The SoulMatch
It's honest
“SoulMatch is not Tinder,” Christina said, pouring a copious refill into Emma’s glass until it was practically a third of the bottle of Cabernet. “It’s… honest.”
Emma blinked at the black icon on Christina’s iPhone. It resembled an online banking portal more than a dating app logo—simple sans-serif font, no graphics, and cold in appearance.
“SoulMatch,” Emma mouthed. “Sounds like a name for a cult.”
Christina pushed the phone across the marble island between them. “It builds a profile of you based on everything—such as your spending habits, your search history, your social media, your health data if you let it—everything. You never see your own profile. But it shows you people who match what you actually are, not what you pretend to be on your dating app bio.”
Emma grabbed her phone. She was thirty-four, worked as a Marketing Coordinator for a pretty cool boutique brand strategy firm, which she generally explained as “I do consulting work” because it sounded better. She owned a condo in a neighborhood that was getting there. She did Pilates four times a week when she could afford the class packs. Her mother told her she was a catch. Her last three boyfriends called her intense, which she knew was code for something worse.
Emma was tired of ghosting. She was tired of “hey, what’s up” messages that went nowhere, tired of men who post fish photos and think that counts as a personality. She was fed up with the casual cruelty that came with modern dating, the disappearing like you’re supposed to pretend it doesn’t hurt.
“Fine,” Emma said. “Let’s see what the algorithm thinks I deserve.”
The setup was intrusively intimate enough to have her scalp prickling. It demanded access to her bank accounts—all of them. It scanned her visage from several angles and asked her to rate her own attractiveness on a scale of one to ten, which felt like a trap. It asked for her height and weight. Her income. What level of education did she obtain? Then the preferences.
What are you looking for in a partner?
Emma’s thumbs hovered over the screen. She knew what she was supposed to type—the same generic list that everyone claimed they wanted: Kindness. Sense of humor. Animal lover. Open-minded. Good communicator.
Then, she typed what she wanted. Really wanted. The list she’d been updating in her head since sixteen, when she set up a secret Pinterest board to plan her future wedding.
“Height: 6’2” min (Negotiable)”
“Income: $150K+ ($250K+ preferred)”
“Education: Master’s Degree”
“Additional details: ambitious, exciting, athletic, fun, and humorous. Successful, well-built. Never married, no kids.”
She hit SUBMIT before she could tell herself not to. The screen went black for three seconds. A tiny white circle began to spin in the very middle.
Compatibility building…
The screen turned white. A number appeared at the top, in an elegant, thin font.
2,847 MATCHES FOUND
Emma exhaled a breath she hadn’t known she was holding. Nearly three thousand men. Three thousand of the successful, tall, ambitious types that met her exacting standards and were actually available.
“See?” Christina beamed at her across the island. “I told you.”
Emma smiled back and felt a rush of dopamine so powerful it was almost like a drug, dancing over her fingertips. The earth wasn’t the wasteland Bumble had made it out to be. It was full of options. It was full of men who could meet her there.
“Let’s find him,” Emma said.
The first profile loaded on a sleek black interface—no frills, no distracting bios, just clear data points and a scrolling carousel of photos.
Steven, 36
Software Architect
$210,000/year
Height: 5’9”
Education: Bachelor’s in Computer Science
Status: Never married
Emma stared at Steven in disbelief. He had kind eyes, the sort of face that looked trustworthy. There were hiking pictures, one with a gold retriever, another at a charity 5K. He looked stable in a way that should have been appealing.
“Five-nine,” Emma muttered.
“That’s literally average height,” Christina pointed out, leaning over to look.
“I’m five-seven in heels. I don’t want to look like a fucking Amazon with my date. I’d like to feel feminine.” Emma swiped left before Christina could respond.
The number at the top ticked down.
2,846 matches
David, 33
High School History Teacher
$68,000/year
Height: 6’1”
Education: Master’s in Education.
Never married.
David had one of those huge, contagious smiles that made the rest of his face light up. He was holding a golden retriever dog in his main photo—a different dog than Steven’s, Emma noted with weird satisfaction—and wanted a family someday, wanted to travel during summer breaks, wanted someone who valued education and curiosity.
“Teacher salary,” Emma said, already moving her thumb left. “I want to go to Amalfi, Christina. I want to see Santorini and do the cooking classes in Tuscany. I don’t want to be limited to camping trips in state parks because my partner’s income caps out at sixty-eight thousand.”
“He’s really cute, though,” Christina tried.
“Cute doesn’t pay for the life I want.”
Swiped left.
