Love like this: meet someone, anyone, who looks vaguely mean and try to date them. Start to break down those walls when you’re in bed together because you figure if there was anytime for someone to be vulnerable, it’d be then. Ask them somewhat jokingly to spell the word monogamy for you. They can’t do it. As they stutter over the letters, the ends of their mouth curl and then turn into anger. Oops. The spell you’ve cast in bed has now been broken. Get out and put on some clothes. Tell this vaguely mean man that you have to run to the corner store for some orange juice and then never look back. See images of your future together as you’re hailing a cab. It doesn’t look good. Wonder if you will ever stop seeing men as challenges.
Meet another person through mutual friends. It’s at a dinner party. Someone is making a Waldorf salad. Another is wearing a gingham dress. You figure this must be a night for romance. Start talking to this man while clutching a glass of lukewarm white wine and think you like him, you really really like him. His brain, his life could be another glorious present for you to unwrap. So exciting! But, wait, oh wait. You’re getting a vision again. Darn it! You know how the kid in The Sixth Sense could see dead people? Well, you have that too, except instead of dead people, you can see dead relationships. Let’s see, what’s wrong with this one? Oh, okay, this isn’t a big surprise. He’s very unemotional, which means that you will always be seen as The Crazy One. That’s no fun! You aren’t crazy, you just like to articulate your feelings! There’s a difference. Oh well. Hold your glass of white wine until you feel it begin to crack and then interrupt this bozo to say, “You will never emotionally fulfill me. Know that.” Then walk away.
Meet another man on OkCupid. Go out to a wine bar that’s populated with a bunch of pathetic single ladies and flaunt your date in front of them so they know that you’re going places. After five minutes of tepid conversation, you realize that you can fry this man like an egg on concrete. He’s too nice. He’s told you the story of the one time he got too drunk and puked everywhere. “It was nuts. Like, I vomited.” Refrain from telling him that you vomited just yesterday. Oy, this man is definitely too kind. He makes you feel like a bad person. Oh well. Date him anyway for six months because you want to hold on to someone but vow to never remember his penis.
Meet a man in a graveyard (AKA another dating website) and decide to date him out of desperation. Never meet his friends. Never go out to lunch together. The whole relationship exists indoors, except for the one time you had sex in a park. Know that the relationship is bullshit but be too weak to stop. Are these the only options available in 2012? Someone you loosely date for too long that never achieves any semblance of a real relationship? You hesitate to call him your boyfriend but you don’t know what other label makes sense. “Guy I See At Night Who Fucks Me And Leaves Me Feeling Spiritually Bankrupt at 6 a.m.?” No. You can’t see this person anyone. You can’t love him.
Everyone is either too nice or too mean. Men are either degrading you or treating you like you’re their mother. It’s gross. Get me out of here and preferably into a time machine. 
