Dating an Eco-Nazi.

When I first met her, she warned me that she was an "Eco-Nazi," but when love is in the air, yon don't really pay much attention to those kinds of remarks.

I figured, OK...environmentalism is cool. So I'll have to be more diligent about recycling cans and bottles: and that little blue bin the garbage men left will finally get some use. I was never one to toss an empty beer can out the car window, anyway. In fact, as an avid backpacker, I always adhered to the motto, "pack it in, pack it out." Heck, I even got my picture in the local paper at age 12 for helping out with an aluminum can drive.

On one of our first dates, a Hiroshima Day commemoration, children lit chemical-filled plastic "candles," inserted them into styrofoam "boats," and floated them down the river as a remembrance. Eager to impress my date, I nudged her to tell the organizers about the non-biodegradable trash these kids were creating in the name of world peace. She did. That won points.

But I was still an amateur. For her friend's wedding, she chose the strangest gift, a little device with long spreadable wooden fingers. "What do you think it is?" she teased. I stared. "It's a plastic bag dryer!" she said proudly. I didn't even know plastic, bags needed drying.

As our relationship developed, so did my consciousness. For the first time in my life. I turned off the faucet while brushing my teeth. And, after much practice, I quit flushing the toilet unless it was absolutely necessary. We rarely took showers, and when we did, we used SAFE SOAP that may not have cleaned our hair, but definitely didn't pollute the ocean.

And I'm starting to spread the message. While on vacation in Cape May, I caught myself screaming, "Hey, PICK THAT UP!" at a pre-teen who had casually tossed his candy wrapper on the boardwalk.

Back at home, I posted a notice on the office bulletin board urging everyone to boycott the cafeteria's styrofoam cups and plastic utensils by using their own glass and silverware. Now, if I'm forced to buy coffee in styrofoam, I re-use the cup until it disintegrates and my car reeks of stale caffeine.

I don't know what's happening to me. I've become as obsessive as she is. I return hangers and dry cleaning bags to the cleaners along with my dirty shirts. I reuse paper and plastic bags, coffee cans and pickle jars. I've even given up cutting the grass, and watched a once-neat yard turn into a wild jungle.

And the leaves in my yard? I don't dare stuff them in plastic bags for the landfill; she'd kill me! I guess I'll carry them into the woods and pile them up for mulching, along with the vegetable peelings from the kitchen. (We're not eating meat these days.)

Suddenly, every action seems to have a potential impact on the environment. The funny part is, she never insisted that I do any of these things. And I didn't change my ways just to please her. I changed because I knew she was right.

DARRELL BRADFORD is a Connecticut-based career counselor.