2,845 matches
Mark, 39;
Small Business Owner (Import/Export);
$350,000 /year;
6’2”; MBA;
Divorced, with one child (age 7).
“Jackpot,” Christina said, waving her hand over the screen and pointing at the income line. Emma frowned at the picture.
“I dunno. Divorced with a kid. That’s baggage I’m not equipped to handle. I don’t want to be a stepmom—I’ve never even babysat! And divorced means he has already had his first wedding, his first house, all those milestones. I want our firsts actually to be firsts, you know?”
“Emma, he makes three hundred fifty thousand dollars, and he’s six-two. And divorced means there’s a divorce! Total easier to spot than a Newman.”
“He’s also used goods.” Swiped left.
2,844 matches
The counter kept rolling. 2,844 became 2,401, became 1,956, then 1,203. Emma was hardly aware of the decline; the swiping had developed a rhythm of its own, stopped being a careful decision, and just became what she did, a kind of soothing reflex.
Accountant. Too boring, probably talks about tax brackets at dinner. Left.
Architect. His photos were all brooding and serious, and he probably has an insufferable personality. Left.
Consultant. Income is good, but he’s 5’11”, nearly but not quite right. I set my standards for a reason, Emma thought. Left.
Pharmacist. He has a decent income, but has a bald spot visible in his third photo. Left.
Engineer. Another engineer, did they just clone these guys in some lab? Left.
For years, Emma had felt like the one begging to be chosen, the one putting herself out there and getting rejected or ignored or breadcrumbed until she felt insane. Now she was the one with power, with choice, flicking profiles away with a surge of her wrist like some emperor on the pulp throne giving the thumbs down death signal in the Coliseum.
There were so many of them. Why settle for one of the first few dozen when the perfect one was statistically guaranteed to be somewhere in the pile?
847 MATCHES
Christina left sometime around eleven, kept yawning, and said she had an early client meeting. Emma barely registered her going, already back on the couch with the blue light from her phone cutting through the darkness of the living room.
The swiping got faster. Not even reading the profiles now, just scrolling to see what qualitatively feels disqualified.
Too short. Too serious and professorial-looking. Jaded and uncool fashion sense in his pictures. Probably works in finance and isn’t even in the city most nights. Left, left, left, left.
612 MATCHES
412 MATCHES
Emma had to take a moment when the number dropped below five hundred. A cold prickle started at the base of her neck, spread in pinpricks down her spine. Four hundred didn’t seem like a lot anymore. Four hundred sounded...
Finite.
“It’s fine,” she said out loud to the empty room, and she heard how her own voice sounded thin and unconvincing. “Four hundred is still plenty. He’s in there.”
Swipe.
167 MATCHES
The adrenaline had worn off. In its place was the sick, gnawing hollow in her chest, what felt like the emptiness of hunger starting to reemerge. The profiles felt almost hostile now.
James, 35. Sweet face, stable job. But he has this weirdly wonky nose, like it’s been broken and reset badly, and she can’t stop staring at his nose. Left.
Peter, 37. Funny bio, decent job. Lives in thousands of suburbs. A house in a planned community. She’s a city girl, needs to be near things. Near stuff. Near culture. Left.
89 MATCHES
Her hands are shaking badly enough that she had to set the wine glass down before she spilled it. She sits up straighter, forces herself to focus. She had to be smarter now, couldn’t just burn through what was left like a kid with pocket money.
Dr. Chris Tanglewood, 36
Emergency Medicine Physician
$400,000/year
Height: 6’0”
Education: MD from Johns Hopkins
Status: Never married
Emma stopped scrolling and stared at his pictures. He was cute—dark hair, tired eyes that somehow looked kind instead of cold, good bone structure. The profile said he liked to cook, had a collection of jazz records, wanted someone to understand that his schedule was brutal, but the work mattered to him.
Perfect, right? On paper, everything she wanted.
Her thumb hovered over the right side of the screen, over the green checkmark that would mean yes.
This is him, her brain screamed. This is the one. Swipe right. Do it. Now.
But creeping around the edges was that nagging thought that had been the reason for his entire twenties, and now half his thirties, of being single. His hairline started to recede, just a little. She could see it in his pictures if she zoomed. And ER doctors worked brutal hours—she’d basically be single, even if she got married, would spend every holiday alone while he covered shifts. And if she swiped right today, what if tomorrow’s profile were Chris but with better hair and a better schedule? What if she settled for good enough now and missed perfect later?
“Come on! Just one more,” she whispered to herself. “The algorithm keeps the sweet ones at the end, right? Come on.”
