So, I thought Republicans liked small government and to stay out of people’s lives, but maybe that only applies to rich white men or white women who look like Kellyanne Conway. All the rest of us got Cheeto flea and the Republicans peeking into our windows, trying to wrestle away our health care, and tweeting at us 24/7. To add insult to injury, Cheeto flea has even managed to make dating more chaotic than it already is. I am a frequent peruser of and an infrequent responder to the Craigslist dating ads. It’s really more entertainment than an actual dating site, but it doesn’t cost anything and doesn’t require understanding what swiping left or right means. Which really sounds more like a Mr. Clean ad than dating, but what do I know?

Anywho, there amongst the earnest souls looking very specifically for big women, fit and athletic women, or women open to “everything,” whatever that might mean, I saw an ad by a very sane-sounding, intelligent guy. We exchanged a couple of emails and seemed like we had enough in common to meet. About 5 minutes after agreeing on a day, time, and place, he emailed me back to say he had Googled me and found my website. He sort of apologized for doing it, but I’m a big fan of Googling strangers, so that didn’t bother me in the least.

But what he next said floored me. He read a lot of my posts (points for not making assumptions after 1 or 2 blogs), he said I was a really good writer (double points for stating the obvious), and that he also feared we disagreed on a number of issues that would make us incompatible. I’m pretty sure he was not talking about the blog I wrote against skinny suits. Even worse was I had asked him what made him interesting, and he said he always tries to do the right thing. So, here he was, actually doing the right thing by telling me we were not compatible in the most straightforward, respectful way.

According to my friends who date, this is unusual. Like unicorn unusual. Many people in that situation would have just stopped responding or stood me up. To quote Liz Lemon, “Blurgh.” No, wait, even more worse was he was so respectful and articulate about it, he made me rethink my attitude towards Cheeto supporters. So there was already a moment of introspection and growth with this person, and I hadn’t even met him yet. Double blurgh.

Would this have happened before Cheeto? Maybe, but I’m pretty sure I would have at least gotten a decent first date out of it, and it might not even be a deal breaker if we had enough other things in common. OK, who am I kidding, I could never seriously date a Republican. But I could totally have dinner and a make-out session, which would hold me over until the next unusual post by a sane-sounding, intelligent guy. But now, you can’t even get to first base without knowing someone’s political leanings. Fighting racism, sexism, and orangeism is really stressful enough and now there’s this.

But like everything else Cheeto flea has done in the past 73 days (only 1,387 left!), it only makes me more determined to carry on the fight: for social justice, health and reproductive rights, the environment, and our inalienable right to date.