Can Matchmakers Love Too?

Hi, my name is Tecna (she/her). Whenever someone asks me to introduce myself, the first thing I always say is "I am the proud developer of the app Significant". And in case you are wondering what is Significant, it is an app that helps you find your significant other. I got this idea when my friends kept complaining about their single life but also felt shy in approaching people. So, I created this app that gives everyone a feeling of a game while looking for love.

Whenever someone makes an account, their personal information including their name is not revealed before getting matched with someone; their pseudo-name is made of some random arrangement of alphabets and numbers. Level 1: you match each other on the app based on your interests but not revealed to help with the conversation. You introduce yourself with some ready-made ice breakers. If you like each other, you both move on to the next level. Level 2: You both share some things about yourselves. Bots can definitely not make it past Level 1 and that is the main purpose of this level. If everything goes well, you and your date can finally share details such as name or contact and discuss meeting each other. Level 3: you meet each other face-to-face and progress your relationship from there. If anytime a user does not feel comfortable with their matched user, they can always unmatch themselves without any questions asked (but are encouraged to provide a reason). Because of factors such as anonymity, game-like ambiance, and no need for premium accounts, my app has reached 20.5K users with 99.1% positive stars in 6 months.

Well, my app could have reached perfect 100% positive reviews if it weren't for this person, Timmy (he/him). Apparently, this man has tried my app at least 5 times and has always been unmatched before reaching level 3. He has e-mailed me asking me for information about why he got unmatched all the time. While this information is supposed to be confidential, I did advise him to keep trying so he can finally meet his "the one". But Timmy just kept suggesting to me that I "should make the users' profile more transparent" or "make it compulsory to provide a reason for unmatching someone" and many more. In his top 3 negative reviews of my app, he has mentioned he will launch his own app which will be more successful than mine. It has been a month since those reviews but here I am, with a bag of chips, still waiting to meet my competitor.

Personally speaking though, I am actually rooting for him to not find love. And I don't say this with bad intentions. Being an owner of Significant is different than being a 25-year-old single woman who never had a boyfriend. Ever since I was thirteen, I started fancying technology. During my school days, I would just stay on my computer finding lists of hackathons happening in my city. I would consider solving problems on LeetCode as my hobby. But I would sometimes choose over programming over socials since nobody would understand my interests. Truth to be told, by this age, I have started considering if I am aromantic or something similar. I did try chatting with boys sometimes but somehow I always got bored being with them. I did try dating girls as well or anyone who did not identify themselves as male but it turned out that if I were to spend the rest of my life with someone, I would prefer them to be male. Thankfully, all those failed dates did give me some dating experience which helped me design one of the best dating apps today, Significant. But I have now accepted that finding love is boring and hence, I would be comfortable if I knew there was someone like Timmy who had given up hope in relationships too. I don't know if that's an unhealthy way of helping myself but I am sure about one thing: I have given up on love. I don't think there is someone who can ever understand who I am.

I went to my computer to check some e-mails regarding Significant from yesterday. I had received 22 e-mails expressing gratitude for making the app and 5 e-mails inviting me to a dinner with some couples who met through my app. These e-mails were pretty common ever since the app was launched. But there was this one e-mail that caught my attention. Subject line: "Join my app when". Sender: "Timmy". I was used to getting invite links to other dating apps and I would normally ignore them. But it was from Timmy so I decided to take a tour of his app. The name of the app was "Significant Other". I honestly started wondering if I should get my lawyer as this seemed a violation of trademark rights. But then I decided to be patient and make a decision after my tour. As soon as I created my account (with some fake details), I was shown about fifty profiles revealing their name, contact details, home address, even their sexual orientation. Ngl, I was shook. This level of transparency seemed disturbing to me. I also noticed that I could see how many people had unmatched or rejected a profile and I definitely did not like that. The app was launched like a day before. But when I read the reviews of Significant Other, well, let's just say even your own bad grades from high school would look better than what I saw. People were complaining about how there was no confidentiality or how there was too much toxicity whenever someone had to explain why they unmatched somebody. Out of 66 reviews, only 1 seemed to be "simply" positive (I wouldn't be surprised if that was written by Timmy himself). The app had got 99.9% negative stars. I have to say: in terms of magnitude, Timmy surpassed me.

I decided to not call my lawyer but instead take him for a lunch, as my treat for the launch of his app. I know, I know, I don't really sound supportive. I replied to his e-mail and asked him if we could meet and chat about his app. I was expecting him to decline the invitation but to my surprise, he accepted it. For some reason, I felt happy. I felt some sort of strange warmth in my cheeks but did not understand why. I decided not to focus there but on what to wear. Strange. Do I really need to dress to impress? I mean, I am not exactly going on a date with him. It's just a friendly hangout with someone I wouldn't call him a friend especially when he gave me 0.09% negative points for my app. I am behaving strangely. I don't remember when I acted this way. Well, if I am the owner of the successful app, I might as well wear a nice dress to appear more impressive to him. We decided to meet at a nearby cafe around noon. When I reached the cafe, surprisingly, there was nobody except the staff. I guess that will make the job of finding each other easy. I had just taken my seat and was about to message him when I heard "Tecna" from behind me. I stood up and turned around and finally saw him in-person, face-to-face. The first thing I thought was "If looks could kill...". Then I came back to the real world and realized we had been staring at each other for at least 10 seconds. I introduced myself, shook my hands, and sat down while trying to hide my embarrassment. We both ordered some starters and drinks and waited for some privacy. He then broke the ice by asking, "So, did you find my app funny?" I was not sure how to reply to that but still said, "Programming-wise, everything went fine." "Well, what can you expect from someone who came fourth in the recent GoldenHacks", he replied. I was surprised to know he was there at that mega hackathon. Not everyone can go there and to reach fourth still seemed a privilege to me. I asked about his programming background and he talked about his passion for programming and also considered it to be the cause of his single life. I shared with him about programming as my passion as well and started wondering if my passion was the cause of my single life too. It's just a stereotype but I couldn't shake my mind off it. Timmy apologized to me for his rude comments and also complimented my app which was surprising. It seems those comments really hit him hard. It then struck me that out of all the people I had dated, none of them was a programmer. But slowly I realized, none of them was Timmy. We didn't talk about common interests apart from programming but yet I felt that was enough to bring us closer. Did I just say that? I think I just did. I think Timmy is someone who makes me want to give love one more chance. Don't ask me why. As we started talking about the stereotypes related to programmers, I felt the warmth in my cheeks again. I just knew that I had to try one more time with him. As we paid our bills, he said what I was planning to say for the last 5 minutes, "Would you like to go out with me for a movie someday?"