Writers 
One of my saddest relationship stories happened when I was 22. I matched with a girl whose age on Tinder was also 22. We were in a relationship for 7 years. Throughout the relationship, she became more and more urgent about having children. "Can we do it tonight?", she'd say
I'd answer "not yet, we are so young, only 27..." and she would look at me with these huge, terrified eyes and I would never understand why. This went on for 7 years with her continually increasing her urgency until one day I found her in the bathroom curled up on the floor, sobbing in the fetal position. I got down on the floor too and held her. "What's wrong?" I whispered
"I... I... I can't tell you. You will hate me forever" she protested, then start to sob even louder. "Tell me" I said. "Okay", she said
Then she told me that in the hours before we had matched on Tinder, she had ran out of all possible men to swipe. And in her depression and desperation, she had changed her own age. "Your age?" I said, confused. "Yes, I lowered it" she said, her voice shaking. "By how much?" I asked
"From 32 to 22", she said
Shocked, my mind started to do the math. If she was 32 when we met, that makes her 39 now. No wonder she had so much urgency. No wonder she wasn't acting like someone the same age as me
I had noticed a few signs, of course. But nothing obvious enough for me to doubt that she was 22. Her feet looked like an older woman's feet. Sometimes when she was tired, she looked a little older, but everyone does. Maybe she had Botox, I didn't know really. Maybe I was just too stupid to tell how old people look
"So how does this relate to why you are crying', I asked, quizzically. She explained that 4 months before, at 39, her last egg had dropped. And her Doctor had confirmed that she hit the menopause
"So this is is why you wanted to have children so bad, because you were 10 years older than me. And now you have been punished by your own lie" I said
"Yes!" she screamed hysterically "I lied and now my eggs are gone"
I held her tightly as she cried in my arms
"There there, my beautiful old girl" I said, "Everything will be okay"
I carried her to bed in my arms, tucked her in from all sides and kissed her forehead
While she was asleep, I packed my things (3 t-shirts, 2 shorts, 1 long pants, 1 hat, 1 captains of crush, 2 grip trainer, 1 tub of multivitamins) then I secretly left in an Uber.
As the Uber drove away, I said goodbye to my old life and installed X in order to try to find a girlfriend.
Still on my journey to get the true woman for me, I never stop trying and believing I will.
