly what it is?