Reading Time: 3 minutes When I got a bit older, I tested and patented a new system I like to call Fuckboy FiltrationTM. It’s where you ask for what you want when you want it. For example: If I didn’t feel secure, I would let the person I was dating know, and tell him what I needed to feel better. If I wanted a relationship to move forward I would outline my expectations: where I wanted things to go, when I wanted that, and what would happen if those expectations weren’t met. I even sometimes went out of my way to be terrifying, like “Hello, hi, are we dating, is it serious, it puts the lotion on its skin.”

The result? Singlehood. Glorious, powerful, elective singlehood. Also, some (lots of) crying.

The men that were spooked by these conversations faded away. Almost every time I did this I was ghosted within a month. And…I loved it. Obviously, it was frustrating at times, but I knew that I was successfully filtering out people who didn’t want what I wanted, or who just didn’t want to be with me.