I was putting myself out there. On my return to San Francisco from a bleak Thanksgiving with my surviving relatives in Illinois, I downloaded Tinder, Bumble, and a few other apps I’d seen Instagram ads for. I resolved to pass judgment on several hundred men per day, and to make an effort to message the few I matched with.
I’d never liked the idea of finding a romantic partner on an app, the way you’d order pizza or an Uber. To further complicate matters, it was estimated that fifty per cent of men on dating apps in the city were now blots. But what choice did I have? Apps seemed to be the way everyone found each other these days. After my last breakup, I spent a while “letting something happen,” which meant doing nothing. Years passed and nothing did happen, and I realized that without my intervention, my hand pushing the warm back of fate, it was possible nothing ever would. In the end, it seemed to come down to never dating again or taking the chance of being blotted. Though I supposed there had always been risks.
The early blots had been easy to identify. They were too handsome, for one thing. Their skin was smooth and glowing, and they were uniformly tall and lean. Jawlines you could cut bread with. They looked like models, and they had no sense of humor.
I met one of them several years ago. My friend Peter had invited me to a dinner party hosted by a tech founder he’d grown up with in the Sunset, and with whom he’d once followed the band Phish around the country, selling nitrous poppers to concertgoers. Peter and I didn’t really hang out, beyond the meetings we attended in church basements for people who no longer drank. But I was bored, and it was a free dinner, and Peter made it sound as if he’d already asked a bunch of people who’d said no, which took some of the pressure off.
At dinner, I sat next to a guy named Roger. He had the telltale blot look—high forehead, lush hair, shapely eyebrows—but I didn’t recognize it for what it was, because the blot phenomenon hadn’t yet broken through in the media. He was solicitous, asking about my family, my work as a teacher, and my resentment toward the tech industry.
Roger seemed eager to charm, but I was not charmed. I felt spotlighted by his attentiveness, his anticipation of what I might want—another helping of fava-bean salad, more water, an extra napkin after I dropped a chunk of braised pork on the lap of my skirt. I would say something self-deprecating, and he’d regard me steadily and assure me that I was a wonderful person, deserving of all I wanted from life, which wasn’t what I’d been asking for. Roger didn’t know me and was not a credible judge of my worth—unless his position was that everyone had worth, which made him no judge whatsoever. When I shifted the subject to him, he supplied a backstory that seemed pre-written.
“I came from ranchland in the northern United States,” he told me. “My father was stern but loving, in his way. My mother is a wonderful woman who raised the four of us into strong, capable adults. My childhood was not without hardship, but these adversities shaped me into the person I am today. Now I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, land of innovation and possibility. I am grateful for the life I’ve been given, and I know it is thanks to the people who have loved and supported me on the journey.”
I forced a chuckle of acknowledgment. “Wow,” I said. “That’s great.”
