Confessions of Real-Life Desperate Housewives

Dating Is a Drag

U.S. Census Bureau statistics show that 50 percent of all marriages end in divorce -- which means there are a lot of newly single women out there learning to date all over again, just like Susan. While we may not believe that someone who looks like Teri Hatcher would ever have trouble snagging a boyfriend, her struggle to redefine herself as a confident, single woman -- and her close relationship with her teenage daughter -- hit a nerve with Elizabeth Hanson, 55, of Wallingford, Pennsylvania, who is also divorced.

Hanson, who prides herself on looking 10 years younger than her age, thinks the relationship between Susan and her daughter on the show reflects her own dynamic with her 15-year-old daughter, Valerie. "Valerie always passed judgment on my clothes and people I dated because they were usually younger than me," Hanson says. "In fact, even now she says that sometimes she feels like the mother, and I am the daughter because she is much more cautious and regimented in her actions, where I am kind of freewheeling and spur-of-the moment."

But Hanson especially identifies with Susan's self-doubt. "I am always falling, tripping, trying to make an inconspicuous entrance and messing it up somehow!" she says.