Man Who Quantifies His Dates Says He’s All Romance

Jun 19, 2018

“Tell us about Jessica!” said Pete (31) to his friend Melvin (30).  “Are you excited to meet her in person?”

Melvin met Jessica (27) on Hinge, a hot new online dating app.  Jessica seemed very promising: smart, beautiful, funny, cheerful, attentive, and balanced.

“Truth be told, she’s not that special,” said Melvin.  “There are at least a hundred Jessicas out there.  It’s not that hard to match.”

“Dude, what the hell?” laughed Pete.  “Jessica likes you.  She seems great.  Where’s your romantic side?”

“What?” said Melvin, genuinely surprised.  “From the empirical evidence of my own experiences you should know that statistically I’m all about romance.  The sexiest qualities in a partner are honesty and truth.  Seems like you would rather believe an interesting delusion than a dull reality.  But the truth is Jessica is not special.  And I’m not special.  We are cattle.  Can you identify any broad physical or emotional difference from one cow to the next?  I don’t think so.  They are more or less the same if you get over superficial differences like height, weight, breed, age, interests, history, and demeanor.  She’d be just another hamburger had it not been for some mother cow who just so happened to give a name to her heifer.  And that name was Jessica.  How original.”

Pete’s face lit up with an upsurge of incredulous wonder.  He loved his friend, yet wanted to shake him.  And he wished he could reach out to Jessica in some way.  Just to say… something.  Some kind of heads up.  

“I know what you’re thinking,” said Melvin.  “But I don’t need to crack out of my cold shell.  I already am cracked.  I already am a romantic.  Jessis will be delighted at these identical looking flowers I got her.”

See, a bouquet of flowers had been delivered to him through a service that supplies suitors with flowers for their dates.  It uses an API to connect to Hinge and automatically detect if you have a date or not tonight.  All Melvin had to do was confirm the popup.  

It was 8:23.  That left 17 minutes to arrive at the restaurant where he could get there precisely 5 minutes early, padding slightly for traffic.

He would be there, just like all the other times.  He would keep the schedule moving along.