And though I know this is how people get killed, I say okay, because it’s the first time a guy has invited me anywhere in years. I drive us to the parking lot near Dead Horse Bay, and we walk down an overgrown trail full of summer lilies and wild blackberries until we arrive on one of the most unromantic beaches I’ve ever seen. The beach is completely covered with broken pottery, old tiles, and medicine bottles glistening in the afternoon sun. There’s barely anywhere to walk without stepping on shattered glass. A couple of seagulls stalk clumsily through the shards, pecking at debris to uncover clamshells.

“Wow, this is so fucked up.”

“Check it out, a whole one.” Jeff holds up a purple medicine bottle and extends it to me. “Want it?”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I have a dozen at home. I’ve been here before.”

“Thank you, I love it,” I say, because even though getting a sandy, sludge-filled medicine bottle on a beach of broken glass isn’t a comfort porn clip, it feels close. So I take a risk, lean in, and kiss his cheek.

“That was nice,” he says, and when he asks me what I’m doing for dinner, I can’t help but feel like I’m in a movie.

We go to a Korean place that specializes in early-aught decor. There’s lots of Ikea furniture from my parents’ generation, and the patio has REI camping chairs and a Bluetooth speaker playing Modest Mouse from a weathered iPod. Our server wears Old Navy clothes and takes our order. She’s nice and winks at me, and I try to remember the last time I was on a date rather than a Firestarter hookup.

“This place is great,” I say after she’s left. “I can’t believe they have an internet café!”

“I know, right? It’s hysterical.”

“So…,” I say, “can I ask you a personal question?”

“Sure.”

“Are you on Firestarter?”

“Closed down my account months ago. Probably stupid since everyone is on it, but I wanted to see what meeting people in real life felt like.”

“How’s that working out for you?”

“Pretty awesome. I’m here with you, right?”

And I want to kiss him right then. Instead I just say, “Totally,” and the server brings us our soju.

Jeff tells me about his gig selling Buddhist screen-prints to yoga studios, and I tell him about my freelance job editing Aphrodite profiles. “It’s mostly just for aging millennials who think sex is more dignified if you post rambling descriptions of yourself and go on old-fashioned dates.”

“Like we’re doing?”

“This is a real date.” I point my finger at him. “Aphrodite’s for people who need the justification of dinner to fuck. They eat together, have phony-deep conversations, then hook up and never message one another again, exactly as if they were on Firestarter.”