Even with the apps it still takes — w4sex

Even with the apps it still takes

me forever to match. I swipe until my thumb aches, a mechanical motion of rejection and hope. I see hundreds of faces a day, a scrolling parade of people I'm supposed to desire, and it all blurs into a single, generic human with a dog and a love for tacos. My profile is a carefully constructed lie—photos where I look effortlessly cool and a bio that's supposedly witty but was actually workshopped with three different friends. I get a notification, my heart does a little leap, and it's just the app telling me to "boost my profile" for the low, low price of my dignity. I'll finally get a match, and we'll exchange a few stilted, awkward messages before the conversation dies, fizzling out like a wet firecracker. I'm starting to think the algorithm has me pegged as a lost cause, a ghost in the machine it's actively trying to hide from everyone else. It's a numbers game, and my number is zero.