Prologue
Every year, millions of people swear off love. They look for a curse or a cure that can protect them from painful matters of the heart.
It’s cute that they think they can become immune to it, but they’ll keep trying, regardless.
Only one person in the history of humankind has ever come close to figuring out an algorithm that could, for all intents and purposes, eliminate love.
In a cramped studio apartment in the not-so-glamorous side of the Bay Area of California, a brilliant and prickly software engineer is putting the final touches on her anti-dating app—an artificial intelligence-powered invention for matching people with future life partners, without love as part of the equation.
Slowly at first, and then like wildfire, this app has the potential to spread. And along with it, the creator’s central philosophy: that love is an archaic, dying notion. That in the age of technological innovation, smart-everything, and artificial intelligence, love is just another theory that neverquitepans out. And so, in her mind, it’s pointless to even try.
The hubris of humans knows no end. Yet…
If all goes to plan, this anti-dating appwillmake love obsolete—and change the course of humankind as we know it. But only if all goes to plan.
That’s where Cupid comes in.
1
Felicity
Every time I’ve ever gone out on a Tuesday night has been entirely against my will.
I would, on average, prefer to be at home or at the office getting work done than sitting at a bar with open ductwork, eighteen-dollar cocktails, and so-called “small plates” that mean they get to serve you smaller portions for more money.
And a Tuesday night that’s also the night before Valentine’s Day?
Nightmare.
Valentine’s Day has to be my least favorite day to be out on the town, and Valentine’s Day eve is just a preview of what’s to come tomorrow. The only difference is I get to spend tomorrow at home in my trusty sweatpants. But tonight, I promised my best friend I would meet up after being a hermit for weeks — and if I’m being honest, I forgot about Valentine’s Day until I saw a sign posted on the door.
Plus, the people who gather in these places are, in a word, insufferable. The Valentine’s Day of it all only ramps up how insufferable they can be. Case in point: I’m currently watchinga pair of middle-aged guys try to pick up some girls half their age.
Don’t get me wrong; I don’t think I’m special or immune from being insufferable myself. I’m just adifferentkind of insufferable. Oh, I know my flaws pretty well, and I’ve been called a lot of things. Snobby. Cold. Bitchy. (That last one by a past co-worker, who was promptly fired. Eat shit, Colton.)
But when the drinks are flowing, the bar is full of lonely people, and the place is ill-advisedly selling dollar shots…
Vibes: totally off.
So here I am, sitting at a two-top table in a trendy bar (which means it’s overpriced and overcrowded), waiting for my best and only friend to join me.
She is predictably late, and I am predictably early. For this, I only have myself to blame. I don’t exactly need an algorithm to predict that Janae will run five minutes behind, because she’s been doing it since we were fresh-faced new hires at a hot startup that everyone wanted a piece of.
See, there’s not much that’s remarkable about me other than that I’m a female software engineer in an industry—and city—that’s overwhelmingly dominated by tech bros. You can throw a smartwatch on any San Francisco street and hit a guy who wants to tell you about whatever derivative product he’s building to revolutionize such-and-such.
If I’m being totally honest, I’m doing the same thing—I just happen to be a woman. And not a complete asshat.
I feel like an anthropologist as I sit here alone among the khaki-clad men and (far fewer) sensibly dressed women. A Jane Goodall of the Bay Area tech scene. With a soda to nurse and some time to kill, I slip into this observer role.
Over there: a group of friends down a tray of shots. Nearthe door, a person is scanning the room, presumably looking for their date for the night. The man crowding the table I claimed, hoping he can pressure me to move (he can’t), is swiping through a dating app that’s billed as being for “high value” men. I make sure to accidentally kick him as I uncross and recross my legs.
At the bar is a motley crew of people. Beautiful women in hoodies emblazoned with company logos, men in hundred-dollar t-shirts, a smattering of young people who look like they’re fresh out of college, and they’re drinking like it, too. And—my eyes snag on an outlier—someone dressed like an extra in a stage production ofGrease. Huh. Community theater actor, maybe? Midlife crisis? I mull over the possibilities.
Some people might find Janae’s tardiness annoying. Not me. I love the reliability of it, the reliability ofher.There’s comfort in knowing not everyone in this place is trying to optimize the shit out of their lives.
Right on time (meaning five minutes after the agreed-upon time, ten minutes after I arrived), I see the crowds of men in puffer vests and chinos part as my best friend makes her way through the bar. She looks gorgeous as always, in a simple, chic ankle-length dress with flat sandals, a stack of shimmery bangles, and her long braids piled into a messy-but-not-messy bun. All eyes follow her as she floats toward me—mine included.
Janae crashes into my side with a fierce hug. She sways us back and forth as she embraces me, making my stool wobble. I grapple at the table’s edge for stability with one hand, letting my other wrap around her back.
