This is the final chapter of a nine part series. See the other chapters here. 

It had been exactly one year since I had begun my experiment of dating only Persian men. 365 days of gold jewelry, Brazilian waxes, high heels and weekly manicures. It was expensive to date Persians! I had learned to wear makeup and I had grown my hair long. “You’ve changed so much!” my cousins cooed. I had always been the black sheep, the “American” one. But now I was finally accepted by the women in my extended family—a strange side-effect of dating Persian men. For Christmas, my cousins gifted me an expensive flat-iron so that I could have stick-straight hair just like them. It was the closest we’d ever been.

I had gone on dates with approximately 17 different Persian men, including two pseudo-celebrities of the Persian-American “scene,” a handful of doctors, a jewelry designer, four bankers, and a former professional athlete. At approximately 7:21p.m., I lit the IKEA candles for the Persian New Year, the official end of my experiment.

“Make sure to have candy nearby!” my mom beseeched. Like many Persian moms, she was highly superstitious. Every time I left for a vacation, she would spill a glass of water at our front door and make me look at it to ensure safe travels. If I cut my fingernails on any day except Monday or Friday, I was chastised and God forbid I ever cut my fingernails at night, lest a ghost visit our home. One week after the New Year, we all had to go out and tie a blade of grass into a knot and make a wish (“always wish for a husband!” we were told). And of course: the ever-present burning of the ‘esfand’ smoke to ward off the dreaded Evil Eye. “You have to have something sweet in your mouth when the year begins!” she instructed.

“Riiight,” I said.

“I’m serious! I gave you birth! Listen to me! Your year depends on this!” she begged.

I highly doubted that popping a Starburst or a Sour Patch Kid right as my cell-phone clock indicated it was a certain time would change the course of my year, but I told her I’d make sure to have candy with me. That’s when the phone began to ring, when the texts began to pour in: One after another, the men I had met over the year contacted me to say happy new year, all while I chewed on Starburst. I learned of the weather in the United States from Los Angeles to Virginia. I found out a Persian pop star I had met in a random airport was now hawking a clothing line. I found out a Persian soap opera actor had a new series out. The doctors that courted me were all still single; one was responsible for the death of only three people, a vast improvement over his previous year and a number he flaunted on this monumental day. He informed me he was thinking about moving into plastic surgery.

“I removed my profile from IranianPersonals.com,” said a Persian guy I flew to Texas to meet once. “I finally found the love of my life!”

I was genuinely happy for him and asked how he had accomplished such a miraculous feat in today’s modern world. “The old-fashioned way!” he replied. He said he had randomly gotten in contact with a girl he had grown up with, and that they hit it off, and that she was moving to Texas shortly. “Congratulations!” I said. Then I proceeded to give him advice like a big sister. I had grown strangely protective of my small harem of men.

I logged into my own IranianPersonals.com account before I went to the Persian Parade on Madison Avenue. I clicked through the pages of eligible men within a close radius of my location and chuckled softly: I had gone on dates with every one of them except for two. Nobody could ever fault me for not being thorough enough at least.

The parade started up by Grand Central Station on 39th Street and went all the way down Madison Avenue to 23rd Street and Madison Square Park where a stage and DJ were set up for the post-parade shin-dig. I had never seen so many Persians in one place. It was cloudy and already drizzling. I walked down from the north where the floats were lined up, getting ready to make their entrance. A troupe of young girls in sequined folk outfits were practicing a dance routine. An elderly man wearing a red jumpsuit and long white beard was smoking a cigarette getting ready to run around, handing out candy as the Persian equivalent of Santa Claus. The floats were decked out in artificial flowers and streamers. Invariably, every float was advertising “Prince of Persia,” a movie starring Jake Gyllenhaal that was not yet in theaters.

“Look!” I pointed at a guy holding a banner. “That’s the guy that organizes the Persian Thursday mixers!” I pointed out each familiar face to my friends who had joined me. “And there!” I pointed at the guy playing the instrument on the passing float. “That’s the head of the music academy!” And, sure enough, I saw the faces of other men I now knew.

“What the fuck is this parade?” I overheard passersby muttering.

We followed the masses to Madison Square Park where a set of speakers was already thumping Persian L.A. techno. Despite their heels, women were beginning to dance while others stood around shoving kebab sandwiches in their mouths. Everyone was getting down in one central pit area and crowds had formed around to stare. I stared with them, occasionally breaking my gaze to watch the line of policemen on the outskirts who looked totally out of place and totally quizzical about these supposed potential terrorists. It poured on us. It was mid-day. Nobody was drinking alcohol. But it looked like a club had been transported to this outdoor park.

My girlfriends mostly wanted to know if I would continue dating Persians now that the year was over. “It doesn’t really matter to me anymore,” I told them. “They can be Persian or not—as long as they’re cool.” Often, that should be a universal rule for dating all over the world—that is, if the whole world dated like us Americans do. The only problem with this formula was that it was sometimes difficult to tell if a person was “cool” right away. If nothing else, I had learned how to date.

“I met him at the university,” my aunt told me, regarding where she first saw my uncle.

“You should never have to try; if you meet The One, he will make it painfully evident,” my cousin explained.

“I felt like we were pressured to get married because of my family,” another aunt described about her marriage.

“I’ve only ever had sex with my husband,” said one forlorn relative.

It was arrogant of me to think I was somehow doing something no other woman had done before: meeting many men, enjoying sex. I once read somewhere that the only reason sex can be revolutionized again and again is because we refuse to believe our ancestors could have known and felt what we know and feel. The gist was that everything has already been done before and, more likely, all those acts were performed in times that were far riskier than ours. Yes, people didn’t “date” in Iran, but if my grandmother was murdered for some sexual dalliance, I have to think that there have been sexual adventurers for generations in my family past, and that I was not embarking on new territory but only furthering a tradition of longing that made my blood mine—no matter what ethnicity the lucky guy was.

When my cousins gave me the flat-iron as a Christmas gift, the oldest one hugged me as if passing on a precious family heirloom right before a wedding, except that I was not getting married. My mom looked on, proud. I thought I saw a tear in her eye when she held me close and said—as if it were ever a question—“You’re just like us.”