The date is powerfully bad. He’s so weenily deferential, over-groomed in his little blazer with a graphic tee and matching Vans and raw selvedge denim. He has that sort of lenticular baldness where you can see the thinning patches only at an angle. Unlike most guys, he does ask her questions about herself, albeit terminally dull ones of the sort you’d ask to calibrate a polygraph test—what do you do, where have you lived, what’ve you been reading lately. She pays attention only to gather cruel observations to pass on to the group chat later. As her date finishes describing his job at a low-income women’s health-care startup, she watches his teeth, which are too shiny, like they’ve been freshly zambonied. Veneers probably.