Page 11 of Matchmaking for Psychopaths

After I read through her profile out loud, we discussed some potential matches as a group.

“Maybe Paul? Or Tyler?” Serena suggested.

“Tyler was my first instinct,” I agreed. “He drives that luxury car, which is right up her alley. I could see Paul working out too. I’ve been trying to find a match for him for a while, and she’s a good fit for what he’s looking for physically.”

“Keep both in mind when you complete the next phase of intake. I trust your judgment here,” Serena said.

She moved on to the next client, Hector, a gay man who was tired of the aesthetic pressures of the dating world and wanted someone who was happy staying home and playing video games.

“He should be easy to match,” Oliver said.

It was a common thing we heard from clients in their thirties. Sometimes wanting love wasn’t about a desire for romance. Sometimes wanting love was about being tired.

Another client was assigned to Nicole. The client was conventionally attractive, thin and blond haired. She worked as a surgical nurse, and taught aerobics classes on the side.

People frequently assumed that our clients were ugly or strange and that that was why they struggled to find love; often it was the opposite.

Strange people found one another. They went to nerd conventions, lowered their physical expectations, and were kind to one another because of the bullying they experienced in their young lives.

Alternatively, attractive people wanted partners who were as good-looking as they were and who worshipped them, not understanding that there was already too much ego in the equation.

If they wanted to be treated like gods, they needed to date people willing to get on their knees and pray.

The client’s problem was that she was getting older—already thirty-five—and her biological clock was ticking.

She’d taken the step of freezing her eggs but was unwilling to undertake a parenting role on her own.

The timeline meant that she wanted to get married sooner rather than later, and have children shortly after that.

I understood why she was pressed. Life plans were a part of matchmaking.

It was a common conundrum in romantic comedies: two people who were perfect for each other were made less so by their clocks’ being out of sync.

That was one of the ways in which Noah and I fit—our tracks aligned. Or they had until Molly ruined it all.

“I have a few ideas,” Nicole said. “Maybe Brad? He comes from a big family, and he’s older, so he might not mind her age. That’s definitely going to be the biggest challenge here.”

Though Nicole was twenty-nine, she often talked about people over the age of thirty like they were diseased. I enjoyed wondering how she would cope with her own aging body.

“At the end of the day, she’s going to have to compromise. If she wants kids that quickly, she’ll have to figure out what traits are most important to her in a partner,” Serena said.

She passed out a couple clients to newer matchmakers, whom I didn’t know particularly well.

Matchmaking was a job that everyone thought they could do, but not everyone had what it took to be successful in the profession.

Strangely, romantic comedies were the best kind of education, because they taught me that the pathway to love was rarely straight.

I had, as Serena said, the guts to survive in the business.

I started to pack up my things, eager to get to work on Rebecca’s case.

She was the type of client I liked most—beautiful, and resistant to commitment.

I enjoyed watching the change in a person when they found someone who was right for them.

The perfect match meant that a night spent on the couch at home was better than a night getting drunk at a bar.

It tamed a person. A feral cat domesticated.

I waited for Serena’s usual monologue about the importance of love in the world, and I was thrown when she instead said, “I have a couple of announcements.” The way she said it, that gleam on her face…Something was happening.

I’d heard women describe themselves as “empaths.” I disliked the term.

How could anyone truly know if they were more empathetic than other people?

Everyone, inside themselves, believed that they experienced life more acutely than everyone else.

In any case, I considered myself to be good at sensing others’ emotional states.

Serena was excited. The jewels in her necklace were especially sparkly, her teeth particularly white.

“I’ve been in talks with an investor. He loves what Better Love is doing, which is to say that he loves what all of you are doing, and he thinks there’s a possibility of an expansion.”

Across the table, Nicole took in a loud breath.

“We would start small. A couple of Midwestern cities to begin with, Chicago or St. Louis. If that goes well, then we’ll expand into a national brand.”

Oliver looked smug. He’d told me once that he thought this would happen.

“Serena likes to talk a big game about doing good for people. She’s genuine in that, but in her core, she’s a businesswoman. Her husband, her son—they would be nothing without her. I’m not sure they recognize that. She does though. She knows her power,” he’d said.

Nicole was struggling to stay in her seat. She gripped the edge of the table like it was the only thing holding her down. An older matchmaker was frowning. I took another bite of doughnut. The sprinkles crunched satisfyingly between my teeth.

“You see,” Serena continued, “people are increasingly starting to recognize loneliness as a crisis. Some have even called it an epidemic . Everyone is on their phones, watching television, ordering takeout, secluded within their homes.”

I thought of all of my followers on social media.

They knew what I ate, what I wore, the exercises that I did in the gym.

They knew all my thoughts on Love Island , whose side I took in each season’s drama.

But they didn’t know that, two days prior, my best friend had announced that she and my fiancé were in love and they were going to be together.

Neither did they know about the things that my parents had done.

On Saturday night I’d tried to think of someone, anyone, I could call, and had come up empty, choosing instead to spill my secrets to an attractive stranger.

One thing about loneliness was that the people inside of it thought that they were the only ones.

Everyone else, it seemed, was surrounded by friends and family.

Serena’s announcement revealed that my assumptions were incorrect.

Lots of people were lonely—so lonely that investors were willing to stake money on their desperation to find someone. Things were worse than I’d thought.

“What’s going to happen to this location?” Nicole interrupted, unable to contain herself.

“For the moment, things will stay the same. Sometime in the near future, however, I will be stepping down from the position of director in this location in order to help facilitate the opening of other branches. My hope is that I can train someone—one of you—to fill that role. Better Love has always been like a family, and I want to keep it that way.”

I could sense the molecular shift inside myself as I transformed from a wallowing woman into someone with a mission.

My position at Better Love was the first job that I’d ever had that had really engaged me, but unlike in my corporate roles, there was no room for growth here.

I was jealous of the way that people looked at Noah when he told them that he was doing a medical residency.

I wanted people to look at me the same way, though I had no interest in going to medical school.

I admired Serena, with her sparkling jewelry and white, white teeth.

This was it, my opportunity to become someone respectable.

I glanced around the room to see who else might be interested.

Though Oliver had worked at Better Love longer than me, he had always claimed that he didn’t want to be a matchmaker forever.

His real dream was to be one of those famous people who somehow made their living doing podcasts.

There were a couple of matchmakers who were older than me, but they hadn’t been with the company as long, and they had lower success rates than I had.

The job seemed like it was mine until my eyes met Nicole’s.

I could tell by the expression on her face that she wanted the position and knew that I did too.

A wave of possessiveness crashed through me.

Over the weekend, Molly had stolen Noah from me, stupidly thinking that I would allow her to get away with it.

No, I resolved. It was a new week. I’d win Noah back, get a promotion, and have the wedding of my dreams. All of the missteps, all of the drama, were just anecdotes that I was collecting on my pathway down the aisle.

“If you think that taking on a director role is something that might interest you,” Serena continued, “please come see me. For the rest of you, know that the goal is to keep Better Love the thriving, pleasant workplace that it’s always been. Now, go make some people fall in love.”