Page 4 of The Build-a-Boyfriend Project

It was a group assignment in college that brought Patricia and Eli to each other, featuring a third classmate who refused to do any of the work. Patricia and Eli spent nearly every night together for the following two weeks and became best friends in the way that only bonding over shared contempt for a person can do.

They decided to move in with each other post-graduation to ease the cost of living in the city, both of them even managing to get jobs in the same building. Eli at Vent, and Patricia at fashion magazine InVogue, spending her day poring over pieces, predicting trends, and interviewing models and designers alike. It only made sense, what with how her love of clothing informed nearly every decision she made, how she selected outfits and pieces to write about, how she pored over three-hundred-page books about specific shades of red and their historical context, using her position at InVogue to put Black fashion at the forefront of the magazine.

Eli had even gotten the chance to pull her into Vent last year to film a video dissecting the Met Gala looks. A video that still happens to be one of the most viewed on Vent’s YouTube channel.

And Eli’s name appears nowhere in the description. Not even as a special thanks.

“Oh, come on . . .” Patricia reaches into her bag, pulls out the small bottle of vinaigrette, and hands it to Eli. “Where’s that smile?”

“I’m not really feeling it today,” he tells her, pouring the dressing over his lunch.

“Keith?”

Eli doesn’t have to say yes; his silence is enough of an answer. He looks ahead, past his computer monitor, at the glass enclosure that Keith gets to call his office.

“Did he do anything specific?” Patricia asks quietly.

He was nice to me, Eli thinks to himself. Which might just be the most heinous crime of all. “Does he ever have to?”

“Nope,” she says, her mouth turning into a grin. Like they’ve ever needed actual reasons to be haters. “But legitimate reasons help me paint a broader picture.”

“He’s just being . . . himself,” Eli admits.

“I don’t think I love you anymore.”

He tried to tell himself there were worse seven-word sentences to start your day to.

“You’re pregnant and I’m not the father.”

“The cat was hit by a car.”

“Ayo Edebiri decided to retire from acting.”

He tells himself that he should feel lucky, that not everyone gets to experience that great love of their life, even if this one didn’t last.

“I’m offering again,” Patricia says. “Let me set you up. One of my friends, she knows this guy who—”

Eli stops her then and there. “Nope. Not interested.”

“You barely tried the apps for a month.”

“And you saw the responses I got,” he reminds her. Patricia and Rose—their other roommate—were sent every single cringe-worthy response and opener that Eli had been subjected to. From guys looking for the “Pam to my Jim” to dudes with bare-bones profiles with no profile picture to criminal offenders who thought a hike through the entire length of the Presidio or the Valley Trailhead was an appropriate first date.

Those didn’t even include the people he matched with who couldn’t be bothered to reply back to him, who left Eli hanging after the always-awkward introduction message that was apparently enough to turn them off from him completely.

Then there were the guys from Grindr and Scruff. The men who saw the “trans-guy” Eli put in his profile to try to avoid the exact kind of people he wound up running into. He’d deleted both profiles after a full two days of “What guy wants to fuck a dude with a vag?” and “Grow a pair before I fuck you.”

Or the ever-delightful users who wanted to “taste Eli’s boy pussy so bad.”

He still hadn’t decided which was worse.

That was all it took. The very same day, Eli swore off men and dating entirely, deleting the apps, the accounts, their conversations.

Just like that, it was over.

He’d had the one true love of his life in Keith, and that had been lost. And even if he didn’t want to, Eli was prepared to spend the rest of his life alone.

It just wasn’t worth it.