People living a lie follow a strict set of rules: Don't let anyone get too close. Never relax. Keep your story straight.

That was me, until last week, that is, when I gave up the game. I don't know why I cracked. Maybe the loneliness finally took its toll. Maybe I wanted to see if I could be loved for who I am, not who I was pretending to be. Maybe it was the diet Coke talking.

But there I was, on yet another Monday morning, deconstructing ``Sex and the City'' with my TV group (we dispensed with books years ago), when I heard a voice - my voice - saying ``I don't watch it.''

For the first time in the group's history everyone stopped talking and actually listened to someone else.

Don't watch the show? Could it be possible? But I ``loved'' ``Sex and the City'' didn't I? Lived for it. Wouldn't answer the phone Sunday nights from 9 until 9:30. Wished and wished I had gone to Martha's Vineyard last summer to hear NPR's Terry Gross interview Sarah Jessica Parker.

It was all a charade.

My TV club stared in silence. They were waiting for the joke, I guess, but for once in my life, I wasn't in a kidding-around mood. ``I don't like it,'' I said. Then, with the cool detachment of someone with nothing left to lose, I tossed a grenade: ``I find it dull.''

After what seemed like an hour, one member spoke up: ``How can you not like it?'' she asked. ``Who are you?''

She was right, and I knew it. Who am I not to like a show with 10 Emmy nominations, including Outstanding Comedy Series? A show that won the Screen Actors Guild award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series? A show that took home two Golden Globe awards? A show that won an Emmy in 2001 for Outstanding Comedy Series, the first time a TV cable show has ever taken top honors for best series in any category?

I sensed the group was getting hostile, so I threw myself on its mercy. ``What's wrong with me?'' I cried.

``Do you realize what you just said?'' one of the members asked. ``That's what Carrie and her friends say!

``You're the sixth character,'' she said, then remembering who she was talking to, explained that the show's ``fifth character'' is either fashion or New York City.

``Maybe there's hope for you,'' she added.

But I knew there wasn't. I'd applied myself, I really had. I'd tried focusing on Carrie's career (she's a columnist, just like me), and Miranda's baby, and Samantha's whatever, but to no avail. Like a dud organ transplant, it just never took.

Which is really sad, considering ``Sex and the City'' was why I got HBO in the first place. Like so many people in today's society, I was searching for something to give meaning to my life, and after meeting with a personal coach, I realized that that something should be a TV show, preferably a popular one so that I could be part of something larger than myself.

Well, it didn't work out that way (see above), but after letting HBO into my home, I did become addicted to another show, Larry David's brilliant ``Curb Your Enthusiasm.''

Sadly, my husband and I seem to be the only people who watch it, so while I enjoy the program while it's on, it hasn't provided the community I'm searching for.

Here's a typical exchange:

Me: ``Cheryl, Larry's wife is so funny, isn't she?''

Other Person: ``Who?''

I'm not really sure where to go now. As someone who doesn't follow the Red Sox, I was used to being left out of conversations, but those were conversations with people I didn't really know that well, anyway. But now even my own friends are strangers.

All I can do now is hope for a strike - a writer's strike that is.