“You haven’t been matched yet?” said Aram’s sister, urgent. He asked her to explain; she cried into the phone, “For god’s sake, Aram, are you totally unplugged? How have you not heard?”
Three of Aram’s friends had downloaded MatchMade+, and been paired with their partners. Why wouldn’t Aram do the same? Did he really want to be single for the rest of his life?
He said he’d look into it, but didn’t. The idea of a dating application that pairs you with only one person, someone you’re expected to love on sight, made him feel queasy.
A few weeks later, his parents brought it up. His sister had called and told them. They were concerned for his well-being. They loved him and didn’t want to see him die alone. “Download it,” his mother said, “for my sake.” The fear in her voice convinced him.
MatchMade+ had been active for two years, gaining prominence after a successful beta test. It used a highly specialized personality survey to match users with a partner. The app said there were two of everything: two bodies, two minds, two souls. The app learned about a person’s body and mind, and using the data, connected them with their perfect other. It would revolutionize romance, the tech magazines said. No one would be ill-suited or outmatched anymore. No one would be alone.
Aram found plenty of resistance to the idea online. Philosophers tore it apart. Artists decried losing love to science. The non-monogamous laughed at the very notion. But convenience was winning out. People wanted contained, clearly-defined lives.
When Aram sat down to register for the app, he decided to take it seriously. The entry survey asked over 1,000 questions and required at least five hours to complete. It started with standard demographic questions. There were categories for race, gender, sexuality, religion, personality types and astrological signs. Each question had two possible answers. Yes or no; rarely, often; A or B.
After the first hundred, the questions became more personal. Do you feel sad? Rarely, often. Is it easy to please you? Yes, no. Are you lonely? Always, never. Aram took extra time with these. He rarely asked such things of himself; he did feel sad and lonely, at odds with the world, but only sometimes. He chose the deprecating, honest answers.
It took him five evenings to complete the test. After submitting, he tried to forget. He knew that, while some matches came instantly, others took months. He read one article about a woman who’d filled out the test a year ago, and was still waiting. The possibility nagged at him in the office and in traffic, early in the morning when he couldn’t sleep. He was not a remarkable person; he expected no more than he was.
Eight weeks after his submission, the app sent a message. He buried his phone in a desk drawer and didn’t look at it until he left work. He’d never been nervous about a notification before. It was ridiculous, he thought, to feel so strongly about an arbitrary decision. Yet his fingers shook when he checked the app.
Aram’s match was named Gregory. He was thirty-two years old, trim and muscular. Though he traveled often for work, his home base was Aram’s city. Aram supposed this was lucky; some matches were made on opposite sides of the world.
Gregory was a fashion photographer for high-profile magazines. In his pictures he looked sharp, tasteful and modelesque, always showing his chest and arms. The excitement that Aram felt, looking at his new partner, frightened him. It had to be a mistake. He was a desk clerk for a corporate law firm, and had no real talents or hobbies. Though his family and friends called him handsome, he was no model. He didn’t deserve a man like Gregory.
Aram considered reaching out, but decided against it. He’d been passive in his last relationships, preferring to let the other man take charge.
On the fourth morning, he received another message: “I can’t help but think I disappointed you.”
Aram replied, “You didn’t. I’m just intimidated.”
“I can work with that,” Gregory wrote.
They met for coffee on a Sunday afternoon. Gregory told wild stories about his career, celebrities he’d partied with, his trysts and affairs. Aram listened and admired, feeling like a vestigial limb. At the end Gregory kissed him and asked to meet again.
For their first real date, Gregory took Aram on a walking tour of the city. He pointed out architectural gems, historical landmarks, favorite spots of visiting celebrities. They ate dinner at an exclusive rooftop lounge . Gregory ordered for them, introducing Aram to fusion dishes, strange cocktails, and deconstructed desserts. Then he insisted on a male strip club, members only. The dancers knew him, and made sure to pay Aram special attention.
The crowds and opulence overwhelmed Aram. He felt dizzy and faint until Gregory kissed him again. They didn’t stop kissing, not in the taxi back to Gregory’s place, nor in the bedroom, in the shower, on the hallway floor.
