Brett leans over to take the laptop back from Braden and click it. The introduction sequence begins.

Everyone starts at the beginning: for now you are unranked.

We will show you all singles in your area who allow unranked users to appear in their dating pool.

As you swipe through users, they will swipe through you.

Once you get an average “yes” swipe of 6.5/10 you will reach Silver status.

If you get to an average of 8/10 you will become Gold.

And if you manage a 9/10 or above, you will be one of the few users who reach Platinum.

Best of luck!

Another button appears that says: View Singles Near Me. He clicks on it, and a picture of a brunette girl with glasses appears. He swipes yes.

He clicks through the pictures rapidly, making decisions in a split second, based only on the photo, since there’s no way he is reading their bios that quickly.

A picture comes up I recognize. Lily, a quiet but kind girl in my CS class. Her photograph is with her mom on vacation. She is wearing a turtleneck sweater. At the bottom of the screen it says she is currently Unranked.

Brett swipes left, saying no to her. My chest tightens. I can’t help but feel bad for Lily, thinking about her shy voice when she asks a question in class. I hate that she’s about to get an alert that her score has dropped.

An alert comes up on Brett’s screen: “You have reached Silver Status!”

“Damn,” he says with a shit-eating grin. “People like me.”

“Silver’s not that hard,” I say. I flinch. I don’t know why I said that. I guess I was just mad for Lily. I take a sip of my beer; it’s getting warm. Whatever. I’m not really in the mood to drink.

“So now I can filter out some of these duds, right?” Brett asks, still clicking through images.

“That’s the idea.” Braden smiles. “But you might want to leave unfiltered on,” he adds. “That way they can see you and bump up your score.”

“Good point,” Brett says. “That’s why I can see her then?” he asks, when a pretty, curly-haired girl comes on the screen, her information bar reading: Gold. “Because she has silver settings on?”

“Oh my god.” Sara sits up, finally paying attention. “That’s Yaz. I know her.”

“She’s hot,” Braden says.

“She’s also brilliant.” Sara sits up taller in her chair.

“Well yeah, it says right there, former Instafriend intern.”

“A definite right swipe,” Brett says.

Sara falls back onto the couch cushions. “Can we do something else?” She says. “This feels weird.”

“Sure.” Brett switches over to Netflix.

He scrolls through Netflix before settling on Planet Earth, and I watch as the camera pans over an African landscape, the colors vibrant on the HD, curved screen, all-the-bells-and-whistles machine.