My non-boyfriend boyfriend is feeling Italian tonight. Or maybe Chinese. In the near pitch-black bedroom, my non-boyfriend boyfriend squints at the Yelp app on his phone, which lights up his face and all the tiny Roman numeral tattoos on his chest. Then finally, my non-boyfriend boyfriend decides that he’s feeling Filipino. My non-boyfriend boyfriend feels so much because he’s an empath. He’s such an empath he always knows exactly what I want—because it just so happens to be exactly what he wants. 

At the Filipino restaurant with 4.829 stars, my non-boyfriend boyfriend orders for me: tokwa’t baboy, nilaga, dinuguan. My non-boyfriend boyfriend is so confident he doesn’t even notice how he’s mispronouncing every other syllable. He doesn’t need my help. Currently, my non-boyfriend boyfriend is between jobs, but still, he doesn’t have time for anything serious. Besides, my non-boyfriend boyfriend doesn’t believe in labels, Pangea, or words of affirmation. My non-boyfriend boyfriend transcends language, and sometimes also space and time, such that he doesn’t need to say or do anything for me to just know what he means—you know what I mean? When we get the check, my non-boyfriend boyfriend asks if I want to split, and I say yes, I do have to split, bye, text you later, I have somewhere else to be.

During book club, my adult friends and I discuss our Book-of-the-Month. The story follows a woman who tries to save her now-dead-friend’s dog—the way she could not save her now-dead-friend, who she was probably in love with and who probably did not love her back. Eventually, this dog gets the woman evicted, but still, she can’t let go. My oldest adult friend says the book was so real it made her ugly cry on the train during her morning commute. It’s so hard to find someone in this city. My youngest adult friend asks why we call men dogs when in reality, we know that dogs are actually loyal. 

The next day, when I recount my book club meeting to my non-boyfriend boyfriend, he tells me that actually, the book sounds sweet. As always, my non-boyfriend boyfriend is right. My non-boyfriend boyfriend is a scholar and has an unfathomably deep understanding of the human experience – and I mean all human experience. The Western canon is his Bible, James Joyce is his God, and he’s not like other girls because he understands at least 60% of Ulysses. When I hand over a copy of my Book-of-the-Month to my non-boyfriend boyfriend, he turns over the cover, which positions the fictional dog dead-center, sitting at attention. The woman is nowhere to be seen.

Three weeks into the process of seeing each other, my non-boyfriend boyfriend reveals that he is a curator. He curates all his Spotify playlists all by himself, and did you know he actually made the greatest playlist of all time? It’s called “Feeling So Alive,” and anyone who’s ever listened to it has orgasmed right on the spot. The playlist features indie bands that no one has ever heard of, like Dirty Machine Elves and User Not Found. It is very special that my non-boyfriend boyfriend has chosen to share this with me. When I check the likes on his playlist, I see that there are exactly two, one of which is mine. A little known fact: my non-boyfriend boyfriend could have been a famous DJ. He has the personality. When we met, my non-boyfriend boyfriend was playing a set at our mutual friend’s 27th birthday party. He seemed so in control, the way he moved behind the mixer, but later that night, in bed, he told me that his console only requires like, three buttons. The rest—the record scratching, etc.—is just for show. 

One Friday evening that my adult friends decide to call Girls’ Night, we stream BAGGAGE, this reality dating show from the 2010s where contestants stuff their secrets into suitcases — their literal baggage — and in order to win a date, they have to reveal each one. In this episode, the winning man confesses that he owns 15 dogs and routinely pees in his own sink. My oldest adult friend says, there are some secrets we should take to our graves. My youngest adult friend replies, people are more forgiving than you’d think, especially because we’re all so afraid of death, or dying alone. Without thinking, I tell my adult friends that, before I die, I want to experience being in love, at least once.

My non-boyfriend boyfriend is 33 and has the body of a 33-year-old who works out 4-5 days a week. At 24 Hour Fitness, he shows me his running playlist, which is just three Flume songs, totaling less than 10 minutes. But my non-boyfriend boyfriend promises that his stamina is better than that — he just listens to the playlist on loop. I nod to show I believe him. This week, my non-boyfriend boyfriend is trying out a new workout regimen to strengthen his jawline, which basically consists of chewing Extra Wintergreen Mint Gum 17 hours a day. Now his teeth are always in pain, but his mouth is minty fresh, and he swears that he’s getting impressive results. Though, when I look at my non-boyfriend boyfriend for any signs of progress or self-improvement, there’s nothing. He is utterly recognizable. 

Because my non-boyfriend boyfriend is so romantic, he takes me to Joshua Tree to see the meteor shower—with six of his adult friends from college, squeezing us into a seven-person van, so that I have to sit on his lap for the entire two-hour ride. When we get to our Airbnb, my non-boyfriend boyfriend sets up a beer pong table in the backyard. My non-boyfriend boyfriend and I play on the same team, and after several rounds, finally, we win on a death cup. That’s when my non-boyfriend boyfriend tells all the guys that I’m “the best,” and I ask, the best what? 

For the rest of the evening, the eight of us pour more and more beer as the sky blurs from orange to a pre-dawn gray. Stars punch through the sky. Red cups accumulate at our feet. Around midnight, I lay on the dry grass, listening to SZA through my AirPods while the guys blast Childish Gambino on loudspeakers. I start drifting as SZA sings about pretty birds and broken clocks. About an hour later, my non-boyfriend boyfriend appears, a thin blanket wrapped around his shoulders. He lies beside me. My non-boyfriend boyfriend asks if I know that, because the universe has no boundaries, there is technically no center. But it could be you. It could be you.