“We’ve been waiting for you!”

Pause. Reverse. Play.

“We’ve been waiting for you!”

And I’m crying now, my cheeks wet, my heart wide open. I take a tissue, dab my eyes, and let it drop to the floor. Then I click out of the window, shut down my computer, and get up to start the night.

Sometimes I watch hardcore clips. Dance raves where a friend leads the camera through group after group of partiers—dozens of people facing the screen and waving as I pass. “Oh, my god, Mandy! You look so good!” a pretty girl says. Other times I choose romance clips, the ones with the deep murmur of a man’s voice calling to me from the bedroom. The camera turns a corner, I see the flicker of candles, the white of his smile, feel the sudden expansion of my heart and the warm wash of being wanted.

There are baby showers, birthday parties, and clips that are nothing more than a lopsided drunken night at a bar with someone off camera yelling, “You’re so fucking funny!” Mostly, though, I watch friendship clips: A group on a baseball field in midsummer. A Frisbee tossed. A girl in cutoffs drinking a beer. The quintessential mid-July day with the sun falling and a grill lit in the background.

The guy throwing the Frisbee turns and faces the camera. “Hey, you made it.” Then the other players turn. “Look, everyone, Mandy’s here!” The girl in cutoffs waves; the guy tending the grill raises his bottle in welcome.

And everyone is so happy to see me.

After I’m done watching comfort porn, I eat dinner and flip through Firestarter on my phone. There’s a photo of an iPhone-lit penis, the shot most guys use for their profile. I trash the pic. The next guy is surrounded by two kids. Trash. Five more dick pics. Trash. A guy with two douchey-looking dudes on either side of him and “Gangbang!” written across their chests. Trash. There’s a hot thirty-year-old at a pool party. Either the photo’s staged or it’s spam—no one goes to actual pool parties anymore. Still, he’s standing by a grill and laughing. Maybe he has real friends. I swipe right and the match ignites immediately.

Hey, girl! Lol. Had to get off this app. SO BORING! Check out my private photos at—

Trash.

I send two other guys a fire emoji but no spark, and finally I see a semi-decent-looking guy who’s kind of hot in one of his pics. He’s only rated three out of five campfires by past dates but has an 86% safety-and-consent rating from more than seventy-five users. He likes doggy-style and anal, and he prefers girls who squirt. Not ideal, but I still swipe right. My fire ignites with an immediate flame.

Hey, he messages. You’re hot. Free tonight?

Yup.

Cool, let’s hook up.