Ron Rivers, mid-20's nice guy

Let me get this out of the way – I don't know how I got the app. I certainly don't remember downloading it, but that's not unusual. I have a job that requires me to download apps, programs, systems – anything computer-related, and then I try to find the bugs. I enter nonsensical information and see how it responds. Basically, companies hire me to find their mistakes before the customers or clients find them. I don't even have to fix the mistakes, I just find them.

Typically, I have a phone dedicated to each work project, so when I saw “The Ultimate Dating App” on my personal phone, I thought it must have been a mistake. But then I couldn't get it to show up anywhere else, so I figured I might as well just mess with it on my personal phone (and back up everything first, just in case).

I made a generic profile – nice guy, boring interests, “looking for friendship and maybe more,” “not into playing games,” etc. Just whatever seemed like it would get some attention. Then I started scrolling through the profiles it showed me, just to get an idea of what it was supposed to do. Then I would try to make it mess up. No doubt these were made-up profiles of stock-photo women. So I randomly picked a few that I thought were cute, then a few more, until I finally felt like I understood the interface.

I had tried dating apps in the past and was never happy with the results. No one is being honest on them. And maybe that's why I was in such a drought. No girlfriend since... well, since college? Was it four years now? And no hook-ups or one night stands or drunken mistakes in almost a year. Yeah, it was pathetic. I wasn't ugly. I was just... shy? Not big into the club scene, not good at small talk, and once you disconnect from the world of app dating, how do you meet someone? But I had to leave my personal issues out of this and give the product a fair shake.

And that wasn't easy. Not long after I had picked a few of the women to match with, I got a message saying, “Congratulations, you captured Angela! She's yours to do with as you please. To contact Angela...” Geez. I couldn't even bring myself to finish reading that shit. It looked like another message was popping up anyway. “Congratulations, you captured Inez...” Captured? Really? Was this some kinky BDSM thing? Not my scene, and no hate for those who are into that, but I'd rather not be spending any more time than necessary on this app.

I had a few questions before I started, so I looked for the contact email from whoever had asked me to review this. Couldn't find anything. Nothing in any of my emails or texts mentioned any dating apps. So I deleted it.

And I thought that was the end of it.

Until...