I’ve been told I’m too picky, but I went out more than once with a guy who has peed on me in a non-sexual way. As in, he drunkenly treated me as a toilet. My Perfect Man has, in his life, rescued a family of ducklings. He can be fat or thin, 25 or 45, kids or no kids, rich or less rich. He can be bald, jobless, and have had a few wives disappear under mysterious circumstances. He can be a bad comedian. The duckling thing is non-negotiable.

I’m also somewhat in the romance game, professionally. I make a portion of my living writing love poems and I officiate weddings. I do this often for friends, but there have been multiple occasions where I am paid by strangers to stand in a garden or overlooking an ocean and I impart my romantic wisdom. I open up my book and I recite poems I’ve written about the power of love, and about how little life is worth without it. Then a new father-in-law writes me a check in a busy kitchen as cater waiters whiz by. He hands me a glass of champagne and thanks me for being a part of such a special day. Sometimes I take home a piece of cake with aluminum foil sticking to the frosting, which I usually eat in the car. I’ll pose for a photo which a glowing bride and groom beg to send me. I get in my zipcar calling, “I’d love that, you have my email address!” and I drive off watching them excitedly wave from a beach hut or a country club, with their arms entwined, and I know I’ll never hear from them again.

I love writing about love. I’m not well-versed in it, but I’ve had some moments of great romance. I’ve been the recipient of a poem or two. A song inspired by me has been written. Things have been cooked for me more than once. A couple of guys once whisked my friend and I on an all-night date in Manhattan, even buying us flowers from a bodega, before we were old enough to realize how monumentally stupid it was to just hand ourselves over to strangers because they knew a friend of mine. And I’ve had other moments, too silly or sad or elusive to be traditionally romantic, but the romance still hung thick around those evenings like old willow branches.