Chapter 7: The Real Reason I'm Single

It's not because I was catfished by a matchmaker, although that certainly didn't help. Hi, I'm Zara Field*, and this is the seventh installment in my admittedly wild dating diary, which is often surprising even to me.

MONDAY, 9 P.M.

I'm on the phone with Melissa, a matchmaker who found me through a mutual friend. She's not the first who's tried to add me to her database after scoping out my LinkedIn and personal socials. Matchmakers love my résumé. And men love my tits. So there's that.

Melissa's interview is so thorough, you'd think I were applying for national security clearance. How long was my last relationship? Where do I see my career going? Where have I traveled? Damn, do I at least get TSA PreCheck after this? "You are such a treat!" she says. "How is someone like you still single?" And there it is. Validation served with a cold side of pity.

Look, I get it, how Melissa sees me: Despite the fact that I have advanced degrees, the most supportive friends, and a career I'm killing it in and that I am genuinely happy, there must be something fundamentally wrong with me if I haven't found my forever person at an age when my grandmother already had four kids.

And I'll be honest. There was a time in my early 20s when getting engaged felt like the only achievement that mattered, and every year that passed without hitting that milestone made me internalize deeper and deeper shame at my failure. But somewhere down the line, I stopped tying my self-worth to my marital status and redefined my mindset. Do I want to get married? Absolutely. Am I in a rush? No. My person will come when they're meant to, and in the meantime, how lucky am I to get to fool around, friend-zone, or fuck to my heart's content?