insaine dating
He signals to the waiter. The subtle two-finger wave that makes him feel like Don Draper. The waiter nods and walks over to their table, hands behind his back. He likes that the waiters here all wear aprons. “True elegance,” his sister would have said.
The waiter asks if they want dessert. This is the easiest tell. If she’s interested, she’ll make a move for dessert. If not, she’ll say she’s full. She leans in, smiling as she raises an eyebrow. Bingo, he thinks. He orders a cheesecake to share.
She picks up the thread of the conversation where they left off. Her coworker’s weird vendetta against Groundhog Day. She recounts this coworker ranting about how the groundhog always sees its shadow, no matter what. She was appalled to find out that there are more than one groundhog, and that the groundhog in Oregon is, in fact, a beaver. She tosses her head back, laughing in a way that reminds him of a seal. The effect is more pronounced by her shiny brown hair.
He nods, tossing in a chuckle for good measure. That’s only the second animal-focused story she’s told. Still seems like a lot. He’s not that into animals if he’s being honest. He hates the pressure he feels when people go crazy around dogs. Or how cats have suddenly become mainstream. Fawning over an animal just doesn’t come naturally to him. Babies? Now those are cute. He can gawk over a baby, no problem. As long as it’s chubby. God forbid he has to fake coo over a skinny baby.
He realizes that his date has paused. She places a hand over his on the table, looking at him with sleepy eyes. He makes a joke about getting caught up in the beaver-groundhog of it all. His cheeks hurt from holding his smile. She teases him, says she loves a daydreamer.
In the Uber home, he manages to drop her off first with a pretty seamless, Let’s do this again! When he gets home, he pulls up her profile. They were a 73% match for values. He scrolls further. Only 22% overlap in flirtation styles. That makes more sense.
He remembers skimming their results before the date, and realizes that he really only paid attention to the biggest number. If he thought about it, though, he was bored for most of dinner. He regrets that he never seems to like the girls he’s best matched with on values. It seems like they’re not the only factor to solid relationships, as his mom would like him to believe. Still, he is surprised he didn’t like this one more. She’s rated “Extremely Likely” on his Personal Attraction Scale.
Just as he thinks maybe their date wasn’t that bad, the app prompts him for a review. He makes a point of rating his dates as quickly as possible so that he doesn’t leave himself room to overthink it. He clicks 4/5 for Attraction, 3/5 for Flirtation (she tried!), 2/5 stars for Overall Conversation, ‘Somewhat Agree’ for Shared Values, and ‘Maybe’ for Second Date Potential.
The app prompts him to send her the results to support honest communication. He sets his phone down on the side table to take off his jacket, and tosses his shoes by the door. Does he want to send her his rating?
He shakes his head, thinking about the girl he had to block after giving her less than 5-star feedback. It’s not like other guys can see the ratings. But she was furious, accusing him of smiling like a dope the whole time and then “wrecking” her.
This girl seems way cooler than her, though. Maybe she’d see it as something they can work out. He thinks about how much easier it used to be to ghost someone. Now if you don’t rate, they assume it’s bad, and if you do rate, their feelings get hurt. He gets it. He feels the same way on the rare times he gets a rating he didn’t expect.
He should really start telling his dates that he doesn’t rate ahead of time. He can just say he’s old school in that way. Imagine if Don had to rate his dates, he laughs out loud thinking about it.
Fuck it, she was nice enough. He changes his rating to 4/5 across the board, adds a winky emoji to the optional comment box under Second Date Potential, and hits Share. Immediately, he gets a notification that her results are in too. Just as he suspected, all fives.
He’s glad he took her to La Tela. Every time he takes a date there, she gives him fives. He thinks it’s something about the cozy lighting. Well, he knows, actually. The app probably booked the restaurant based on average responses.
He tells Alexa to turn on the next episode of The Office while he catches up on emails. When he’s cleared the notifications, he opens the app again. He skims ongoing conversations to see what he missed.
His bot persona, who he stupidly calls Wiz, has pursued ten Potentials. A few of them actually look promising. Solid match percentage, witty conversation, it looks like. Wiz is really starting to get his sense of humor, he has to admit. He directs Wiz to gracefully end two of the conversations — after tonight, he doesn’t want to entertain even lower flirtation scores — and then selects his daily Priority Three for Wiz to focus on.
He flips to TikTok and scrolls through a few videos before pausing on a video of two brunettes doing the latest dance trend. He zooms on one, and double clicks. He selects Add to Taste Profile so Wiz can recalibrate his swipes.