Two Wrongs Don’t Make Mr. Right

He wanted to get really serious really fast, which felt good until it didn’t.

When my Hinge match said on our first date that he wanted a serious relationship, a house with a fence, and children soon, I thought, “Maybe I should introduce him to Zerrin.” She, my dear friend, wanted something like that, too. I could not know that later that same night, in a city of eight million, Zerrin had a first date scheduled with the same man.

I also did not know what I wanted, but a house and children with this individual didn’t immediately resonate with me. This was my first date as a vaccinated person, which I still went on virtually from the safety of my apartment. It was early on a Friday night, during the same week that New York’s cherry blossoms opened, and the botanical garden’s vibraphones sang to me at the top of the hour to honor those lost to Covid.

That weekend, I sat in my apartment for hours doing my work in a meditation retreat to cultivate intuition, befriend trauma and get free — or something like that. I had spent most of the last 15 months physically alone and emotionally communing with loved ones on a screen, so what was a few more days? I had spent most of the last 15 years in serious relationships with a few different men who I believed at various points were each my person. I was sure of it each time — until I wasn’t.