Page 14 of Swiped
Now she realized that it had all happened over two years ago.
Jo cleared her throat and tapped the screen with a square pink nail. “Is it really that hard for you to think of an actual sports-like activity?”
Nat blinked back into the present and looked at the list of certified sports words she had just entered into her new dating profile. She ignored the wet sting in her eyes and just replied, “This is fine. What else gets high message rates?”
Jo sighed. “OK, well this one is weird, but don’t use any question marks.”
“What? Why not?” asked Nat. The sensation of being surprised by her own data made her skin prickle with dread.
“Or semicolons,” said Jo. “Colons are OK though.”
“Semicolons I get.” Justin scratched his chin and nodded. “Too symbolically loaded.”
“A semicolon,” Jo repeated, flatly. “Really?”
“Semi means half,” Justin explained. “Body horror is not sexy.” He smiled. “To most people.”
“Gross.” Jo buried her head back in the data.
The words on her profile stared at Nat like a puzzle, which happened to be one of her actual favorite activities. “What about exclamation points?”
“Strong positive performance,” Jo reported.
MY PERSONAL MOTTO: Here’s my philosophy: Let’s have fun!!!!! Where we’ll have it: Everywhere!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Jo scoffed. “Come on, no one is going to say anything about not letting women have their periods?”
Justin leaned in for a twin high five. “Nice one, sis!”
Jo let a smile creep onto her face. “I mean, the joke was right there.”
Nat shot Jo an approving smirk. Jo had been her first hire, Justin had been a later decision, and although Nat had spent years designing BeTwo on her own, Jo felt as woven into it as the code itself. She was fastidious and focused. She was an overachiever who never stopped pushing for the best. She was, in Nat’s mind, a younger and more socially savvy version of herself, and having someone who not only got her app but also gotheras a person — it almost felt like family.
Nat clicked to the next part of the profile, where users answered a randomly generated personal question. She read the prompt aloud, “When’s the last time I cried?” and choked on a dry laugh. “Yikes, did we really include that?”
“Oh yeah!” Justin piped up. “That’s a good one. Our beta showed that asking the user at least one emotional question created a sense of buy-in, remember?”
Jo wagged her finger. “But then we also found that the responses generated way more matches for straight men, and way less for straight women, so we muted the answer on female profiles.”
Nat breathed a sigh of relief, and not just because the honest answer had been earlier that week over an Instagram reel showing elderly dogs Photoshopped next to pictures of their puppy selves. “Cool, I’ll just skip that one then.”
Justin pumped his fist and sang out, “Time for the pics, boss!” He unfolded his gangly legs and sat up straight. As Nat’s go-to for all things visual, from design to how they measured photo engagement, she trusted him completely. And yet, pictures?
Nat crumpled against her chair. It’d been mostly a full year of nights on her couch, overfilled glasses of wine, and takeout for dinner after working late, and she’d stopped even making excuses for why she wasn’t going to the gym. So, she wasn’t really feeling ready for pants with buttons, let alone a camera.
“User engagement shows that you need more than two full-body shots, outdoors, no babies, no group shots, no pets,” said Justin.
“No pets?” asked Jo, offended. “Still?”
“Yeah, dude. Cats I get, but dogs?” Justin shook his head sadly. “Man, it’s really tough out there.”
Nat used their distraction to make a move, pulling her headshot from the Tech-Talk conference panel website and making it her profile pic.
“A headshot?” Jo squinted into the monitors. “Do we even have data on that?”
“If we do, it’s way down in the dregs,” said Justin, searching the data.
“Great!” chirped Nat. “That means it’s unique and will stand out.”