He had gone to the left.
34 MATCHES
The drop was like a horse had kicked her in the gut. Thirty-four was the population of a single subway car. Barely enough to fill a class.
She swiped now with terrified precision, actually reading the words on every profile, trying to find one that didn’t have some disqualifying flaw.
Left. He was too short, barely met her minimum.
Left. He was forty-three, way too old.
Left. His teeth looked wrong in his photos; he probably never had braces.
12 MATCHES
8 MATCHES
5 MATCHES
3 MATCHES
2 MATCHES
Emma stared at her screen. Two men are left in the entire algorithm of SoulMatch. Two men who met her standards after she’d eliminated nearly three thousand options.
Julian Park, 38
Marketing Director
$180,000/year
Height: 6’0”
Education: MBA from UCLA
Status: Never married
Bio: Extensively traveled (47 countries). Loves his career, but on weekends he prefers quiet nights in—not big on the club scene anymore. Looking for a real partnership with someone who gets that success isn’t just about the hustle.
As soon as Julian’s information flashed onto the screen, the realization hit her. This was it. This was Julian. He looked like he could be in a men’s magazine; he had that effortless style that some men are simply born with. He worked in her field, understood the pressures and politics. He’d traveled the world, and he’d lived a whole life.
Emma read Julian’s bio again, again, and again, and was desperately searching for the trap that she knew had to be hiding somewhere.
“...prefer quiet nights in... not big on the club scene anymore...”
She instantly thought about her weekend routine. The brunches she had to document on social media, the gallery openings where she had to be seen, and the bars and clubs where you went to prove that you were still young, still fun, and still relevant. What if Julian was boring? What if “quiet nights in” really meant that she would spend the rest of her life on a couch watching Netflix, slowly suffocating under the weight of his domesticity?
He’s perfect, her brain shouted. Swipe right.
But he may be boring, her fear countered. And there is only one more profile to review. The algorithm usually holds its very best until last. That’s how these things work.
“Just one more,” Emma panted, almost too quietly. “Just one more may be perfect.”
She swiped left.
The screen went dark for three full seconds.
1 MATCH REMAINING
Emma took a deep breath that hurt going in. This was it. The last man standing. The one who’d survived every filter she’d created. The one person who’d made it past them.
She touched the screen.
An image appeared.
Emma squinted at it. Blinked at it. Brought the phone even closer to her face.
It was a woman. Not a man.
It was her. The image from her LinkedIn account – the one where she was smiling and laughing while holding a cup of coffee, and the casual shot she had spent 47 attempts getting right.
“What?” Emma asked out loud. “Is this a glitch?”
She checked the name at the top of the profile.
Emma Reeves, 34
“What the actual fuck?! Am I matching with myself? There’s no way... that can’t... isn’t this against the rules?” She touched the screen, attempted to backtrack, but there was no response. The profile remained on the screen.
She scrolled down. The part of the bio section listing her interests and hobbies was not the “fun-loving, adventurous, witty” description she wrote for other apps. Not even close.
Emma Reeves, 34
Marketing Coordinator, Porter & Klein Agency
(Self-described as: “I work in brand strategy consulting”)
Income: $62,400/year
(Self-reported: “I do well for myself”)
Height: 5’4”
(Self-reported: “5’7” in heels”)
Body Type: Average
(Self-description: “Fit, athletic build”)
Self-Perceived Attractiveness: 9/10
Algorithmic Assessment: 5.8/10
Market Value Percentile: 48th
Relationship History:
- Michael (2 years) - Ended by user
Reason provided: “We wanted different things.”
Real reason: The user found someone who fit the criteria of a “higher-value” partner than she had.
- Jason (1.5 years) - Ended by the user
Reason provided: “Lost the spark.”
Real reason: The user found a small physical flaw unacceptable.
- Ryan (3 years) - Ended by the user
Reason provided: “He wasn’t ambitious enough.”
Real reason: Ryan’s income had stopped growing, and the user was seeking a partner with greater earning potential.
Spending Habits:
- $847/month for beauty/maintenance (hair, nails, lashes, Pilates)
- $312/month for dining/entertainment (typically aesthetically pleasing venues)
- $156/month for dating apps and matchmaking services
- Credit Card Debt: $18,340
Stated Interests:
“WELLNESS, TRAVEL, SUPPORT LOCAL ARTISTS”
Actual Interests:
- Instagram (average 3.2 hours per day)
- Online Shopping (average 2.1 hours per day)
- Saving aspirational content regarding self-worth and standards
- Brunch (Social Validation)
Psychological Profile:
Maximizer Syndrome - 94th percentile
(The tendency to dismiss suitable candidates in favor of an unattainable ideal.)
