M or F?
Lisa Papademetriou
 Frannie Falconer has a crush on someone. For once, it's on someone who doesn't look like a Museum of Natural History exhibit- hot vegetarian volunteer Jeffrey Osbourne, who even her gay best friend and 'brain twin' Marcus Beauregard can't find anything to laugh about. She's chronically shy around him, though, so Marcus suggests that she chat with him online, as it takes away some of the nausea of face-to-face conversation. Even that doesn't work, so Marcus decides to 'help out' a little- by taking over the keyboard and writing the conversations for her. At first, this works out perfectly, because Frannie's hovering over his shoulder making sure he doesn't do anything stupid. Later, however, Marcus becomes tempted to continue on these conversations when Frannie's not around using her screen name--and it becomes unclear exactly who Jeffrey likes- Marcus or Frannie. Meanwhile, Frannie and Jeffrey's so-called 'relationship' is suffering—as chronicled with such madcap adventures as Marcus signing Frannie up for the school carnival's "Shoot the Freak" booth while he's online talking to Jeffrey. Frannie begins to worry that Marcus may be jealous of her spending so much time with Jeffrey and his group, especially after Jeffrey's best friend Glenn makes a somewhat nasty homophobic joke. Eventually, however, Frannie finds out that Marcus has been posing as her online, and they get into a huge fight. She calls Jenn, one of her other friends, and they realize that Jeffrey wasn't falling for Frannie at all, but actually for Marcus, who he thought was Frannie. This leads them to believe that Jeffrey might be gay. Frannie decides to find out by trying to seduce Jeffrey by wearing a negligee and serving him ginseng-laced hot cacao, but when he throws up, she decides he must be gay. Marcus and Frannie reconcile, and she tells him of her suspicions of Jeffrey's sexuality. They decide to take Jeffrey to a meeting of the school's Gay-Straight Alliance, but this doesn't give them any information. Marcus decides to try and hook up with Jeffrey. The next day, Frannie is waiting outside of the Lincoln Park Cinema, waiting for Marcus to arrive so they can see a special showing of King Kong. To her surprise, Glenn, Jeffrey's best friend, shows up, telling her that Marcus told him to go there. Marcus calls, telling Frannie he has a flat and will be 'unable to make it,' and Frannie realizes what Marcus is going to do—and that he's trying to set her and Glenn up. She tells Glenn about it, and he reveals to her that he's gay, denying the fact that Jeffrey is. Frannie puts two and two together and realizes that Marcus is about to make the 'most humiliating mistake of his life' by trying to hit on Jeffrey. They rush over to Buckingham Fountain, where Marcus is just about to kiss Jeffrey. Everything gets sorted out, and Jeffrey confesses that he needed help with the online conversations as well, so Glenn helped him, and eventually the same thing that happened with Marcus and Frannie happened with them as well. Jeffrey and Frannie walk off, while Glenn talks to Marcus and eventually kisses him. Meanwhile, Frannie tells Jeffrey that they would be better off as friends. In the end, Glenn ends up with Marcus, the German girl Astrid is still hitting on Jeffrey, and Frannie ends up with a freaky quasi-cowboy she met at a line-dancing place Marcus's grandmother made them go.