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  “He’s still coming,” I told myself firmly. “He has to come.”

  But time passed and night fell, blowing a cold wind of rejection against my tear-stained cheeks. He was an hour late. That was when he had decided that his own date wasn’t coming.

  “I might be naïve, but I’m not stupid,” I said, whisking tears away as my voice vibrated with fury. “What kind of a man is intimidated by inexperience, anyway?”

  All of them, my mind whispered, betraying me.

  “No,” I insisted as I figured out how to block Blake’s number. “No, that’s not true. Somewhere out there is a man who won’t ghost me the second he finds out that I’ve never done this before. Somewhere there’s a man who would be thrilled to teach me. Blake might have seemed perfect, but he’s showed his true colors now. No sense wasting energy crying over him.”

  With a final press of a button, Blake was blocked and out of my life. I went home with my head held high, determined not to let this one setback write the rest of my life.

  Chapter 1

  Rhona

  Six Years Later

  “Good morning, girls!” Jeanne swept into the office, ten minutes late as usual, and dangled her left hand aloft for everyone to see. “Guess who just got engaged!”

  Gasps and squeals filled the office as everyone around me rushed to congratulate her. Panic settled over me, making every hair on my body stand erect. Jeanne? Engaged? She had been one of only three female acquaintances I had left who wasn’t engaged, married, or pregnant.

  Every day, it seemed, someone else in my age group made some kind of relationship milestone, while I seemed to be frozen at the cusp of girlhood, with thirty looming a few short years away. Frustration and something akin to despair rattled my nerves, freezing me to my seat when I should have been up congratulating my coworker.

  “Hey, girl.” Nina, who had become my best friend over the last four years, draped herself constrictor-like over the side of my cubicle. Her copper hair slid silkily down my cubicle wall, rustling the papers pinned to it. How did she manage to exude sensuality like that over the most mundane things?

  She poked me with one perfectly manicured finger. “You okay?”

  “Yep,” I lied, fighting back tears. “I’m totally fine.”

  “Uh-huh. Come on, let’s go get coffee.”

  “I’ve got a presentation to write…”

  “It’ll still be here in ten minutes. Come on, coffee time.” She ducked around behind me, spinning my wheelie chair away from my desk.

  Her gentle, encouraging smile told me that she was looking right through me, and was driven to comfort me. It was Nina’s way; the girl could have tamed King Kong with nothing more than a gentle touch and a soft smile. I followed her, knowing that I wasn’t going to be able to concentrate on my work anyway.

  The break room was empty, to my immense relief. Nina poured us each a cup of coffee, topping them generously with some chocolate caramel creamer, then gestured for me to sit at the little break room table.

  “All right, sunshine. Spill. You were in a great mood until Jeanne showed up.”

  “She has that effect,” I said quietly.

  Nina gave me a look over her midnight-blue glasses. “She’s never bothered you before, but I can guess why she bothered you this morning.”

  “Oh?” I asked innocently, sipping my coffee.

  “It’s that ring on her finger.”

  I sighed, feeling foolish. “It’s not… I don’t begrudge her the ring, I just… It’s everybody, Nina. You, Becky, Jeanne… Heck, even Hector’s engaged now. And I’m just…stuck.”

  “How did things go with Roger the other night?” she asked.

  “Roger,” I sighed dreamily. “Great body, oozing charisma, perfect hair…and scared to death of me.”

  “Because of your…?”

  “Inexperience? Yeah. Same as all the rest. We never even made it to the date, Nina. I was texting him beforehand and he made some comment about dessert at his place, and I just… I didn’t even tell him. I’m tired of confessing and hoping and trying. I just want to skip past this part, you know? I want babies. I want a family. I want…all of it.”

  The intensity in my voice had risen, and for a split second I hated every man I had ever dated with a furious passion. The feeling dissipated quickly, leaving me depressed.

