I have a bone to pick with you. You must stop sending me the wrong man this instant. I’m going to be 30, and your game is stale now that we are in the fourth round.

The first one was bad enough. After I waited and waited for a guy, you finally threw me one when I was 22. Twenty-two! I had my first real, grown-up kiss at 22 – how pathetic is that?

Actually, the whole affair was pathetic. He was too busy and preoccupied with money problems to bother making me a Valentine’s Day card, let alone planning a Valentine’s night out. So I was cheated out of my first real Valentine’s Day. I couldn’t really introduce him to friends, because I wasn’t sure the object of my love life and the mainstays of my social life would get along.

With the second one, I felt as if you were starting to side with me. It was lit with sparks and laughter. Every moment spent with this one was a fantasy come true. We went to dinners, I even got my very own surprise birthday party, we had fun and were so in love. But apparently I was too mean and free-spirited for his liking. But let’s stay friends, he implored, because he will never love anyone else as much as he loved me. I hear his new girl gets a surprise birthday party every year, too.

The third one I’m not certain could even be called a relationship – it looked like one, but the guy never brought up the topic, so let’s call it a quasi-relationship. This one could have worked had he been six years older, not Muslim and financially stable. Living with him was peaceful and pleasant for the most part, but there wasn’t enough space to distance ourselves in an apartment meant for one person. And we could never be married or have children, not without the wealth to say, “Fuck you, world, we don’t care what you say about this interfaith union.”

That’s when I resolved to go for a rich man who was sweet, caring, funny, perhaps a tad too short, but so very intelligent. I knew he was married, but thought he was estranged. He wasn’t. He was very happy with his wife, had two beautiful children and lovely Christmas dinners with the entire family.

When I said rich, sweet, intelligent and single, I meant put it all into one man. Polygamy is illegal and polyamory is so weird.

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