LITMIR.BIZ

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gym. Though, to be fair, she ended the bar experiment a while ago, and she was at the gym to work out not to talk, and she was at work to work. But she’d rather continue trying online dating than change her routine.

      But fine in theory didn’t remove the squicky feeling that she would be looking at pictures of real people, reading what they had written about themselves, and then she was going to grade them. As if they were objects, not human beings.

      She reached for the bottle of wine and poured herself another big glass. The spreadsheet helped with her uneasiness. It made the judgments of who to interact with and why less personal. What she didn’t know was if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

      Maybe it was just a thing, she thought, taking a long sip out of her glass. “Who’s first?” she chirped, picking up her pen and readying herself over her printouts.

      Judging by the expression on Beck’s face, she wasn’t fooled by Marsie’s fake cheer, but she clicked on the first picture anyway. “He’s cute,” she said, turning the computer so that Marsie could see the screen.

      “I’ll give him one point for attractiveness,” Marsie said, scratching a one into the appropriate cell. She’d always liked doing the work on paper before entering anything into a spreadsheet. It wasn’t always possible, but writing things out by hand helped her think.

      “Only one? From what you said about your rating system, I would think a two.”

      “His smile in the picture looks fake. But I’ll bet it’s nice in person,” she allowed.

      “Whoever you award a two will have to be a paragon of attractive masculinity,” Beck replied. “And I can’t imagine that man will be any fun to be around.”

      “That’s why attractiveness of the photo doesn’t have much weight in my equation,” Marsie replied tartly. “Ultimately, it’s just not that important to me.”

      “By why... Never mind. I’m sure you have a reason for being picky about the scores you assign even when it’s not an important factor to you, but I’m not sure I want to hear it.”

      “Because accuracy is important,” Marsie said, even though Beck had specifically said she didn’t care.

      “Accuracy and yet you massaged the numbers to get grades of 100 and 10,” Beck pointed out with raised brows.

      The wine in her glass sloshed as she waved her hand over the papers and laptop. “This is an art, not a science.” They both laughed at the ridiculousness of that statement.

      The pot on the stove burbled as it started to boil, and Beck slid out of her seat. “You rate the next one while I get the pasta in. But don’t move from the profile. I want a chance to see all of them.”

      “You’re happily married,” Marsie said, pitching her voice loud enough to be heard over the cascade of pasta into the pot.

      “Window-shopping,” her friend called over her shoulder.

      Marsie laughed as she jotted down her notes on Waterski25. He was fine, she guessed. Got a 75, so she winked at him.

      They kept going through the men as they poured more wine and slurped pasta. The more they sipped, the longer each evaluation took and the more they laughed, about the men, about dating, about the ridiculousness of rating people on a spreadsheet. And, as Marsie moved on to the last man, the splotches of tomato on the printouts had gotten extra funny.

      She wobbled as she stood and had to brace herself on the counter.

      “You didn’t plan on driving home tonight?” Beck asked.

      “Not any longer.” The ground moved a lot more while she was standing than it had when she’d been sitting down. “Can I sleep here?”

      “Sure. The sheets on the guest bed are clean. Do you need me to get out the aspirin?”

      “No, I know where it is by now.” She didn’t indulge in this much alcohol often, but when she did it happened at Beck’s house. Though not often was still often enough to have a routine. She shook her head, regretting that action immediately.

      “Thanks, Beck. For doing this with me. I’m not sure I could have done this on my own.”

      “I don’t know what took you so long. It seems like everyone is doing online dating these days. Hell, my younger sister has three apps on her phone for it.”

      “I liked the idea that I could do it on my own. Meet someone like they do in the movies.”

      “You know, signing up for online dating doesn’t mean you can’t still meet someone while in line at the grocery store. Though that would probably be easier if you didn’t have your groceries delivered.”

      “Only when I have a deadline at work,” she said defensively.

      “Oh, get upstairs,” Beck said with a wave. “This won’t be so bad, you’ll see. You might meet some nice people.”

      “That’s what Jason said.”

      “Who’s Jason?”

      “He does maintenance around the office. Caught me working on my profile. I think he’s one of those people with three dating apps on their phone.” Her lips had slurred over the word “think,” so she muttered the word under her breath several times until she felt like it came out correctly.

      “Oh, well, I don’t know this Jason fellow, but it sounds like he has the right idea. Have fun.”

      “I—” she paused, giving herself extra time to concentrate on the next word “—think my spreadsheets are fun.”

      “They’re fun for you,” Beck said, placing a heavy hand on Marsie’s shoulder. “Just don’t let them get in your way. Math and statistics can’t solve all the world’s problems.”

      “The hell you say,” Marsie said with a laugh as she grabbed her purse and stumbled down the hall to crawl up the stairs. “I’ll clean up in the morning.”

      “Maybe we’ll be lucky and Neil will beat us both to it.”

      “Ha!” Marsie looked up the long set of stairs that seemed steeper than usual. Which was probably the alcohol. Then she sighed, lifted her foot and began her climb. Like dating and finding a mate, one step at a time.

       CHAPTER TWO

      IF A DATE was going well, Jason usually ordered another drink. Not enough to get him light-headed, but something to hold on to while he and the lovely lady across the table talked and laughed. If a date was going south, he had, on occasion, ordered enough to drink that he had to Uber his way home after seeing the woman to her car.

      Tonight was one of those other nights. Those nights when he was two hours and one drink in, and Allison hadn’t caught any of his polite overtures about the night being over. The waitress had disappeared into a black hole on the other side of the restaurant.

      Not a black hole. The customer whose table she’d attached herself to was very cute. Even Jason could see that and men weren’t his type. However, he wasn’t the only non-cute-dude customer who wanted her attention and wasn’t getting it. Someone was going to complain to the manager soon. It might be Jason, if he could figure out how to get Allison to stop telling a story about her childhood cat and get out of this chair.

      “My mom had said I shouldn’t name him Muffin, but it went with our breakfast animals. My brother had his dog Bacon and my dad had Pancake and...” She paused to drink from her water glass.

      Good enough. “Allison, please excuse me. I’ve really got to use the bathroom.”

      Her water glass was resting on her bottom lip as she looked up at him. “Okay. Sure. The best part of the story will be here for you when you get back.”

      “I can’t

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