There’s nothing more disheartening than when people you thought were your friends never come around to hang out anymore. They always tell you they’re “too busy,” or “had something come up,” or that “the election is over.”

Remember when President Bush and John Kerry always used to come over to Ohio? It seemed as if they made a surprise visit to some Ohio town every other day. Bush mosied over to Toledo, and said he cared about us, and thought we were cool cats. He visited historic Fort Meigs State Memorial in Perrysburg. He even made a surprise visit to a Cleveland Browns practice, at which point he and Dick Cheney beat them in a scrimmage, 28-14.

Kerry one-upped him and brought the bus to Bowling Green back in August. He even invited notable Ohioans — John Glenn, the astronaut/senator, and Dennis Kucinich, the lovable Martian captured by Glenn in space.

What happened to the times when those guys would pop in like Cosmo Kramer and comparable hilarity would ensue?

Today, Bush is still on TV uh-ing and um-ing his way through speeches about some war overseas, national resolve and how God blesses our country but no one else’s. Nobody has heard from Kerry since he conceded defeat. Word on the street is he’s still a senator, which is code for “you’ll never hear from him again.”

No matter where their paths take them, they surely won’t intersect Ohio any time soon. Why would a little thing such as the end of the election suddenly keep those two sweet guys from stopping by anymore? They each had a strong vision about the future of America. We came out in droves to hear their ideas. (Although some of us just wanted to throw our panties at John Edwards or see if we could get thrown out of a Bush rally.)

Sadly, our popularity peaked on the eve of Nov. 2. Everyone tuned in to Brokaw, Rather and Jennings to hear the million dollar question: “What does Ohio think?”

Once the nation knew what we thought, nobody cared about us anymore. That is, nobody important — just those adorable little third parties.

Before the election, we were rubbing elbows with the Democratic and Republican candidates: Bush the party animal and Kerry the jock. Now, we’re being bugged by the Green Party’s David Cobb and the Libertarian Party’s Michael Badnarik — the Milhouse Van Houtens of American politics. Badnarik is a former computer programmer, and Cobb looks like someone we could easily hassle for some lunch money.

In short, Ohio is now infested with nerds. Pushy nerds, at that.

Cobb and Badnarik are claiming Ohio didn’t vote correctly. This is in contrast to Kerry the athlete and Bush the cheerleader saying Ohio voted correctly. Ohio ought to look these dweebs in the eye and say “Look, dorkuses, we already made up our mind. Even if we were to change our mind, we couldn’t decide on you, because nobody wants to see pocket protectors in the White House.” At this point we could hang them in the gym by their underwear.

Sadly, all this nerdbusting probably won’t bring Bush and Kerry back to the Buckeye State, and that saddens me as an Ohioan. As a state, what did we do to deserve the loss of our two cool best friends?

Maybe we were too hung up on their awesome personae. After all, Bush used to own a Major League Baseball team, and he could have totally hooked us up with Rangers tickets and let us crash at his party house in Texas. As for Kerry, he used to date Morgan Fairchild, and now we won’t be able to ask him if they went all the way.

Could it be possible that we were bragging about the attention Bush and Kerry were giving us, without caring about the consequences? We forgot to be ourselves. We’re not the apple of the nation’s eye, we’re Ohio: that boring Midwest state whose topography is flatter than Olive Oyl.

We don’t have anything in common with Bush or Kerry. They’re all about fiscal responsibility in Washington and keeping America safe from terrorists and bogeymen. All we do is get drunk on the weekends and play Halo 2 while eating pizza.

Maybe the politician who runs on that platform should stop by, and we can just chillax or something.

This column is Matt’s cry for help, as he has no cool friends. If you’re cool, e-mail him at [email protected].