Put a ring on it

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Mitchell Layton/NBAE/Getty ImagesMichael Jordan briefly charmed the Wizards (and Reese Waters) from 2001 to 2003.

This story appears in ESPN The Magazine's Oct. 15 DC Issue. Subscribe today!

Love don't live here anymore. People say I'm jaded, but it's just that I've been hurt too many times.
I've had more lovers than the cast of
Basketball Wives. I still remember my first,
a slick talker from New York named Riggins. But it didn't last. Eventually his body
couldn't take any more shots. Of whiskey.

He tried to pass me off on his buddy,
Theismann, a solid guy,
but we didn't have a connection.

I hung out with an older guy named
Bernard from time to time,
but his knees were too bad to ever be able
to carry me over the threshold.

I did have a couple of one-nighters with Doug and Rypien -- two of the greatest nights
of my life. But they both snuck out before dawn, leaving cloned scrubs in their place.

Then I got set up on a blind date with
a guy named Shuler. I didn't
realize that he was, in fact, blind.

My buddy Juwan set me up with a frat brother named Webber, who'd just escaped from prison
in Oakland. Webb and I spent the better part
of four years together, though we did take a lot of timeouts. But it was only a matter of time before he was doing more time in
California.

I had a rebound fling with a man
named Jordan, but it made me feel sleazy
and cheap. Plus, he was only
using me to make his ex jealous.

I became depressed. It's not that I couldn't
find love, it just got pushed
out to Maryland during gentrification.

But it hurt that my friends stopped caring.
I had become ... irrelevant. People just
weren't talking about Washington anymore.

Desperate, I decided to try online dating.
The web can't hear how loudly my
biological clock is ticking. So many choices! There was Ovechkin and Strasburg
and Wall and Harper. Each
one moved me differently and never
judged me for my hussy past.

Then I met Griffin. Right away, I was
hooked. He has the charm of Riggins, all the talent of Webber, the danger of Ovechkin,
with a little swagger of Marion Barry.
I think he might be perfect.

Could it be love? I've lived through too
many lies, so many false promises, all that baggage. But at least I feel pretty again.
Love don't live here anymore,
and it is time we found each other again.

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