  Nina touched my hand, exuding sympathy from her big blue eyes. Her kindness almost hurt, like a cool balm on a bad burn. I wanted to open up, to let her tell me how to fix myself, but I was afraid. At this age, I felt like I should have been able to make something happen for me. The fact that I couldn’t meant…what? I was afraid to find out.

  “Nina, you and everybody I know has had at least one long-term relationship. I’m gonna be thirty soon, too soon, and…I’ve just been single. My whole twenties, single. Not one long-term anything.”

  “Oh, honey. Don’t be too hard on yourself, you have had one long-term something. You’ve maintained a very healthy, stable relationship with AdTech, haven’t you? Look at everything you’ve accomplished! You’ve worked your way up from lowly intern to advertising genius. You’ve been focused on your career; there’s nothing wrong with that.”

  “You’re sweet,” I sighed. “But even if I was a man, I would be a giant walking red flag at this point. It’s just not socially acceptable to be a virgin at my age. I… I’m really starting to think there’s something wrong with me, Nina. I mean, I could understand it in high school. I was nerdy and introverted. But college…and now this…I don’t know, is it the way I look?” My eyes were brimming with tears once more, and Nina took my hands.

  “Stand up,” she ordered. “Come here.” She brought me across the room to the lockers, and stood me in front of the full-length mirror.

  “What do you see?” she asked.

  “I see a twenty-eight-year-old crone with unreasonable hair, pathetically pale skin and a body that says I spend too much time in front of the computer.”

  “Hm…” she said, pressing her cheek to mine as she squinted into the mirror. “That’s not what I see at all. I see a brave, powerful woman with gorgeous blond curls which spring magnificently from her head whether she fusses with them or not. I see brilliant, intelligent honey-caramel eyes which would make me swoon if they were in the face of the dumpiest man on earth. I see a figure I would pay money for, a tiny little waist and soft round hips. I see regal, healthy skin, unmarred by sun spots or too much tanning. I see a woman worthy of so much more than she thinks she is.”

  Struggling to believe her interpretation, I leaned against her and let her wrap her maternal arms around my shoulders.

  “You really see all that?” I asked as my face flushed.

  “I really, really do. And the right kind of man is going to see all that, too, if you let him.”

  “If I let him?” We moved back to the table, and I gratefully sipped my coffee, stabilizing myself with its caffeinated sweetness.

  “Look, honey, I know that you’re burnt out. I know that you had a few dates before I met you that just wrecked your confidence. But I’ve seen what you’ve been doing, and you’re sabotaging yourself.”

  “I…” I began to protest, but let the weak argument fade away. I sipped my coffee instead, and Nina continued.

  “Take this last date, for example. How many dates have you broken in the last few years?”

  “You want a number or a percentage?”

  “Surprise me.”

  “All right, about sixty percent.”

  “All first dates?”

  “Or third,” I said uncomfortably.

  “Right. How many dates have you turned down?”

  “Oh, wow, um…lots.”

  “Mm-hmm. And how many times have you met your date, only to spend the first hour of conversation trying to convince him that he’s wasting his time?”

  “I don’t do that!”

  She looked at me sternly over her glasses. “Really? You don’t sit there and list your fl
aws before he can discover for himself what he even likes about you?”

  “I… Oh. Have you been following me?”

  “Nope,” she said, shaking her head. “But it’s not hard to figure out what you’re doing. I know you, Rhona. I know how amazing you are, so the only reason that I can come up with for why so many guys aren’t calling you back for future dates is that you are selling yourself poorly.”

  “I didn’t realize I had to sell myself,” I pouted.

  “Oh yes you did. Everything is marketing, love, and you’re brilliant at that. You know the psychology, you know what entices people and what puts them off. It’s literally your job.”

  “Selling people isn’t my job,” I argued, then recognized what I was doing. “I’m sorry, Nina. I don’t mean to block you from trying to help me, it just all seems so useless right now. Jeanne is one of the most annoying people I know, and she’s not that pretty, and she’s engaged, and I feel like a terrible person for even thinking that way—she deserves love just as much as anybody else does—but I just don’t understand. Why her and not me?”

