A sudden paroxysm of dread swarmed my body – head to toe – as I watched his grin curl up into ghastly smile that was reminiscent of a demonic Cheshire cat.

“Oh, that’s funny,” he said with a chuckle.

My skin crawled. From then on, I vowed to stop with the jokes – that frightening, toothy smirk had me shook and I was determined to never see it again.

But as the ghoulish grin vanished, his eloquence reappeared. He was pretty damn witty – he could sweet talk any girl – including you dear reader, as you, too, would fall for his charms if he got his hands on you.

He was a charming nerd who gushed about outer space, Japanese animation, and international politics. I suddenly forgot about his horrendous smile; as he spoke, my brain tingled with curiosity, my mind throbbed with intellectual stimulation, and my thoughts swirled in mental amazement.

On one hand, his gappy teeth, protrusive nose, and receding hairline made my eyeballs want to roll right out of their sockets, but on the other hand, he had a gift for gab that could melt the wintriest ice queen.

I didn’t know how I felt about him. “Was I attracted to him or not?” I wondered.

Every time I saw him – the man that I am dating – this was the question that had me see-sawing in vacillation. “Am I into him or am I just being charmed by his words?” I couldn’t make any sense of it. I constantly flip flopped between “Damn, he’s unattractive AF” to being completely love struck by his silver tongue.

If you ask me, superficiality definitely has a place when it comes to searching for “the one” – not that you should rule someone out just because they’re not a SZA fan or they have flat feet. But at the very least, shouldn’t one be physically attracted to their partner?

Because let’s be honest, if we were to ever become intimate and he’s not flexing that silver tongue of his – pun not intended – to show off his eloquence, I’m going to be as dry as a nun’s hoo-ha.

There’s a lid for every pot, isn’t there? Though I may find him to have a face for radio, some other woman may find him to be fine as wine. And alternatively, while one man may think I look like a hideous wildebeest, another may find me to be rather cute.

I am not his lid – he should find someone who truly finds him sexy.

Now, it wasn’t the evil Cheshire smile nor the Lebron James hairline that officially turned me off. It was the rotten-smelling, headache-inducing, life-killing fart that trumpeted out of his butt while he was snoring like a freight train.

Now hold on – I know gas is natural and I’m usually mature about it, but I don’t know y’all. This time around, there was something about a fart coming out of an unearthly looking human being that makes the flatulence, which is already foul AF on its own, seem even more nasty.

That was it. I was done. The fart was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Now comes the big question. What should I do? Should I tell the truth, tell him I find him unattractive, and hit the ground running? Or should I make up a lie and run for the hills?

Kimberly Gedeon, founder of The Melody of Melanin, is a content creator and illustrator with nearly 2,000 professional articles published online. You can say hello to her on Instagram or Twitter – she doesn’t bite!