Jude nods and I click around Raya’s profile. She’s twenty-three, an assistant pastry chef, and apparently into something called Christian horror. (Is that, like, movies about exorcisms? I’m slightly intrigued.) Ah, she also moved to the city just a couple of months ago.

“Okay, how about . . .” I say before I start typing.

GreatSc0t: Heya. I see you’re new to New York. That was me two years ago. Have you figured out whether you love it or hate it yet?

“What do you think?” I ask Jude.

“Great,” he says. “That works.”

“Okay,” I respond. “You’ve got final approval power with the send button.”

“Approved,” Jude says as he hits send and the message pings over to Raya. “Okay, so now . . . ah. She’s online.”

So she is. I see the icon that means she’s typing in real time. We wait for her response. It doesn’t take long.

RayaJack5: Haven’t decided yet.

I wait, in case Raya decides to take it a step further and ask Jude anything about himself. But we get bupkes. Apparently, she’s never taken an improv class either.

GreatSc0t: I have a theory that it’s almost completely reliant on where you have your first slice of pizza. You have a good one, and you and New York are a Match. You have a subpar one and . . . it might just be Game.

The message lingers as I watch Jude’s brows furrow a bit over it. “You don’t like it?” I ask Jude.

“No, it’s good,” he says. “It’s just . . . I don’t eat pizza. I’ve been paleo for over two years now.”

“Ah, okay,” I say, deleting the message, before realizing what he’s actually saying. “So you’ve . . . never had a New York pizza?!”

He shakes his head.

“And you’re still here?” I ask incredulously. “How the hell do you know if you like it?”

Jude grins. “The hot dogs weren’t bad. I had one from one of those carts once.”

“I guess but . . . wait. You had it without the bun too, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” Jude says sheepishly.

I shake my head. “Impersonating you might be tougher than I expected. Okay, how about this then . . .”

GreatSc0t: I have a theory that it’s almost completely reliant on where you have your first run. You pick someplace scenic, on a beautiful fall or spring day, and you and New York are a Match. You end up in the horror show that is midtown in February, you’ll be lucky if you can even bring yourself to call it a Game.

“Much better,” Jude says, hitting send.

RayaJack5: Running is cool.

Christ. This woman might need our help even more than Jude does.

“Okay, so real talk,” I say to Jude. “How much do you like this girl based on her profile and this brief interaction?”