The adventure begins!

By the time you make it to Mike’s office, he’s already halfway through a second coffee. He waves you in without looking up.

“Morning, new recruit. You’ve got updates for me?”

You slide your notebook onto his desk, the pages marked with sticky notes. “Four possible matches. Four very different angles.”

He leans back. “Let’s hear it.”

You flip to the first page. “Rob. He’s around my age, just moved here from Chicago. Kind of a mirror version of me—same restless curiosity, maybe even the same uncertainty about what comes next. We clicked over that.”

Mike nods. “So he’s your baseline. Relatable. The reader’s way in.”

“Exactly.”

You turn the page. “Jordan’s a few years older. He’s heavily involved in community work, seems sharp and thoughtful. His messages have weight to them. Feels like he’s testing ideas as much as he’s getting to know people.”

“Good contrast,” Mike says. “A black guy who's had real romantic experience, not just the app.”

“Then there’s Eli. He’s older—a professor. Polite, analytical. There’s something deliberate about him, like he’s observing the process as much as participating in it.”

Mike arches a brow. “A fellow observer. Interesting.”

“And finally, Chris. Mid-thirties, runs his own business. Comes across direct, conservative. His views might be very different from mine, but his energy’s compelling. It felt worth the conversation.”

"Is that all of them?" Mike asks.

"well, no..." you bite your lip. At this point you have had 430 matches, but the number seemed so big, you could line up dates forever, if you wanted to. "I just figured I would start here."

Mike studies you for a moment. “You’re not shying away from variety. That’s good reporting.” He hesitates, then adds, “But your husband’s okay with this? You’ll be talking to these guys—meeting them, maybe?”

You nod. “We talked it through. He understands it’s part of the work.”

“Still,” Mike says, his tone more careful now. “You’ll be stepping into people’s lives. It’s one thing to message strangers. It’s another to sit across from them, take notes, read their expressions. Be ready for that—it can blur fast. One minute you're saying hello, the next minute, then before you know it, you're in bed."

You blush, closing your notebook, feeling the weight of it. “I know. I’m not looking for connection. Just truth.”

He gives a small, approving smile. “That’s the same thing, sometimes.”

You find yourself alone again after the meeting — in the quiet of your new desk, the hum of printers and faint murmur of reporters filing out for lunch. There’s a coffee cup ring on your notepad, a scatter of names and arrows you barely recognize as your own handwriting.

You close your eyes and breathe, and then—almost without meaning to—you whisper to yourself the same thing you used to say back in college before big assignments, before every interview that scared you:

Do everything you can to be a great journalist.

Not a clever one.

Not a safe one.

A great one.

That means listening harder than you speak.

It means showing up, even when you’re uncomfortable.

It means finding truth in the small, human details—tone, posture, hesitation.

It means knowing that the story isn’t about you, but letting a little bit of you into it anyway, because that’s where empathy lives.

You open your eyes. The newsroom feels sharper, somehow—full of possibility.

You reach for your phone. Names wait there like open doors

You trace each one with your thumb, as if by touching them you might learn something about who they are—and about who you’re about to become.

For a moment, your reflection stares back from the dark glass of the screen: a young woman still figuring out what bravery looks like.

You take a breath, and start typing.

(Feel free to invent new message to different people here, to take Claire on a wide variety of dates)