This time she is more successful. Lots of men seem to want to date her. She meets a man—good-looking in an unobtrusive way. He has red hair and glasses. Her heart skips a beat when she meets him. They have a drink and then go to a restaurant. They argue about Philip Roth. He writes freelance book reviews while temping. He takes his glasses off and wipes them quite often. It is a tic she decides is endearing. He is small, but she doesn’t mind. They finish dinner and pay half each. They kiss lightly on the lips—the tiniest bit of tongue—and say how great it was and go their separate ways. She hears nothing from him. She checks her computer constantly. She sends him a message. Another one. She starts to feel she might be going mad. After a while she sees he is active on there. He has changed his profile. Changed his picture. He says he would like to meet someone who likes books.

In these moods everything is black. In these moods all men are damaged monsters. As is she. Everyone tells her that everyone meets online nowadays, cheering her on from the sidelines, but in these moods she knows it is just the leftovers. The scraps. She cannot imagine Lissa, for instance, ever going on there to find a man.

She shows Lissa the pictures of the men. These scraps. These leftovers. “Listen,” says Lissa. “You’re going for the wrong ones. They’re all too skinny. Too cerebral. What you want is a bear. What about him?” She points to a man with a beard and bags underneath his eyes. “He looks kind. Or him?” She leans forward and clicks the profile of a tattooed man with a baseball cap. “There you go,” she says. “Try him.”