Mark was the stuff of dreams. Kind, caring, attentive, enough to make all of my friends jealous. But today something happened, something horrible. Something I wouldn’t wish on even my worst enemy. I found out something about Mark that will forever change my opinion about him, and my ability to trust men has been forever shattered.

Shortly after dinner, my best friend Jessica called me and told me she had some information to share with me about Mark. I begged her to just tell me over the phone, but she insisted that it had to be in person. So we met up an hour later at the Jitterbug Cafe, our favorite java-spot to sip cappuccino and check out acoustic guitar music on a Friday Night. However, tonight the sound of acoustic guitar music would be replaced with the sound of tears, sniffling, tissues being removed from tissue packets, and other sounds that indicate that something sad is happening.

It was there at the cafe that Jessica told me the bad news: Mark is actually just a couple of old hot dogs inside of a very tiny, mohair sweater.

At first I couldn’t believe the words she was saying as they were coming out of her mouth. I’d heard of this happening to other girls, but I never thought it would happen to me. But the more I thought about it, the clues all started to add up; his occasional odor of old hot dogs, his refusal to ever speak and his inability to walk across the room on his own accord.

I asked Jessica to explain to me how she found out the truth about Mark. She told me that she started to piece it all together when she observed a text message conversation between Mark and I. She noticed that Mark wasn’t responding to anything I was saying to him. And that’s because he’s a couple of old hot dogs, and hot dogs can’t text.

And even though Mark was the star point guard in our school’s basketball team, nobody could ever recall Mark actually participating in any of the games. Instead he would always just sit on the sidelines; typical behavior for a person that is not really a person but really just a couple of generic hot dogs inside of a mini sweater.

But perhaps the most revealing moment was last week at Nolan’s bonfire, when Mark was actually mistaken for a pack of hot dogs. We all laughed it off. “How hilarious! Rachel just thought Mark was a pack of hot dogs! Maybe take it easy on the buzz juice, Rachel!” And although Rachel does seem to have a problem with alcohol consumption, this was the night that Jessica finally realized the truth about Mark.

This is a reality facing young girls everywhere today: somewhere out there, someone is knitting tiny, little mohair sweaters, filling them with stinky, old hot dogs and then putting them into circulation as real people. Often they go ignored; faceless in an endless sea of people. You may have sat across from one on a crowded bus without even noticing. But other times they’re courted by young, vulnerable girls whose only mistake is that they’re looking for love in a world that is so, so cold.

I really thought I was going to marry Mark, that he was going to be the one. My friends got along with him, my family approved. I never thought he would do this to me: reveal that he was actually just a couple of old frankfurters nestled within a sweater fit for a newborn. But I suppose if there’s one thing that I’ve learned from this whole ordeal, it’s that not everybody turns out to be the person you think they are.