The Affection Multiplier

Three months passed quickly. I had already begun to struggle in school. I wasn’t particularly well-liked, with very few friends. Sammy was pretty cool with me, though he was always high or drunk, so I wasn’t sure he was a great measure of my likability.

I mean, I wouldn’t say people DISliked me, they just kind of... didn’t care for the most part. I never got invited to any parties, nobody ever wanted to hang out, it wasn’t painful, just lonely.

My only real friend was a nerdy guy named Josh. I had been excited when he moved into 4-78, because I could use a smart person’s help. Unfortunately he was more of a video games genius than a genius genius. Josh pined over Makayla constantly.

She was the shy girl I’d met in the elevator. It wasn’t like we were friends, I only knew her name because Josh knew it. He hadn’t ever spoken to her, per say, but he was in love. That much he swore.

One day after classes, I stumbled back into my dorm and flopped onto my double bed. I lifted my phone and went to shoot Josh a text to ask if he wanted to play some games, but something caught my eye. It was a app that had a logo of a big heart with a green plus in the bottom right corner. An app called... the Affection Multiplier?

I pushed it, a little worried because I knew I had definitely never downloaded this.

The screen went black, and then bright green words appeared.

“This is a gift. Enjoy it.”. Then the screen switched to a big text box that was blurred. Above it sat a simple question.

“Read glossary, Yes/No?” I muttered to myself, and pushed yes. The blurred text became easily readable.

Welcome. The Gift of the Affection Multiplier allows your relationships with people to build five times faster. It is an always-present gift, and will affect every aspect of your social life from now on. The Affection Multiplier App is a useful resource to check the progress of your relationships with people through the use of an intuitive scoring system.

I kept reading, confused. It goes on to explain how negative numbers mean bad relationships, while I can consider relationships with a score over 50 to be very good friends and those with a score of 100 to be loyal companions. It also says it only lists people I know and are aware of in order to keep the app’s interface from cluttering.

“Take the tour?” I grimaced, but pushed yes. A big arrow appeared pointing at a button that looked like the Contacts app on my phone. I pushed that, and up popped a series of folders. An arrow appeared pointing at the one labeled Point Springs. I pushed it, and I was suddenly looking at an alphabetized list of the people of Point Springs College.

I was blown away. How did it know all this? The arrow appeared again pointing to a image of a filter. I pushed it, and two options dropped down. Sort by Highest Average Score or Sort by Lowest Average Score. I pushed Highest. To no real surprise, Josh was first.

Melvin, Josh

Affection Score: 34

But second place did surprise me. It wasn’t Sammy, but actually my geography teacher, Ms. Reed.

Reed, Claire

Affection Score: 17

I wasn’t aware that Ms. Reed liked me so much, but honestly, a seventeen wasn’t that high. Sammy was third with a whopping six, and that told you about how much the school likes me. I recalled what the description had read.

“My relationships will grow faster, huh?” I mumbled to myself.