“There she is, at last!” Janae exclaims, holding me at arm’s length and taking me in like she hasn’t seen me in years.
I roll my eyes at her dramatics. “It hasn’t beenthatlong,” I say.
She pats me on the cheek. “If I had to guess, Fee, it’s been weeks since this pretty face has been touched by sunlight.”
“Oh, hush.” I shove her away playfully, but don’t tell her that she’s right. We both know it’s the truth.
Janae and I are rarities in our industry, and not just because we’re both women who code. We’re both women who code, whoalsogot in early at a tech startup that made it big. Which meant that, after working long hours every day of the week for several years, we got a decent payout when the company was acquired by a bigger, hotter startup. We didn’t getrichnecessarily, but we both made enough to move on to something new without stressing about money for a while.
For Janae, that meant working with a non-profit that helps young women break into tech careers. The pay is shit, but I’ve never seen her happier.
For me, it meant I could finally build my own thing, my own way, from the ground up. And that’s exactly what I’ve been doing for the past few months—throwing myself into a new project, a new company, that’s all my own.
So, Janae is right. Ihavespent most of my days holed up at home or in the little coworking office I joined to make this venture feel real.
It’s nice to look up from a computer screen and be among the living for a while—as much as I hate to admit it. I tell Janae this, and she laughs before turning toward the bar. “This round’s on me,” she calls over her shoulder, “to celebrate your big win!”
I follow Janae’s path as she glides to the bar and settles her arms casually on the poured-concrete slab. Whoever decorated this place must have hated color and personality. Even againsta millennial gray backdrop, Janae shines like a beacon. Every man in the place turns toward her, unconsciously seeking her light. I smile to myself before opening my work email out of habit.
When Janae gets back to the table, she slaps my phone out of my hand. “No working! Hold this instead.” I take the cocktail glass from her and take a sip. “And this.” She shoves a shot of tequila into my other hand.
“I don’t think—”
Janae gives me a look, and I throw the shot back without another word. She does the same, and we both cough as we suck on anemic lime wedges.
“Cheers to you and doing the unthinkable!” she says, clinking her cocktail glass against mine from across the table.
“Building an app?” I ask.
She smiles over her drink. “Building the first-ever dating app for incels,” she says. “The haters said it couldn’t be done.”
“Ha, ha,” I say. “Very funny.”
“No, seriously, Fee. You know I’m proud of you…”
“But?” I lift an eyebrow.
“But, I don’t really get this anti-dating app thing you’re building. You’ve been on this anti-love soapbox for a few years, and I thought it was just a phase?” She says it like a question, looking at me with concern.
“It’s not an anti-love soapbox!” I protest. She scoffs. “Okay, so it kind of is. But it’s also more of a pro-practicality soapbox.” Sitting up in my seat, I launch into the pitch for the app I’m building.
“Look, people make a massive bet on another person to stay with them for the rest of their lives, and what do they get from it? Expensive lawyer fees, a broken heart, and the best yearsof their lives flushed down the toilet. But what if there was a way to find aplatoniclife partneryou could do life with instead? Split the bills, buy a house, travel, whatever.” I stick my fingers out and start listing: “It’s steady, it’s reliable, it’s pain-free. It’s the perfect solution!”
When I realized we’d been sold a lie around the whole dating game, I decided to do something about it. A new dating app, but one for realists, like me. Ananti-dating app. Clear-eyed, reasonable dating for people in it for the long-haul. That kind of stability doesn’t come from something as fickle aslove.It comes from compatibility. And compatibility is algorithmically predictable if you have the right data and logic.
Finding a lifelong partner is just as simple asmath.
Isn’t that comforting? With math, there’s always a right answer—and the solution is black and white, not shades of gray.
Janae shakes her head and takes a sip of her drink. “Damn, Bryan really did a number on you.”
I frown. “We don’t speak of Bryan, remember? Bryan ispersona non grata.Now until forever.”
“Right,” she says, almost pityingly. “So your app pairs people into couples so they can live in what is essentially a loveless marriage of convenience.”
“Lasting relationships don’t have to be based on love, you know,” I say, straightening my shirt.
“But the best ones always are.” She says softly, catching my brown eyes with her amber ones. I quickly blink away the prickly feeling building behind my eyelids.
