libel. He was staring at me so hard, my white work wife passed me a note: “That guy is totally checking you out!” No shit, Sherlock. He sneezed a few times during said meeting, so afterward I slipped him a packet of raspberry lemonade Emergen-C. He asked me out to Starbucks the next day.

“Soooo, basically this cat is an intern,” said Gina, doing her best to sound supportive.

James and I played relationship limbo for a while, meeting for coffee and philosophy twice a week and hooking up once in his bedroom, which was missing a door because it was two-timing him with the better half of a living room. A week later, he told me we couldn’t get “romantically involved” because it might affect him professionally. Dude, you’re a fucking intern! You’ve got Ikea curtains for walls! Six months later, I was still convinced we could make it work. I mean, he grew up in Namibia and France and Arkansas. Barack and Michelle 2.0!

At my twenty-seventh birthday party, about a year after the Emergen-C move, I slunk over to where James was standing and wrapped my fingers around his bicep. “Soooo, what are weeeee doing later?”

“You mean after this?” He used his martini glass to draw a circle around the crowd.

“Yes, retard.”

“Wait, you wanna have sex!”

“Omigod. I can’t.” We left shortly after and did.

That was also the first time I met Dex10 (also known as Dexter). I don’t remember it (James, champagne, hormones), but supposedly I was extremely friendly.

“Dude, get your fucking life together,” was the message that came down from the Oracle. But then again, she was the one who’d spent the past three years “dating” a guy we called the Fireman because he was a fireman. He wanted to marry her and move her to St. Louis, where he fought fires and stuff. “I’m too bourgie for that shit,” was her answer. So now she’s playing red light / green light with Bilal, who thinks marriage is for suckers and children are unethical.

The point is, we’re becoming those women. The ones guys refer to as “wifey material,” since apparently spouses come in specific fabric grades. After about a week of flirting online, Dex10 described me this way: “Hi, my name’s Helena and I’m awesome. The end.” Gee, thanks. I’ll make sure to keep that in mind when we break up for the fifty thousandth time. Suddenly, Lisa Nowak didn’t look so crazy. Actually, she might have been on to something.

What does “wifey material” even mean when someone at the Washington Post thinks the headline “Marriage Is for White People?” is okay? The article, of course, became another one of Gina’s and my obsessions. The Washington fucking Post was against us now.

“Dude, is there anyone out there who wants us to find a man?” I asked, more begging than wondering. SOSing, really.

“Nope.”

The reporter who wrote the story worked part-time with kids, who I’m going to assume were from the “inner city,” because those are the kids people write about in newspapers. Once, in one of her classes, during a discussion on how to be a good father, one frustrated little boy said, “Marriage is for white people,” and clearly a movement was born (remember the AAHMI? Me neither). This kid wasn’t into the whole “first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby carriage” thing. Perhaps Nursery Rhymes that Subliminally Teach Minority Children about Healthy Social Institutions 101 should be a kindergarten requirement.

If so, Dexter would still be eating Play Doh, instead of just playing dumb. Fast-forward to a scene between my sheets on one of the many horrendously long Saturday nights that led to my ignoring him on IM.

So, we’re naked and he goes, “I don’t know. It’s like…I don’t know…Maybe it’s that I don’t think I can live up to the low expectations you have of me.” He’s looking past my forehead.

“What?” I’m trying to sound as nonmurderous as possible. No such luck. “Are you fucking serious right now? Like are you actually saying this to me right now?”

“Helena, you’re the most amazing person.” Now he’s looking me in the eyes. “Like, I’ll never meet anyone better than you. I just know I’ll mess this up.” He was slipping through my fingers, and I couldn’t clench my fists fast enough. It was one of those terrifying, long-winded, up-late, naked conversations that never begin or end. The first of many we’d have.

This particular cram session all started with a bad fashion choice.

I’d “caught” Dexter—at