In the summer of 2009, the American Psychological Association conducted a study in which it placed one crazy woman in a house at 2000 S St. in Washington D.C. to see if she could stay for three months. She failed.

The study concluded that Erika Wolfcryer was doomed to failure because of three conditions: depression, attachment to her boyfriend, and general craziness. After entering into the house with the greatest of intentions and getting along well with all the housemates, she quickly slid into a pattern of fighting with other girls, moping around the house, and spending countless hours on the phone with her boyfriend Ian—a puffy rocker type who looks like the fat younger brother of the old bassist from Interpol. She would often threaten to leave the house so that her fragile self-esteem could be boosted by her housemates who would beg and plead that she stay.

Erika is the kind of girl who proved that she loves to talk a good game, but could really do little to back it up. She is supposedly trying to start a music career, but unlike Josh, her less talented roommate who got together the gumption to form Wicked Liquid (the least known band with the most merchandise in the whole world), she couldn't do anything but sing one song at one concert by some band that no one ever heard of. Repeated attempts to get a band together failed, and she barely bothered to write songs even though she claimed that is the way she lets her soul breathe.

It didn't help that her cohort, Andrew Pandahat, the kind of kid who doesn't fret much about deadlines but says he wants to work for a newspaper, networked for about 30 seconds and got a gig writing for D.C.'s foremost right-wing propaganda machine owned by the Moonies. He got to go to the White House and meet look at President Obama! They even published his cartoon. Sure, it wasn't based on its own merits but because he was on some reality show or something, but it is an accomplishment Erika could never muster.

Then her boyfriend came to visit. He'd been pestering and bothering her for months how excited he was to see Ford's Theatre and the Newseum and how she couldn't leave the house before he got there, and she stayed. As important as it is for her ego to be stroked by those around her, it is even more important that she please her man. Her entire identity is composed of vague notions of longing that she doesn't have the energy or fortitude to fulfill and the fact that she has a boyfriend in a band. It is a fragile persona indeed.

Once he arrives—with a bunch of similarly outfitted pilot fish in his wake—she can't leave his side. She threatens to leave again. At this point, after making the decision unsuccessfully three times, she is finally going to do it. Yes, her bags are packed. She must stay with her boyfriend. But wait! She will give her roommates once last chance. If they say they will "tie her down and make her stay" then she will have the emotional fortitude to stay. She pleads with them and says she will forgo her happiness to stay with them.

This is the wrong case to make. The are sick of her pleading and tired of her fake outs. They let her go, and she is upset about it. She is less of a person now that people won't fight for her presence. Now she will go back to Ohio and sit around a cafe in Columbus where she runs the open mic night. Her boyfriend and all her friends will come and whenever she plays a song, they clap furiously. It's like when the audience at Peter Pan claps, bringing the fairy back to life so she can flit and flutter about the theater. Yes, that's what she needs. Not the approval of seven strangers, but the love of millions! She will be very, very famous. Or she'll die fat and bitter in Columbus, never having made it out, never finding anyone who will clap for her ever again.