The Bachelor

He dimples a fry into a puddle of ketchup, then lifts it into the air. "The whole girlfriend thing?'' he goes on. "I'm into trying new things now. Like, I went on a date the other day. A regular date. The last time I did that, I was sixteen. It was somebody from around here. We went to dinner, came back to the house and watched a basketball game on TV. Usually, when I meet somebody, I'm always so skeptical, like, 'Why are they being so nice to me? What do they want?' But I felt I was relating to this girl on a human level. It was just fun, good twenty-one-year-old-I'm-on-a-date fun. I was like, 'This is so cool!' Actually, I think I'm in this zone where I don't want to be attached to anyone.''

Then he stops talking about his date with the local girl and starts talking about Spears, though he is either unwilling, or unable, to refer to her by her name.

"When we were together it was bliss,'' he says, "like something from a damn fairy tale. But right now, I just don't see -- it's just so hard. So hard. I'm the type of person, if I'm not exactly sure about something, then I'll wait it out and see. I may not ever get over her. That's why I'm kind of chilling. I'm waiting to see. I do have to come to the realization that I might never.''

Suddenly he leans forward and says, "I think now, more than ever, everything is OK. But I still love her. I really do still love that girl.''

After that, Timberlake leaves the table, goes into the other room and comes back with his Gibson, which he plays while explaining how it happened that, after much goading by the disc jockeys on Hot 97 radio in New York, he admitted to performing oral sex on Spears. "I thought, 'Well, maybe that's the sense of humor here.' But anybody who listened to that show has to know it's a joke. They were promising me spins on the radio, so I was just pimping spins. I thought it was funny as hell. That's just my sense of humor.''