PHOTOGRAPH BY BETSIE VAN DER MEER  GETTY
PHOTOGRAPH BY BETSIE VAN DER MEER / GETTY

What I’m asking for is not that much. I just want a boyfriend who is sweet and trustworthy. That’s it.

He doesn't need to have a perfect body or look like George Clooney. I want a guy who wants to curl up on a Friday night and watch Netflix. He can even pick the show. I mean, ideally it's serialized and female-driven, and maybe not that boring political one. But honestly, I don't care. It's not important.

All I want is someone reasonable who is basically a good guy. Someone patient, who doesn't mind if I'm taking a few extra minutes getting ready before we leave the house. But who is impatient with the same things that I am, like when we're left waiting forever to be seated for dinner and he should maybe go talk to the hostess. Because otherwise, why did we make a reservation at all?

I want a guy who is a feminist, someone who knows that all that means is that men and women are equal. A man who admires strong women, such as Hillary Clinton or Ruth Bader Ginsburg. But not that really accomplished woman from his office who seems cool and put-together—I don't mean her. I'd like him to resent her irrationally, actually. I mean older, strong women in the theoretical.

And I don't need some über-rich hedge-funder, either. He just needs to be successful enough financially to support himself. And me and our children if I take time off from work after the babies are born. I just want him to love his job; I don't care about how much money he makes. Just as long as it pays enough to give me the option to go back to work part-time if I decide to professionally pursue my hobby, which is photographing cool manicures for Instagram.

I'm not even one of those women who doesn't want her boyfriend to watch porn. I think it's hot! As long as I'm watching it with him, and it has some kind of entry point for women, like "Fifty Shades of Grey" or "Magic Mike."

One thing I definitely don't need is lavish gifts. I'm not some princess living in a fairy tale. A simple compliment once in a while is enough to show that he appreciates me: "You look pretty today"; "I love your laugh"; "You're such a good cook, even better than my mother and my sisters"; "I love you more than my mother and my sisters." See? It's so easy!

I don't get why that's asking so much—to meet a nice guy at a bar who wants to date for six months and then propose to me while we are in Montana glamping, on a night that is perfectly clear, and then move out of his apartment, give his dog to his co-worker, and buy a four-bedroom house in the town where I was raised, near that elementary school everyone's raving about.

That's why I think I should date an older guy. They say older guys are more secure and have gotten all the immaturity out of their systems. That would be so refreshing right now. To be with a man who isn't obsessed with youth and doesn't want to stay out late smoking weed with his loser friends. And I don't care if he has kids. I think that's cool! So long as his kids are already away at college and his wife is dead, I'm in. But she needs to be normal dead, where she won't come back as a ghost to haunt me.

’Cause that's all I want: a sweet, mature, normal, loving guy, with no baggage. And an absolutely enormous penis.

From the upcoming book "Why Not Me?," to be published by Crown Archetype.