I HAVE A CONFESSION TO MAKE: I'M A BIT OF A NERD. Have probably been one since the age of 5, when I took up bird-watching in my family's backyard with the intensity of an ornithologist--using my binoculars, bird encyclopedia and a special composition book to take copious notes. Did I mention that I also play the violin, am utterly fascinated by cloud formations, and can spend hours researching a matter to its minute details, just for the sheer thrill of learning?

Still, for more years than I care to remember I tried to carefully conceal this part of me from the men I dated. As far as I could tell, guys liked fun party girls, not those of us who spent our downtime devouring the latest nonfiction opus. Men wanted women who swayed their hips and oozed sensuality, not the ones who were more likely to be found in the library than at the local dance club.

So I decided very early on that I should neatly pack away the geek in me and play the fun-loving party girl. I foolishly thought I could squeeze myself into some mold of what I imagined men liked. I didn't see it as frontin'--just a repackaging for marketing purposes. But at the root of it was a lack of self-confidence about who I was, a subconscious fear that someone would not love me--quirks and all.

My existence as a fractional being--at least when it came to dating--was frustrating and exhausting. Pretending to be something you're not saps your energy. You censor every response and action lest the real you slip out. You begin to feel as if a piece of you is missing. Worst of all, failing to show your authentic self can ruin your chances at finding true love, even as it strips away your spirit. "If you're a chameleon who adapts to whatever someone else wants you to be, you don't truly have a sense of self," says Audrey B. Chapman, Ph.D., a Washington, D.C., relationship therapist and author of Seven Attitude Adjustment for Finding a Loving Man (Pocket).

After a string of Mr. Wrongs and unfulfilling short-lived relationships, I finally began to understand the pitfalls of my masquerade. This was not the pathway to the love I deserved. As I stood in the middle of a midtown Manhattan nightclub with a very handsome Mr. Wrong one evening, surveying the array of gyrating dancers and watching cigarette smoke swirl above the crowd like nimbus clouds, my simmering dissatisfaction with the situation turned to anger at myself. I had had enough. This was not my scene. I was not having fun. No, Mr. Deejay, I vowed to myself, I will not wave 'em like I just don't care.

STOP PLAYING THE ROLE

In the years since my self-emancipation, I've met several men I've made a real connection with--one of them I ultimately married. But I've also come across countless other women who've been afraid to keep it real in their relationships. The posturing is sometimes subtle (pretending you're confident and fulfilled when inside you're screaming with boredom), sometimes severe (lying to your partner about your sexual history). But in every instance, the pretender is the one shortchanged. "You will never find real love if you aren't being real yourself," Chapman says. Instead you could be setting yourself up for a string of counterfeit courtships, failed marriages and an unending trail of suffocated relationships that never had a chance to truly breathe. "These relationships don't last because people eventually find out you aren't who you say you are," explains Larry E. Davis, Ph.D., author of Black and Single: Meeting and Choosing a Partner Who's Right for You (Noble Press).

Two years ago, Denise Bradford *, 26, of New York City was headed down the aisle before she eventually put the brakes on the relationship. Somewhere after the marketing executive's two engagement parties and before choosing bridesmaid dresses, she had a moment of clarity. "I didn't really love him, nor did I want the life he wanted," she recalls. "I was totally faking it." Bradford says that instead of being genuine about her relationship expectations and personal goals, she had simply said yes--to a life of white picket fences in suburbia when what she really wanted was a third-floor walk-up in the city; yes to having children soon after marriage when she dreamed of attending graduate school; yes to love when she really wasn't feeling him.

"On paper he was every woman's dream--good job, good looks, good gifts, good family stock. But I didn't love him the way he loved me," she says. "I kept hoping my feelings would catch up with my words and actions, but it didn't happen. I had to stop lying to myself." Bradford stopped dwelling on society's idea of a "good catch," admitted she was still recovering from a previous breakup, and found the courage to be true to herself. She has decided to wait until she finds what she really wants in a partnership.