“Look,” I finally interrupted him, “I don’t know what Seema aunty told you about me, but I’m not really a pot smoker.”

“No worries, my dude! You don’t have to smoke it. There are many ways to consume cannabis—”

“Yeah,” I broke in. “Any of those ways, I’m not really interested.” There was a long pause.

“Okay . . . yeah, cool,” he said after a moment. “So . . . um . . .” He cleared his throat. “What kind of music do you listen to?”

We fumbled our way through another five minutes of conversation and then politely said goodbye. I grabbed the yellow Post-it from the nightstand, crumpled it into a ball, and tossed it across the room into the trash bin. It hit the purple wall and landed on the floor. Sajid, I’m sure, was a perfectly nice guy, but what did it say about me that a professional matchmaker thought I would have things in common with a pothead? Was this what Seema aunty thought I meant when I said “nontraditional”? Was she attempting to prove a point? Or did she really think this was what I wanted? I had officially hit a new low in this process. I was a third of the way into my deadline, and not even a fraction closer to finding love or romance than when I had started. My phone buzzed next to me. I glanced at the message on the screen. It was Sajid.

Hey, it was really nice talking to you. Would it be alright if I asked you a favor? I picked up the phone.

Shoot, I replied.

Could you maybe not mention the cannabis thing to anyone? I wouldn’t want it getting back around to my parents. LOL.

Of course he didn’t. Sajid’s parents would remain totally oblivious to the fact that their perfect engineer son was spending his nights dazed and confused, while I would have to make up yet another reason for why I was such a disappointment to my mother. I could already imagine the dreaded conversation:

Ammi: “Seema aunty just called, Leila. She wants to know how it went with Sajid.”

Me: “It was okay. I’m not interested, though.”

Ammi: “What do you mean, not interested?”

Me: “I don’t know. We just have different . . . hobbies. It’s not going to work.”

Ammi: Ya Allah! Here we have found you an engineer, and you are saying it’s not going to work? When are you going to stop being so picky, Leila?!”

I looked at the calendar and sighed. There were nine weeks left. Nine weeks. Either I could concede defeat now, or I could keep trying—this time on my own terms. No more matchmakers. No more interference from my mother. Just me doing everything I could to find my Mr. Perfect on my own. What is it going to be, Leila? I thought to myself.

The phone vibrated next to me. DUDE. Are we good? the message read, highlighted on the screen. I sighed, staring at the words. After a few reflective moments, I grabbed the phone and responded with a thumbs-up emoji.