It’s 2026. I’ve now had two failed relationships (technically five if you count those three two-week-long flings that knighted me with the title of “girlfriend”), two situationships, and I’ve now gone on first dates with enough men, I could rally them up and start a platoon. But they all had one thing in common: they were… strange, in some way or another. So, entering this new year, I’m wondering: is it finally time to start dating normal men?

Now, when I say these men were strange, I mean… well, I guess I mean that they were strange. I’d like to think they had no more quirks than the rest of us, that they were just human, but when I think back on it (and, mind you, all I have to do is devote 1% of my total brain power to think about it), I find they all had a minimum of at least one glaringly bright red flag. Shall we go down the line?

Probably not–it gets to a point where this is all going to start reflecting poorly on me. However, context is necessary, my dear reader, and I fear there’s a lot of context to be given.

The Strange Men of My Youth

Now, to prove the point on why it might be time to date a normal man, I’d like to present my past love interests by their–how do I word this delicately–eccentricities, followed by the specific way they broke my heart. Now, I haven’t mapped all of this out yet, but, who knows? Maybe we’ll start finding correlations (other than the most obvious one, which is me and my poor decision-making skills). 

My first boyfriend. I mean, truly, what wasn’t wrong with him? He didn’t brush his teeth, he didn’t shower, he couldn’t and wouldn’t keep a job, he had a girl best friend he was in love with, and I think he was also in love with his mom. 

How did he break my heart, you may be asking?

I mean, truly, how didn’t he break my heart? He lied to me, he cheated on me, he screamed at me constantly, and he threatened to take his own life if I ever tried to leave him–a tactic that doesn’t work on me now, but, unfortunately, kept poor 20-year-old Jaz in a hell of her own creation. 

Dollars to donuts: he’s now dating said best friend that he was in love with, the one he lied to me about during our entire relationship. Big shocker!

There are throughlines, for sure. It’s not my place to draw them out, though. 

In my defense, it doesn’t get any stranger after that one. I lived and I learned! It gets better. 

The next was my year-and-a-half long situationship. I’d rather not talk about how I got myself into such a predicament, if it’s alright with you. (But here, just in case you’re curious). 

He was… a quirky, whimsical kind of strange. He was hygienic! He had a stable job! He had a normal amount of admiration towards his mom, nothing more! However, comma….

I’m struggling for the words to even describe him. He thought being cringy was hilarious. But he had a way of pulling it off, and I’m not just saying that because I was in love with him!

He liked to take the hand of a random stranger and interlock it with the hand of another random stranger. 

He liked dancing, even though he was terrible at it. 

He liked putting people in vulnerable positions, not really in a psychopath kind of way, but to show them that life is never that serious. 

He was just a goofball. And that translated pretty fluidly into the specific brand of heartbreak he bestowed upon me. 

The way he didn’t take life seriously, he didn’t take me seriously either. Nor does he seem to be capable of taking any romantic interest seriously. 

Big shocker there, right?

On to the next!

We’re skipping around a bit because, to be quite honest with you, I don’t exactly want to remember the men from my past.

The next guy actually was, for all intents and purposes, pretty normal. He had a normal job, he had normal friends, a normal life. 

And, to my point, this was the best relationship I’ve been in to date. 

However, he was also in love with his mom. And his dad. And his sister. All causes for concern. 

He couldn’t make a decision on his own. At all. Everything in his life had the stamp of approval from his dad. All inquiries answered by whichever parent would get back to him the quickest. 

He once called his mom to ask her how to cut a watermelon, despite the fact that I was right next to him, telling him exactly how to do it. Whatever. 

So, one day he broke up with me out of nowhere. I was distraught. I went to pick up my things (to his parents’ knowledge, of course, because his parents knew about everything, despite them living 700 miles away from him), and guess who was calling him the entire time I was at his apartment? And I mean, really just blowing up his phone?

Did his parents tell him to break up with me? We’ll never know. But I do have a funny suspicion now that I’m really thinking about it….

Anyway. 

It seems like all I have to do is not date a man who’s in love with his mom or his best friend and actually takes life with a hint of gravity, at least occasionally!

Notice how this isn’t too much to ask for? And, yet, how many men are readily available and reach these criteria?

The Hunt For a Normal Man

And so, determined only by my experiences and calculations henceforth, I have my definition of a normal man: not in love with anyone else (heavily emphasizing that ‘anyone else’ is to include family members) and emotionally capable of long-term connection. Oh! And he has to follow basic hygiene practices. And, last but not least, he has to have a stable job. I’ll actually even take unemployment over the nefarious activities some of the men from my past partook in for money. 

Maybe finding a normal man will finally equate to the end of my romantic woes. 

Or, at the very least, maybe I’ll at least stop getting hurt in the most ridiculous, embarrasings ways.

So, entering 2026, I finally have standards! Those standards are… absolutely in hell. But it’s better than the no standards we were working with before. 

We live and we learn. If we’re following the same pattern, it only gets better from here! If we’re following the same pattern, I’ll be married by… 2065. 

Lots to look forward to! I will be keeping you all updated!

xoxo!