I still wanted to know that the articles were being published, and in large quantities, but reading stories of abuse and humiliation, like the big Bill Cosby exposé from a few years back, was as stupefying as a hangover. I didn’t feel empowered; I only felt more hopeless. I wanted to watch the patriarchy go up in flames, but I wasn’t excited about what was being pitched to replace it. If we got all of it out in the open, what would we have left? My fear was that guilt would destroy the classics and there’d be no one left to fuck. All movies would be as low-budget and puritanical as the stuff they play on Lifetime, all of New York would look like a Target ad, every book or article would be a cathartic tell-all, and I’d be sexually frustrated but too ashamed to hook up with assholes, or even to watch porn.

I wasn’t immune to finding power sexy. I’d gone out with men because I was impressed by their jobs, thought about leaving men and then remembered their jobs. I told myself that this wasn’t a shallow train of thought, it was actually a tribute to a man’s character: the position he held said something about him, something I was supposed to like. But now it was clear that the jobs, especially the impressive ones, were the parts I hated most about the men. The cheating happened at the office. Maybe it stemmed from the atmosphere there.

A GROWING PERCENTAGE of my texts were from men who wanted to “stay in touch.” We had inside jokes, we sent each other articles about things we’d discussed on our dates, we even started telling each another about other dates we’d been on, commiserating about what the app was doing to our minds.

There were many men, most of whom I’d met and at least made out with: a lawyer, a garbage man, a magazine editor, a TV camera operator, a CEO, a graphic designer, a social-media analyst, a photojournalist. There was a married woman who had no job. I didn’t quite feel rejected by any of them. It was about chemistry, I told myself. Some seemed intimidated by my busy life. Others were hung up on an ex and just wanted to hook up, but found that texting me later was fun, too. I knew that J. wasn’t going to want to date me, which only hurt because he was perfect on paper. His detached kiss and all the conversations tapering off into platonic feelings made me sad, and I started to cry, as I often did lately, without warning. Was I not irresistible to anyone? Was being irresistible to men what I wanted the most?