When they woke the next morning in each other’s arms, Aram told Gregory, “I didn’t believe in this app at first. But now I think I do.”
“Feeling lucky?” Gregory said, kissing Aram again.
“Yes. God yes,” Aram whispered, then yelled it, so that the neighboring apartments could hear him.
In the following weeks Aram’s life changed utterly. He had never been courted before. He wasn’t used to fancy dinners, to urban adventures and party-going. Gregory was always getting invited to a gallery opening, concert or birthday party, and it was customary to bring matches to social events. Between this and Gregory’s frequent travel, Aram saw little of him without someone else present.
This did not change when Aram moved into Gregory’s place. Part of Aram wanted his lover to himself, without the pressure of social performance. But he was grateful to be included at all.
In a few months’ time, Aram had adapted to Gregory’s lifestyle. He exercised more often, ate expensive superfoods, kept up with the fashion and art worlds, and socialized like he’d been born into status. Gregory often said, “You’re changing so much. I’m bringing you out of your shell.”
Aram had never considered himself worthy of this attention. If he hadn’t joined MatchMade+, his existence would have been partial, unfulfilled. Gregory, his other half, was completing him.
Everyone in Aram’s life congratulated him on the match. Whenever he saw his sister, she beamed with pride, as if she’d always known he would find someone fabulous. His friends said he was transformed, an unfurled butterfly. He felt a strange joy at the praise – ecstatic yet anxious, like he knew he hadn’t earned it. Like he knew even then that something would go wrong.
The first time Aram met the real Gregory, they were out drinking. An assignment had gone poorly and Gregory wanted to forget. Several rounds in, Aram made the mistake of asking, “Want to go somewhere else? Go home?”
Gregory eyed him like a pest. “What, is this not fun for you?”
“It just doesn’t seem like it’s helping,” Aram said, as gently as possible.
“Why do I have to decide everything?” Gregory shouted. “I don’t have to entertain you. I’m staying here. You can do what you want.”
Aram tried to backtrack, but Gregory’s anger had boiled over, spewing accusations and half-threats across the bar. They’d never shown much emotion around each other, never disagreed beyond surface-level things. Aram tried to keep his sadness and anger to himself. Gregory had done the same, until now.
“Fine, you’re not happy, we’ll leave,” Gregory concluded, dragging Aram to the car. They drove home, where Aram tried to comfort Gregory, but only stoked his anger. “I just want to help,” Aram pleaded.
Gregory responded with a quick, sharp movement. The world filled with static. Aram lost his balance and fell against the counter. Gregory’s anger turned to panic as he cradled Aram, repeating “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
Once the bleeding slowed Aram said, “It’s alright. It was meant to happen.”
He didn’t know why he said it then. Not until the fourth time, which required an emergency room visit and two finger splints. “It’s alright,” Aram said during the ride home. It was meant to happen.
The next week, he had lunch with his sister, and she asked about the splints. He told her the truth. She took a long drink of water, then said no more. Her own match was going well; they had married, and were planning to have children.
He started avoiding his friends after one of them noticed a bruise on his cheek. When he explained the cause, his friend pretended not to hear. He raised his voice and asked, “Have you ever heard of a match going wrong?”
“How could that be possible?” his friend said. “The data’s too accurate.”
He chose not to tell his parents. He’d been avoiding them, claiming that Gregory kept him too busy. “We can’t wait to meet him,” they said again and again. He hadn’t broached the subject with Gregory yet; the obligation would set him off. Aram told his parents “Soon,” and trusted them not to pry.
The incidents changed little in Aram’s routine. He still went to work, exercised, accompanied Gregory to dinners and parties. He learned how to keep out of Gregory’s way, how to make himself small. He tried to remember the questions on the survey, the answers that might have led him here. Perhaps the app had found him too soft, pampered, inexperienced. He needed someone assertive to teach him a lesson. One way or another, he deserved Gregory.
Gregory claimed the incidents hurt him as much as they did Aram. They would cry for hours afterward, like heartbroken children. Aram never fought back, though sometimes this seemed to make Gregory angrier. “Why don’t you just leave?” he screamed. “Why don’t you?” But Gregory needed Aram too – needed someone who could take his outbursts and not crumble.
