“They do, but it doesn’t matter,” Tania said as she checked the box next to fair on the survey. I looked down at my hands. I could pass for “wheatish,” but no way was I fair. “You’ll just get more interests that way,” she stated matter-of-factly.

I nodded, swallowing the guilt I felt for allowing myself to succumb to these unfair standards. I was certain that males in our communities dealt with some aspect of colorism, but I doubted it was to the same extent as the females.

“So is that it? Is that all they want to know about me?” I asked, slightly irked. For some reason, I’d imagined the online survey was going to be more like a digital version of the matchmaker’s questionnaire packet. I thought it would have detailed questions about my personality, my views on life, my wants in a partner. Instead, everything about it felt so superficial. I wondered how my mother would feel about this method. Based on the specificity of the résumés in her portfolio, I doubted she would approve.

“You can always go back and fill out a more detailed version of your profile later,” Tania said, her eyes still glued to the screen. “But for now, I think we should just skip past the tedious parts and go straight to browsing the profiles.” She looked back at us and wiggled her brows. “Ready to give it a whirl?”

The four of us crowded around the computer screen, scrolling through endless lists of potential grooms in my age range. It didn’t take me very long to realize that this dating website was nothing more than an electronic Rolodex of the same options from my mother’s black portfolio. It was pages and pages of the same type of guy—well-educated doctors and engineers, good families, traditional values, blah, blah, blah. It was not that I didn’t recognize the merit behind these qualities; it was just that I was looking for something . . . more. I wanted someone who was #5: PASSIONATE, #11: ADVENTUROUS, #21: SPONTANEOUS. Someone who wasn’t afraid to jump on a moving train or climb atop a mountain peak to proclaim his love for me. It was hard to imagine that type of romance with any of these straitlaced, conservative-looking guys.

“No. No. Oh, God. No,” the four of us repeated in unison as we skimmed through each page. Every now and then, one of us would point to a picture and say, “Oh, what about him?” or “He looks cute,” but as soon as we’d click on his detailed bio, a quick glance at his profile would reveal that he was gluten-free by choice, or he had an affinity for parakeets, or he played the tambourine, and we would quickly write him off and move on to the next. After fourteen pages of no’s, we eventually went back and modified our search criteria.

“I think you should adjust the age range up to thirty-five.”

“And expand the mile radius from you.”