For the past 20 years (I wasn’t interested in boys until kindergarten) I have been blaming my inability to meet the right guys on a whole host of issues. They are all dumb, I am sometimes confusing — they can’t get their acts together, I am sometimes intimidating — they don’t know what they want, I flirt weird.

Right. So maybe just two issues, but they’re like onions these issues – layered.

Apparently I was wrong. Apparently it’s all birth control’s fault.

According to a recent study out of the UK published in a CBS News article, being on birth control screws with our ability to choose the right mates.

Confusing story short: People end up, long term, most compatible with people who have opposite genetic constructs. Not like blondes end up happiest with brunettes – it’s confusing, science, inside-the-body stuff. This genetic construct is called one’s MHC and it is detectable through smell. Women smell men’s sweat and are generally attracted to sweat belonging to men with MHC’s opposite them – aka good mates for them. Interesting, but not important. The important/scary-as-shit part is that when on the pill, women shift toward being attracted to men with MHC’s more similar to theirs – aka the wrong men for them.

Why does this happen? Too complicated. The article explains it, sort of.

Why is this the biggest problem you’ve ever heard in your whole life? Because it means we’re now both mentally and genetically screwed. If we choose to be on the pill we are further tampering our own admittedly challenged ability to meet the right guys. As if it wasn’t bad enough to begin with.

And what happens when a woman on birth control marries a man she was, genetically, falsely attracted to? According to the study lead, “Marriage counselors who have never heard about these studies tell [me] that the No. 1 complaint among women no longer sexually interested in their husbands is that they can no longer stand how he smells.”

Right, that makes sense. Fuck, that makes sense!

But not to worry. The study has a totally valid solution.

” ‘A woman’s response to a man’s natural body odor will be colored by her feelings for him,” [it] says. ‘So if you fell in love with a man online, it would be hard to be repelled by his smell.’ “

Oh, okay then. So as I see it this leaves us with three options:

• Forgo the pill. Pray for no breakage. Meet your correct man and live happily ever after. Of course meet Mr. Right and end up pregnant and you’ll be in couple’s counseling for entirely different reasons.
• Stay on the pill and shift entirely to online dating. Just watch out for guys who don’t want you to shave under your arms.
• Find a guy with no sweat glands so you end up happy or not for an entirely different set of random reasons.

Maybe the study is wrong. It was conducted in the U.K., afterall. Maybe this is just some weird ploy to fuck with Americans so we’re rendered too freaked out to run our nation and can be re-taken over.
Yes, that’s probably it. Phew. Glad we cleared that up, because I was about to absolutely and completely lose my entire mind.

Close call.