Page 1 of Every Step She Takes
ONESEATTLE, WASHINGTONThursday, May 8, 2025
Sadie
Nothing good happens when I drink red wine, and I’m already on my second glass of Chateau Ste. Michelle when the man sitting across from me starts talking about cryptocurrency.
This is why I told my sister no more tech bros.
I’m not sure if he isforcryptocurrency or against it or simply trying to educate the ignorant masses, but I nod along to his lengthy diatribe while discreetly checking my phone under the table. Only thirty-eight more minutes.
In thirty-eight minutes, I will fake a dental emergency or a dead cat or an early-morning meeting. In thirty-eight minutes, I will use one of my innumerable standby excuses for bailing on a first date, and before too long, I’ll be in bed with a lavender face mask, watching HGTV and doomscrolling before falling asleep by nine o’clock.
In thirty-eight minutes, I’m allowed to call it. That’s the misguided agreement I made with my sister.
“And, of course, you know what an NTF is,” my date continues after a sip of his Imperial IPA. I just keep nodding and drinking my wine. So very,verymisguided.
It was red wine that got me into this mess in the first place.
My sister, Vi, is a travel influencer who treats my house like a way station, but she kindly graced Mom and me with her presenceover the holidays, in between her eastern Europe tour of Christmas markets and her spelunking trip to New Zealand. After sharing an entire crockpot of her homemade glühwein, Vi and Mom started grilling me about my love life, like they always do. My happiness—or, more accurately, my lack of abject misery—is guided by one simple rule: never discuss my love life with my family.
This used to be easily accomplished, because I had no love life to speak of. While my middle school friends were getting their first crushes, I was still playing Barbies with Vi; while my high school friends were getting their first boyfriends, I was maintaining a 4.0 and working six days a week at my Nan’s antique store. In college, there were casual flirtations that never went anywhere, and a few drunk kisses that I usually regretted even more than the hangover.
Then my Nan died, and my whole life changed, and there wasn’t anytimeto think about romance or relationships or what I even wanted. But that never stopped my mother from trying to set me up with every man under fifty who crossed her path. It never stopped my little sister from coercing me onto the dating apps.
Discussing my love life with them only reinforces their delusion that I want their help.
But thanks to fuckingglühwein, I did discuss it. I drunkenly told them that I am giving up on romance once and for all, that I don’t want to date anymore, and that I am perfectly content by myself.
Not surprisingly, this drunken declaration did not go over well. My mother cried about never having grandchildren and my sister confidently vowed to find me the perfect man.
I burped brandy and cardamon as I told her the perfect man does not exist.
“That’s because you’re too picky,” Vi said. That’s what shealwayssays. As if I should just settle for the first man who’s niceto his mom and doesn’t send unsolicited dick pics. As if I haven’ttriedto develop feelings for all the men I’ve dated. Most of my friends from college have husbands now; several have kids; they all file joint taxes and have a built-in plus-one to weddings and an emergency contact who doesn’t frequently travel to remote locations with no cell service. Developing feelings for one of these men would be the path of least resistance.
“Maybe I don’t need a man to be fulfilled,” I told them. My certainty was, unfortunately, undermined by a drunk hiccup.
“Maybe you need to give your dates a fairtry,” my mom insisted.
“Maybe you need to letmefind you a man,” Vi said, rubbing her hands together in an ominous fashion.
Maybe you both need to let me live my life without your constant meddling.Is what Iwouldhave said, if I was ever honest with my family.
Thus, a glühwein-motivated arrangement began to take shape because Vi has the confidence of someone who has never been toldno. A benefit of being a younger sibling, I think. She always had a safety net to catch her. When our parents fought, I was there to distract her with an art project and a Broadway musical soundtrack played at full volume. When my dad took off and my mom couldn’t get out of bed for nearly two years, I was the one who French braided Vi’s hair before soccer games and packed her school lunches. She always had me.
That’s how she turned her love of travel into a full-time job as a successful influencer under the handle cestlavi. It’s how she became a freelance writer at some of the biggest travel publications in the country. It’s how she bullied me into this agreement.
I would let my sister set me up on as many dates as she wanted before my thirty-fifth birthday. But if she couldn’t findthe perfect manfor meby then, both her and my mom had to accept that I’m happy on my own.
There were rules: I had to promise to keep an open mind about each man; I had to give each date at least an hour before dismissing him; and I had to kiss every man who initiated it, so I could find out if we had chemistry.
Vi called this thebutterfly factor. As in, “What if you think he’s a dud, but then you kiss him and feelbutterflies?” Because my sister is ridiculous.
While I was reluctant to sign up for five months of horrible, hops-flavored first kisses, I was even more reluctant to argue with my sister. So, thanks to familial pressure and the lubricating wonders of mulled wine, I agreed.
I went from going on one or two dates per year to going onfourdates in the month of January alone, slotting in an hour wherever I could: after a twelve-hour workday; on a Saturday morning after spin class; between tearing out the old carpet in my bedroom and retiling the kitchen backsplash.
First, there was the marathon runner who insisted we hike Tiger Mountain so he could not-so-subtly assess my overall health, turning a first date into the Presidential Fitness Test of my middle school nightmares.
Then there was the guy who took me to a film festival in West Seattle to watchFull Metal Jacketand stuck his hand down my shirt during the scene where Vincent D’Onofrio dies, effectively ruining all nipple-play for the rest of my life.
