Female interiority is rarely brought up in conversations concerning heterosexual love, for it’s seen as unimportant, as nothing comes before the almighty dollar in terms of a proper match.

In the vastness that is femalehood, and the darkness that awaits us all when we close our eyes, I often wonder why the idealized marriage, in our modern era, still amounts to nothing more than a Victorian lobotomy.

Romance should never meet us in the form of a horror story, nor should we end up with men who ask us to self-abandon

in the name of motherhood or martial duty.

I like to think there are men out there who understand a thing or two about fealty; about what it means to love a woman, and tend to her through all her days. I reckon we haven’t been taught, properly, how to spot them. We’re often missing the forest for the trees. What money (alone) and status (alone) seem to promise, they don’t always give.

What then, is a woman to do, when it comes to picking Mr. Right?

In this essay, I answer, “use a different proxy.”