  “You’re comparing flaws,” Nina said pointedly. “Her flaws to your flaws. You can’t see the big picture that way, and it’s only going to make you miserable. Do you know why Jeanne and not you?”

  I shook my head.

  “Jeanne has been on a date every other day since she was sixteen years old. Husband-hunting has been her part-time job. Now, I’m not saying that you have to go to those extremes, but if you don’t let people see you, you can’t really expect them to notice you, can you?”

  “I guess not,” I admitted. “But the idea of another first date is exhausting. Finding a guy, getting the date, the whole getting-to-know-you dance, I’m tired of it.”

  “Understandably so. But you aren’t the only one.”

  I cast her a questioning look, and she smiled sphinx-like over her coffee.

  “Do you know how Dan and I met?” she asked.

  “A blind date,” I sighed. “Do you know how many of those I’ve been on?”

  “You took the shotgun approach,” she said sagely, nodding her head. “It wasn’t just any random blind date, Rhona. We were both signed up with the same dating app.”

  “I’ve tried those too,” I grimaced. “All it got me was an inbox full of nasty pictures.”

  “Matchmakr’s different,” Nina insisted, shaking her head. She pulled out her phone to show me. “Look, see? You fill out this questionnaire… It’s really long, but you can always save it and come back to it later, and then the app does all the work. It matches you up with someone, sets the time and place for a meeting, and sends you on your way! No messages at all, just old-fashioned new-fangled matchmaking.”

  “Isn’t that kind of dangerous?” I asked, wincing at the idea of a robot setting me up with some random person.

  “Not at all. The first meeting is always public, and the questionnaire screens for creeps. But I don’t think a whole lot of creeps are going to be using it anyway.”

  “Why?”

  “Because there are easier ways to be a creeper. The long questionnaire is a deterrent, for one, plus the subscription costs more than most, and there’s no messenger so they can’t be creepy from a distance, which I think they enjoy doing.”

  “So it’s more expensive, you don’t get the benefits of looking through a lot of profiles all at once and you can’t talk to the person beforehand,” I said. “Why does anybody sign up for it?”

  “Because it has a 95% success rate,” Nina said. “Dan was my very first match on the app, and we’re getting married. That’s not even uncommon.”

  “95%, huh?” I asked, finally allowing myself to be intrigued.

  “Yep,” she said confidently. “One last first date, then happily ever after. What’s the worst that could happen?”

  Chapter 2

  Rhona

  Nina’s question had followed me all through the rest of my work day, giving birth to a million different worst-case scenarios, none of which seemed valid after a little bit of critical scrutiny. I wasn’t going to do it. I was determined not to get my hopes up again, and every bit of marketing for the app was designed to do exactly that.

  So I put the idea out of my head, or at least I tried to. It kept coming back, insistent, persistent, nagging at the back of my mind. When I was finally alone at home and there was no more work to distract me, I began to lose the battle.

  I opened the app store on my phone and searched for Matchmakr. It was there, right at the top of the page, balanced atop a mountain of five-star reviews. My finger hovered over the “download” button, drawing my eye to the price tag. “That’s too much money,” I said out loud, putting my phone down.

  But as I walked to the kitchen to find some comfort, I happened to glance into my bedroom. My closet was open, framing miles of dresses and shoes, each bought with the specific purpose of looking my best on a date. My nails were still artistically polished from my almost-date the week before. As I tried to choose a bottle of wine to suit my mood, the price of all of my failed dates added up in my mind.

  “Including you guys, that’s a ridiculous amount of money,” I told the bottles as I slid my fingers over the labels. “What cost, failed dating? Way less than that app.”

  It really wasn’t that much, once I put it in perspective. It was the price of two dates plus subsequent comfort-binging. And hey, if it didn’t work, I could just skip my next two potential dates and break even, right?

