The wedding vows in The New York Times are required reading for women in Manhattan. "Barbara loves wearing masks to parties and met Joe when she dropped her programme at the opera and he picked it up." My friend Liza loves the vows. I don't. It just makes me feel bad. I've always thought there should be "divorces" on the opposite page. "Barbara and Joe thought they'd found true love but then she caught him cheating on her with the decorator." Last Saturday night I called Liza. She couldn't talk. She was getting ready for a wedding. She gets invited to a lot. She's pretty, friendly and great at small talk. People like Liza. After we hung up, her phone rang. A male voice said "Hello," and though she was unsure who it belonged to, she didn't ask "Who is this?" in case it was a friend. Liza doesn't like to offend anyone. We couldn't be more different. The man asked what she was doing. "Getting dressed." "So what are you wearing?" he asked.

She assumed it was her friend Carl and replied: "A strapless dress." "What are you wearing underneath?" he ventured. Casually she responded, "A bra and underpants," and expressed concern about VPL. He interrupted: "Are you wearing La Perla?" This made her pause, but only momentarily. Carl is gay: it's possible he would ask this. "No." She doesn't own any La Perla. "Would you like to?" Now she knew it wasn't Carl. Carl is cheap. He would never buy her La Perla.

"Who is this?" she asked. The man said "Steven" and sounded embarrassed.

They laughed, and Liza was hopeful. Maybe this was her future husband. She could see the vows announcement: "They met by accident when he called the wrong number. She was on her way to a wedding." So she continued chatting.

"That was a hot conversation we were having," he said. He inquired if her bra was a push-up. A strapless, she answered, and the questions quickly became more provocative. He asked if she liked kinky sex, if she liked being kissed hard or soft. She responded, "In between" to stay neutral.

Then Steven asked her the craziest place she'd ever had sex. She thought about it. She wanted to come up with something exciting. It might have been a dirty phone call, but she didn't want him to lose interest.

Finally she said she had to go. "Just leave me with one hot erotic thought for the night," he says. Now she's stressed; what will he like? She tells him she likes being waxed, feels stupid, and says goodbye. So an obscene phone call leaves her feeling bad that she wasn't dirty enough. I blame the vows. Then I remember something even more disturbing: why is it that when I called, she didn't have time to talk?