A Real Story

I joined the site because my sister said the long profile questions would ‘weed out the weirdos,’ which in retrospect is a hilarious thing to believe about a dating website. I spent two hours answering things like ‘what’s a small thing that ruins your day’ and got matched at 97% compatibility with a woman named Renee who listed pottery, Fleetwood Mac, and ‘radical honesty’ as her top three interests. We texted for three weeks straight, real conversations, not just gif exchanges — she told me about her ex who cheated with a coworker named Diane, I told her about the time I got fired from a Dairy Queen for giving out too many free Blizzards.

We finally met at an Applebee’s off Route 9 because it was the halfway point between our two towns. She showed up eleven minutes late in a jean jacket that matched her profile pictures, ordered a Dr Pepper, and for the first twenty minutes it was fine, a little stiff but fine. Then she got a phone call, said ‘oh no, my roommate’s locked out,’ and walked toward the back where the bathrooms were. I sat there for forty-five minutes drinking free refills before I understood she wasn’t coming back and had, apparently, left through the kitchen exit.

I texted her that night, no answer. Three days later her profile was just gone. I found out much later, through a mutual friend of a friend in one of those small-world coincidences, that she’d been messaging four guys from that same site that same week and picked whichever date felt worst in person to bail on first. I was the loser of some algorithm I didn’t know I was competing in.

What I took from it: a 97% match score means the site is good at guessing what topics you’ll both talk about, not whether either of you is ready to actually sit across from a stranger and stay. I still use the site, but now I treat the percentage like a horoscope — fun to read, not something to build an evening around.