In this new paradigm, Aram began to notice changes. No one flirted in bars anymore. No one at the office discussed their love lives. He never heard about breakups and divorces. Everyone was matched.
Aram tried to convince himself he was lucky. He took pride in the grace with which he handled the situation. He’d never considered himself strong; but maybe, after all, he was. Perhaps that was something Gregory had taught him, or brought out in him, like a pump drawing oil from the earth. If his match treated him this way, and the data was infallible, then Aram deserved it. And he was meant to endure.
One morning Gregory looked at Aram and said, “What do you think of yourself?”
Aram didn’t respond.
“Do you think staying with me makes you some kind of martyr?”
“I don’t know,” Aram said.
“Pathetic,” Gregory said, matter-of-fact, and finished his drink.
Something shifted in Aram after this. His pride and resilience corroded, scraping away to reveal frustration, raw and infectious. He began to ask himself why he stayed. It wasn’t for social approval, or to prove a point. He stayed for convenience. He was no longer certain that endurance meant anything. His parents and sister would worry if he unmatched, but Gregory didn’t seem to care either way.
That night, Aram hid in the bathroom and opened up the app. He hadn’t looked at it since first meeting Gregory. The screen was frozen on their last message. No option to exit or reload. He restarted his phone and tried again, but found no way back to the menu, no settings or logout button. There was no way to unmatch.
Aram tried deleting the app from his phone. An error message appeared: “App in use.”
Over the next few days, Aram hunted for a solution. He found no mention of breakups or unmatchings. Even on the fringes of the internet, no one discussed the possibility of refuting the app.
In a last-ditch effort, Aram called the MatchMade+ customer service line. After an hour on hold, a representative finally told him, “We do not currently support an unmatching option.” He requested to speak with a manager; three hours and ten transfers later, he hung up. None of the representatives had even let him tell his story. All had recommended that he simply stop inquiring.
As he made himself smaller and smaller, Aram tried to imagine living with Gregory for another year, a decade, a lifetime. Something cold and damp wrapped around his spine. He hadn’t been with Gregory for a year but he already felt old, tired. He didn't want to live his life in a locked room.
In the eleventh month of his pairing, Aram invited his sister to lunch. They spoke politely, at a distance, remembering the splints too well. Once their food arrived, Aram said, “I want to leave Gregory, I think.”
His sister looked at him with wide, blank eyes. “You want to unmatch?”
He nodded, tried to explain himself but couldn’t.
They didn’t speak. Their food went cold. After a while his sister said, “Aram, I’m sorry. I can’t imagine how difficult it must be. But unmatching? People just don’t do that. How would it look? What would your friends think? Mom and Dad? I can’t let you become a pariah.”
He argued that there was nothing wrong with breaking up, he and Gregory weren’t even married. “Maybe that’s how things were, but I’m telling you how they are,” his sister said. “Don’t ruin your life over this.”
On the way home, Aram listened to the radio and watched billboards float by. Ads for theme parks and cruises boasted “satisfaction results” of 100%. Streaming services advertised personalized watchlists based on in-depth quizzes. Law firms and doctors professed to have “the most accurate data analysts in the field.” M alls and outlets had begun personalized shopping services for customers, selecting items based on their demographic and lifestyle.
All that night Aram burned his corneas scrolling through social media feeds and news archives that he’d ignored for too long. Governments had stopped counting votes, relying instead on data to elect officials. Entertainers and athletes were offered positions based on statistics. Job firms and college admissions placed applicants through long surveys, nearly identical to the one used by MatchMade+, to fill vacancies. Hospitals only accepted patients after hours of interviews and tests. Life, Aram found, was now decided by data.
On their first anniversary, Aram stayed home while Gregory went out drinking with friends. He waited for Gregory to come home. When Gregory stumbled in at dawn, they were both too tired to fight. They fell into a dull sleep, and when they awoke, the dullness remained. Gregory no longer got angry. Aram no longer endured. They orbited each other in wary silence.
Aram tried not to wonder about anything. The data was perfect; it would give him the answer. He just had to wait for the results.