  “Like I wasn’t going to do that anyway…” I murmured as I cracked open a bottle of sweet red.

  Switching on the TV for background noise, I poured myself a glass and downloaded the app before I could change my mind. It seemed to take forever to install, and I was on my second glass before I could access the questionnaire.

  “Let’s see what’s so magical about you,” I told it skeptically. “Name, age, sex, location. So far, so standard.”

  Cultural background and religious beliefs were next, and though the questions went deeper than other apps I’d used, I still wasn’t impressed. After that, though, the questionnaire began to get almost creepily specific.

  “Growing up, did you have any interests which you felt your peers would not accept?” I read. “Only about a dozen,” I answered. “List them? Okay. Astronomy, physics, comic books, computers… God, I’m really showing my age here; that’s all mainstream stuff now, isn’t it? Does that really count?”

  I reread the question to be sure, and decided to go with my initial response.

  “What were my parents’ aspirations? Why does that matter?” I rolled my eyes at myself as I typed in the answer, and decided to stop arguing with the app. I’d already spent the money; there was no point in rebelling against it now.

  “Mom wanted to raise horses, Dad wanted to make movies. Did either of them achieve their aspirations? Yes, sort of, or no? Sort of, Mom’s a large animal vet and Dad makes commercials.” I caught my reflection in the dark glass of my coffee table, and realized that I had been talking out loud to myself the whole time. “Yeah, Rhona, you need a man. Or a dog. People don’t think you’re crazy when you talk to a dog.”

  I continued answering the seemingly random personal questions, and slowly found myself taking comfort in this faceless app’s interest in my life. Answering these probing questions made me feel somehow less lonely; as if someone, somewhere, was actually interested in my answers. I told myself that my responses would just be filed away and fed into an algorithm somewhere, but it didn’t seem to matter that much. This level of intimacy was what I desired most; someone who was really fascinated by all the little bits and pieces which made me tick.

  “‘What brings you comfort when you’re sad?’ I can’t even remember the last time a real person asked me that,” I sighed. “Not that the answer is very interesting or anything. Stargazing, wine, and sitcoms.”

  I sipped on my wine and glanced up at the sitcom on the TV. If I hadn’t lived in the center of town,
I would’ve been more than happy to sit out and stare at the star-studded sky all evening.

  “It would probably be healthier,” I told myself.

  Sighing, I returned my attention to the app. I had reached the end of the third out of five pages, and almost wanted to go back and answer the first three pages again. It had been like a therapy session for me, the fluffy kind which didn’t touch on anything too painful. That surface-level interest couldn’t last, I was sure; not with a 95% success rate.

  “Oh God, here we go,” I said, cringing as the next page loaded. “Relationship history. Fantastic.”

  It was set up almost like a resume, with a slot for every year. It urged me to tell it everything I could recall, down to one-night stands and unfinished dates, for the last ten years, complete with explanations for why I believed the relationship didn’t work out.

  “Easy enough,” I sighed. I realized that I hadn’t done even enough to satisfy the questionnaire this whole year, and made a mental note to apologize to Nina for being resistant to her suggestions. 2008-2011 was the same story; nothing and nobody.

  2012. I don’t know whether it was the wine or the intimacy of this strange interaction, but I suddenly felt the elation, pain, and shame of that year as freshly as if it had been yesterday. Date after promising date, gorgeous man after gorgeous man, and nothing but heartache to show for it.

  “And it all started with the Italian who never showed…and Blake,” I said, my voice shaking.

  I poured my hurt and frustration into the app, purging the embarrassment from my soul. Blake had been the first of a dozen similar experiences; promising first dates followed by ghosting. I had obviously been burned by that experience, I noted as I moved on to 2013. Six dates the whole year. Four the year after that. The next three years followed the same pattern, fewer and fewer dates, until finally the dry desert of nothing which had been this year.