Standards Calibration:
User Seeks: Top 1% Height, Income, and Physical Attraction
User Offers: 48th Percentile Overall Desirability
Standard Deviation Gap: 4.2σ
COMPATIBILITY ANALYSIS:
Men presented to this user: 2,847
Men this user deemed acceptable: 0
Probability of mutual compatibility at current standards: 0.003%
Emma stared at the screen. A cold wave of shame washed over her face, then radiated downward to her chest, causing her stomach to twist itself into multiple knots. “That’s illegal,” she said to the empty room. “There’s no way you can... this is a huge invasion of privacy. They can’t show people this.”
But she continued to scroll.
Each sentence was brutal, intrusive. Each sentence catalogued her failures and delusions with scientific accuracy.
And each sentence was true.
The realization crept up on her slowly, and she put the phone down on the coffee table as if it had burned her hand. The counter. The 2,847 matches.
She had assumed those were the men she was picking from. She had assumed she was browsing through a store of men, and the app was presenting her with options, and she was selecting the most desirable.
But the app was conducting an intervention.
The 2,847 men were the ones who matched her actual worth. Men who had respectable-but-not-excessive incomes, who were handsome-but-not-model-quality, who worked regular jobs and had realistic lives. The algorithm had been kind to her and had presented her with men who were within her range or slightly better than herself.
And she had rejected each and every one of them because she had spent 17 years telling herself that she deserved to marry a millionaire who looked like a movie star.
She picked the phone back up with trembling hands. Began scrolling through the memory bank of men she had disqualified. Steven, the software architect, was 5’9”. David, the teacher with the kind smile. Dr. Chris Tanglewood, who cooked and collected jazz records.
These were good men. These were the kinds of men who could make her happy if she allowed them.
She had discarded them because Steven was a few inches below her subjective minimum. Because David earned less than she desired, and because Chris’s receding hairline was unacceptable to her.
Julian. The Marketing Director. The final candidate before her own profile appeared. She had rejected him because he liked quiet nights in, and she was so desperate to prove that she was still young and fun that she couldn’t recognize emotional maturity when it stood right in front of her.
“No,” Emma said aloud. “Take it back. Give me another chance. I’ll choose the teacher. I’ll choose Steven. Please give me another chance.”
The screen didn’t change. The algorithm wouldn’t negotiate.
She was still staring at her own face. At the laughing woman in the LinkedIn photo, who thought she was a nine, but tested as a 5.8, and who expected top-one-percent partners while offering only the 48th percentile of attraction.
Under her profile, there were two buttons.
[ Get a Cat ]
[ Lower Standards ]
Emma gazed at the two buttons. The first choice felt like an insult. It felt like acknowledging that she had spent 15 years chasing a dream, and now she would be dying alone with a pet and a wine-of-the-month club membership.
Lowering standards felt like... what? Like admitting she wasn’t a nine? Admitting she was just average?
Her finger hovered above the screen.
But what if the app is wrong? The thought crawled into her head as it always had, that voice that had run her life since she was a teenager.
What if you’re actually right, and the algorithm just can’t accurately assess your true value? What if you lower your standards now, and the perfect one finally shows up, and you’ve already settled for someone beneath you?
She blinked. Gazed at the cat button. Knew what it meant - a future of working, pilates, and taking pictures for brunch posts, returning home to an empty apartment, the gradual calcification into the type of woman people describe as “independent” when they mean “can’t find anyone.”
She clicked the LOWER STANDARDS button.
The screen turned white. The wheel began spinning.
Recalculating compatibility...
A new number popped up.
10,449 MATCHES FOUND
Ten thousand. She had been shopping from a catalog of 2,847 men, and now there were 10,449 men available to her. The algorithm had been attempting to assist her all along, had been providing gentle suggestions to adjust her expectations. Now it was granting her mercy.
The first profile loaded.
Steven, 36
Software Architect
$210,000/year
Height: 5’9”
Same kind eyes. Same hiking pictures. Same golden retriever.
The same man she had rejected four hours earlier because he was two inches shorter than her subjective minimum.
Emma looked at Steven’s picture. He had been generous enough to exist within her parameters. The algorithm was being generous to her now, giving her a second chance with him.
Her thumb swiped to the left.
10,448 MATCHES
THE END.
Fuck, I was practically screaming for her to choose the cat. Oh well...
She should just get an escort. She’s not ready for an actual relationship.