Page 2 of Valentine's Day Daddy

She gives me a long, even look. “You’re a successful, moderately attractive, single man. By not using the site, you’re sending a poor message to the people who do.”

“Moderately attractive?”

She shrugs but grins. “I’m not here to fluff up your ego.”

“I think the new membership numbers from this last quarter show that my not using the site doesn’t send any sort of message. Nobody knows me.”

“You’re Ezra Mullen, media mogul and most eligible bachelor in LA,” she argues. “Everybody knows you.”

“But they don’t know I built this site. That’s my point.”

Mimi has been trying to get me to sign up for the site for months now. She’s argued that my romantic track record is abysmal. I date now and then but haven’t had a serious relationship since… hell, I don’t know that I’ve ever had a serious relationship. Certainly not one that’s lasted more than a couple of months. The problem is I have this checklist of things I want in another person, in my head and those things are non-negotiable. There are qualities I want in a woman, and I won’t accept less than those things I’m looking for. To this point, I’ve never met a person who’d ticked off even half those boxes. And so, I’m alone.

I can’t say that Mimi is entirely wrong. I suppose it’s possible that I could find somebody who ticks all the boxes on the site. Of course, I think it’s just as possible that I can sprout wings and fly to the moon all on my own.

“Listen, the site is doing great, there’s no question about that. But it would go next level if people saw a high-profile person like you sign up for it,” she said. “It would bring more people to the site which, in turn, generates even more revenue. More money will allow us to do even more things with Soulmates and the media group as a whole. Not to mention it will help us pad our bank accounts, you know."

“I think my bank account is pretty well padded as it is. As is yours. Trying to appeal to me by dangling money is low-hanging fruit. I expected better from you,” I say.

She grins. “Fine. But listen, I’m talking to you as a friend here,” she starts. “You’re too good of a guy to be single, Ezra. I hate seeing you alone.”

“So, let’s start dating.”

“Oh, God no,” she says, and we share a laugh.

If I didn’t consider Mimi to be family—a little sister, really—I think she’d be perfect for me. She comes the closest to checking off all the boxes on my list of anybody I’ve ever been with.

“I just mean… you’ve got a lot to give and I hate seeing you alone in this world. It just feels like you’ve given up, Ezra,” she says. “I want to see you in love. I want to see you married. And I want to have lots of nieces and nephews.”

"Oh, this is all about what you want."

She flashes me a smile. “Of course. When is it not?”

“That’s an excellent point,” I reply. “But you know better than anybody that I’ve got high standards. And I don’t feel like I should lower them just to be with somebody.”

“And I’m not saying you should. All I’m saying is that you won’t know who’s out there for you—even on your own love connection site—if you don’t give it a try,” she says. “There are literally thousands of women on this site. How do you know there isn’t one who’s going to meet your high standards?”

I open my mouth to reply but realize there’s nothing I can say to refute it. She’s right. For all I know, there’s a woman on the site who ticks all the boxes. But maybe there isn’t. The bottom line is that getting together with anybody is going to be a crapshoot. People lie on the questionnaire. They omit certain, unflattering details and overstate others that will make them look better. As good and state-of-the-art as the algorithm I built is, I can’t account for the lies and deceptions that are part of human nature. Nobody can.

And it’s for that reason that no dating website, no matter how popular and how successful at making matches, will be one hundred percent perfect. You will always need to separate the wheat from the chaff. And at thirty-nine years old, I feel like I’m getting a little too old to keep playing that game. I’ll still go out and have fun. I’ll date. But I made my peace with being alone a while ago.

“By the way, we’re having an in-person function for Valentin’s Day to support the site on Friday,” Mimi announces. “You’re going. And you’re going to participate.”

“Yeah, I’m not going to do that. I don’t do Valentine’s Day.”

“This year you do. And you’re going to participate because if you don't, I'm going to start signing you up on every single mail-order bride and Sugar Baby website I can find. You'll be inundated with shallow women who only want your money,” she threatens. “Come on, Ezra. It’s a few hours out of your night. It’ll be good for Soulmates, which is in turn, good for the entire media group, and who knows? If you pretend to have some fun, you might accidentally fall into some.”

“You are an evil, evil woman.”

“I am. And that’s one of the reasons you hired me,” she said.

I shrug. “I mean… you’re not wrong.”

“Great. Friday it is. Get your haircut and wear something nice.”

“I still hate you.”

“You don’t,” she replies. “But I’ll let you keep pretending you do.”

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