Valentine’s Day loomed, and Cupid, the cherubic god of love, was having a meltdown. Perched on a fluffy cloud, he sighed dramatically. “This love stuff is WAY harder than those ‘cishet’ couples make it look,” he grumbled. “They just hold hands. No exploding glitter bombs of romantic confusion.”

Modern love was proving a nightmare. “Love is love” just didn’t cut it anymore. “Apparently,” Cupid muttered, “love now involves existential dread, pronoun declarations, and gluten intolerance or is it gluten celebration? My arrows can’t tell the difference!”

His first attempt? Two handsome, artisanal candle-making men. “Perfect!” Cupid thought. One fell head over heels. The other? Craved vegan, unscented candles. “Close enough,” Cupid thought, until he checked their profiles. “Pronouns: xe/xir/xirs. And allergic to beeswax,” he groaned. “Strike one. And I wasted my good arrows!”

Next, two competitive dog groomers. “Fluffy heaven!” Cupid declared. One woman had a poodle-related panic attack. The other was distracted by a charismatic Bichon Frise. “Strike two,” Cupid sighed. “Maybe goldfish are easier. Less allergens, fewer pronouns...” he trailed off, realizing the absurdity.

Time for a new tactic. He conjured a dating app. “Rainbow filters! Pronoun options! Food preference! A ‘kink’ section that even I blushed at!” he announced. This was it!

The reviews were brutal.

“Too many unicorn hunters!” one user wailed.

“My ex, now identifies as a pangolin, keeps showing up!” another lamented.

“Can you filter out people who ironically use ‘they/them’ pronouns?” someone demanded.

“I keep getting matched with people whose star sign is ‘Cancer rising in a dumpster fire’,” complained another.

“The ‘kink’ section is just pictures of people knitting,” someone else pointed out.

Cupid threw his hands up. “I’m a god of love!” he shrieked. “Not a tech support guru! I can barely work the celestial Wi-Fi!” He considered early retirement. Maybe become a cloud sculptor? Less stressful.

But Cupid, ever the optimist (and with no pension), tackled his next challenge: a polyamorous relationship: a vegan, a pronoun enthusiast, and a free-spirited artist who communicated through interpretive dance. He’d even consulted a surprisingly chill relationship guru, satyr! He thought he understood. Multiple loves, ethically non-monogamous, everyone consenting. Easy peasy, right?

WRONG.

The vegan lectured the artist on the ethics of animal-derived paint, specifically mentioning the plight of cochineal insects. The pronoun enthusiast argued with a cloud about the correct “they/them” usage for celestial bodies, insisting on grammatical accuracy. The artist’s interpretive dance about polyamory involved a lot of flailing and accidental property damage -- a shattered vase and a bruised cherub (himself).