Ken and I are going steady. Unlike most men who think they have all the answers, Ken has all the questions, and he’s got lightning speed with a buzzer.

Every night at 7, I have a date, and I am not alone in this affair.

He’s an unlikely object of my affection. He’s Ken Jennings, a Mormon software engineer from Salt Lake City who has the facial hair of a newly fallen peach. And he’s captured the hearts of many while boosting the all-important Nielsen ratings. (The show’s ratings jumped from 5.8 million households Ken’s first week on the show to 6.5 million the next.)

And Ken’s setting records. On Wednesday, he scored his 26th consecutive win, amassing earnings of $788,960, which makes him the fifth all-time game-show winner in television history. This section went to bed before Thursday’s broadcast of “Jeopardy!,” but Jennings wouldn’t dare go down to defeat and mess up this story – after I’ve given him the best half-hour allegiance of my life.

“Ken Jennings has been “Jeopardy!’ champion longer than William Henry Harrison was president of the United States,” cracked host Alex Trebek, who admitted to struggling to find new small talk to make with the fresh-faced boy wonder with the steel-trap memory.

Ken – and we are on a first-name basis – drills through every category with machine-gun speed and a marksman’s precision.

He’s like the boy next door – if your next door neighbor is Albert Einstein – a genius, but an endearing one. How else to explain why so many continue to tune in. And judging by Ken websites, they want to see his streak continue. The Mormons are, of course, cheering him on; he plans to give 10 percent of his winnings to the church.

Trebek told him on one show, “I’m calling you “Ken the Merciless.”‘

Ken startled him with his comeback, “That’s what my wife calls me.”

Sure, my Ken doll makes mistakes, but so seldomly, I can forgive.

On Tuesday, the Final Jeopardy category was “Historic Englishmen.”

The answer was: “Ironically, he might have saved himself from death in 1779 if he had known how to swim.”

Where usually there is confidence in those penetrating eyes, there was doubt. I swear I saw the tips of Ken’s elf-like ears twitch. There were beads of sweat on his rose-petal lips.

“Who is George III?” he had written.

No, the correct answer was: “Who is Captain Cook?”

Well, it mattered not. Ken had all the dough anyhow and won handily. It’s never close with Ken.

But he is vulnerable.

He’s also got to be tired, and he’s probably headed for a life with carpal tunnel problems from all that buzzer pushing.

We know that the shows were taped in February, and he’s home now with his wife, Mindy, a 1-year-old son, and a dog named Banjo, watching the tapes. So he must have lost at some point.

Not even Ken can go on forever. But I’ll never forget this summer of love, curling up on the couch with Ken night after night for one glorious half-hour, calling out “Go, Ken, Go.”

Whatever happens, we’ll always have our “Jeopardy!” theme song to remember him by.