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I exchanged a glance with Leo, who raised an eyebrow and offered a half-shrug before nodding.
“You know what? I’ll do it,” Leo told her. “If all you want is empirical data to know how satisfied I am with the profile and the process, then I’m in. I’ll Mangle for you, Sam.”
“Really?” Samantha threw her arms around Leo. “I owe you, Leo. And don’t worry about whatever it tells you your matches are. You can delete the app after you give me your report.” Her brown eyes turned toward me, hopeful and warm.
I exhaled loudly. “Well, why the fuck not,” I murmured, pulling out my phone and handing it to Samantha, who scrolled to the app store. “You owe me for this, Brinkley.”
Leo’s eyes widened dramatically. “Moi?”
“Yes, you. I put all of this on your head.”
Leo grinned. “Then tacos on me after Saturday’s game.”
“Deal.”
I looked around and noticed that quite a few of our co-workers were downloading Mangle and completing the profiles as we sat there at the bar. Soon enough, the app was downloaded on my phone, a large red M as the logo.
But once I started filling out my profile, I was underwhelmed at what they were asking. “These are pretty standard questions. Personality, lifestyle, values.” I looked over at Leo, pecking away at his own phone. “I don’t see what’s different about this app.”
“Curious minds want to know,” piped up another coworker. “How does this work, Samantha?”
“From what I understand, it’s like having your own personal dating assistant powered by AI finding dates for you.” Samantha straightened up in her chair, eager to share her newfound knowledge. “I met with Cyrus, the app’s designer, this afternoon. He explained that Mangle uses ‘sentiment analysis’ and ‘emotional quantification’ to analyze your responses and pick your matches.”
“Sentiment analysis? Emotional quantification?” My eyebrows shot up as I dropped my voice and spoke to Leo. “Those terms sound fancier than they are.” Being a software engineer, I’d heard of those AI terms before, particularly when working with customer service programming, but that wasn’t an area that I had ever dealt with specifically.
Samantha continued, enthusiasm bubbling over. “Based on your answers, and anything the AI can find out about you on the internet, it uses algorithms and machine learning to understand your preferences, personality traits, and values. The goal is not just to know what you want, but also to understand your behavioral patterns, lifestyle, and personality traits, ensuring highly personalized match suggestions.”
“Sounds like Skynet for dating.” Leo tapped away at his phone as he completed his profile.
“Only if it starts sending Terminators after bad dates.” I smirked as Samantha rolled her eyes.
“Come on, guys, give it a fair shot, alright?”
“Alright.” I finished the profile as best as I could. “But I’m not sure I’m in the right mood to be doing this. When it asks what I’m looking for, I want to put ‘someone who doesn’t need me sitting next to them all day every day reassuring them that I give a shit about them.’ Does that sound bitter?”
“Maybe you should stop thinking so hard and just relax a little.” Leo playfully bumped my shoulder with his own. “Who knows? Maybe the right guy is out there for you.”
Whatever. “We’ll see about that.”
“Okay, time for photos.” Leo looked around and settled onto a bar chair. “Your phone takes better pictures than mine does. Take a couple for my profile but make me look attractive to the rich gays out there. And make me look skinny, too.”
I snorted. “You won’t have to worry about that, Leo,” I said as I held up the camera.
Leo’s eyes narrowed, and I snapped the perfect picture. “What do you mean by that?”
“You’ll see. Wait until your results come in.” As soon as I saw that picture, I knew it was the one—Leo with that curious intensity about his eyes and showing off his large, solid frame and hairy arms.
That picture would get him attention from any gay man in Austin looking for a sexy bear to fuck. There would be a line at his door.
But I took a few more, Leo laughing and then trying not to laugh but with his eyes crinkling around the edges, stroking his beard. “Here you go,” I told him, sending them to Leo, who finished his profile.
Then Leo grabbed my phone. “Alright, Mr. Workaholic Gym-Rat—I hope that’s what you put down as your profile name.”
“I did put that down, actually.” Leo often teased me about how I met guys at the gym. It wasn’t that I had a type, but that’s the only place I ever went besides work.
Leo scrolled through my photos. “I expected more dick pics. This is disappointing.”
“For fuck’s sake—”
