Brian Benson’s SmartMeet profile is like a Master’s class on how to be a meathead. There he is at a Redskins game with the beer and the jersey. There again in a tux on the beach. Holding up a shot in a darkened bar. Parties, friends, and a rotating cast of women. Typical player, although by the looks of that one-star rating, he’s mostly playing with himself these days. One fucking star? Jesus. Mitch McConnell could do better. I shall now bury the knowledge that he was my first crush deep within my shame vortex, never to be unearthed again.

Why am I even thinking about him? Because I’m holed up inside my rental car, heat cranking, staring down my old middle school in Arlington, Virginia, where he now works. Because apparently he suggested the school’s administration reach out to me to ask if I’d run an assembly on Internet safety. This makes sense because I wrote a book on it (Puberty Without Predation: How to Love Social Media and Avoid Jail, Too). It doesn’t make sense because Brian and I haven’t spoken in years and, what, is he cyber stalking me now or something? What does he know and why does he know it? It also doesn’t make sense that I agreed to fly across the country to do charity work when my SmartMeet app is probably worth 80,000 times the median income of this county, but it’s mid-March and snow is falling, and it’s going to be 56 degrees later this afternoon, and if the weather isn’t ever going to make sense anymore, why should I?

Still. I must give myself a figurative pat on the back. My lovely little app really is changing the world. Five years ago, women actually went out with perfect strangers. The Tinders and Bumbles of the world providing no context whatsoever besides some digitally enhanced photos on bullshit profiles. Please.

SmartMeet’s built-in rating system put an end to that. Now us ladies (or men) can find out whether somebody is five-star material before swiping right. No idiot would choose a toaster or a TV before reading a few online reviews, but we should spread our legs and risk disappointment, gonorrhea, or worse? Plus, people love the bells and whistles, the “Trump Supporter” and “Is It In Yet?” badges being my personal faves. The app has plenty of positive ones, too, even if no one uses them. Yes. SmartMeet is the premier online dating platform nationwide (and no slouch internationally) because women need to be forewarned about the Brian Bensons of the world.

I might’ve thought to check his rating before accepting this offer, but I was never planning to fuck him behind the bleachers, anyway. I would’ve agreed to this simply because the last time I walked through these doors I was a scrawny, mousy thing with hand-me-down turtlenecks and orthopedic shoes. Now I’ve got the power bob, my signature red lipstick—BITE Me Deadly—and stilettos that can drive an eyeball to the back of some poor bastard’s skull. And Brian always deserved a good stiletto bashing.

I pop my six supplements—three plain-Jane vitamins and three others with exotic names prescribed by an Ayurvedic practitioner—and finish the first of the three canisters I filled with the precise amount of water needed to survive this day: the talk; the 45-minute drive to the airport; the lead-up to the dehydrating, six-hour flight back to Seattle.

The snow lends the neighborhood a quaint vibe, except for the street beyond where the traffic is already backing up. Red brake lights multiplying and pulsing like a lazy disco. The drive to the airport will suck and it’s times like these when I wish I used a driver. Traffic is a tragic waste of my time. But I never, ever let another person drive.

***

Kenmore Middle School looks the same. Outside: threadbare bushes, limited parking, the white cinderblock structure ringed with a thin moat of lawn. Inside: scuffed linoleum, obligatory trophy displays, lockers dented from the impact of prepubescent skulls.

Mrs. Trab, the woman who booked me, is spotted and wrinkled and wears a tweedy skirt that’s too long for her legs. She escorts me through the school with a halting smile and asks advice about a “friend” of hers that isn’t landing enough dates on SmartMeet. Any tips to spice up her profile? Mrs. Trab’s upper lip twitches like the leg of a dying centipede.

I don’t slow my stride, but I do her a solid and tell her to tell the “friend” to lose the Payless flats, invest in a quality push-up bra, and pad her interests with suggestive skills and innocuous fetishes. I’m thinking something like double-jointed acrobat who enjoys playing nurse and trying new foods while blindfolded. Differentiators sugared with sexual connotation.

***

Onstage, I scan the assembled crowd. We’re mid flu season, so the students cough and blow their noses, crinkle their portable tissue packets, and all those bodily fluids seem to dapple the air like mist. In a row of teachers towards the back, I spot Brian. He definitely looks heavier than his pictures, sort of puffy and droopy at the same time, but recognizable as himself nonetheless. He smiles at me and waves. He’s still got the dimples that used to drive me mad, dimples that make you want to smile back, regardless of the circumstances, but I steel myself against their charms, letting his friendliness hang between us and wither.

When it’s time to start, I begin by reminding the assembled heathens that in the Digital Age, their deeds, onscreen and off, will permanently scar them. Life is about accountability, so I swiftly eradicate any lingering misconceptions about childhood being a safe time to test out poor decision-making. My overture contains enough horrifying real-life examples to cause the hormone-plagued misanthropes to shit their pants, but not so much that their chaotic, undeveloped pre-frontal cortex won’t be piqued enough to seek out our services later on. They are, after all, future clients. I want to leave them trembling with possibility, but also laden with the knowledge that in this life there are no invisibility cloaks.

Many of my case studies follow the same arc: sexters equal child pornographers equal convicted felons equal registered sex offenders (with a few cases of online bullying, harassment, and criminal intent thrown in to round things out). My message: no anonymity, no privilege, no excuses.

I always end the same way. “The world is unforgiving. This will become obvious when you knock on your neighbors’ doors to inform them that you’re a sex offender who just moved down the street. I implore you to avoid that conversation.”

There are awed stares and hesitant clapping, as if the audience is drugged, until I swiftly move toward the exit, which prompts them to snap back into themselves and flock toward me. The usual shit show. Every dowdy, single educator in the joint swarms to ask about their SmartMeet profiles. My peripheral vision snags on Brian, who is also pushing his way through. He calls my name and it’s so funny how I simply just cannot hear him! Ha ha! I take questions on the move, attempting to curtail the orgiastic frenzy of “interest” from the administration. It’s always the adults, never the kids. They all want a playbook on reinvention, the bores!

Back outside, free at last, tramping toward the freshly salted parking lot, my pace quickens when I spot the rental. But I do not get away. A door slams closed. Footsteps follow. Brian shouts my name at a volume impossible to ignore: Carol!!!

He’s wearing the equivalent of what a Cape Cod plumber might sport to a niece’s wedding: the rumpled button-down, the Vineyard Vines belt, even a goofy blue tie studded with small red tugboats. Oh, dear God.

I squint, pretending not to recognize him, answering his expectant, ‘hey, you just won the lottery’ smile with feigned confusion. He tells me his name and I shrug. Sorry, Brian Benson. Doesn’t ring a bell! His big head practically retracts into his body as he haltingly explains that we went to school together, were in fact in the same class for all twelve years.

He body scans me with his eyes and, even though I’d always hoped he’d look at me that way, it feels like a trespass. “You’ve definitely cleaned up well,” he says.

I resist the urge to hide my body behind my own crossed arms and I go to him, get right up into his face and ask, “May I help you with something?”

He cuts to the chase, opining about the litany of “false” accusations pinned to him on SmartMeet and his desire to reincarnate as an eligible bachelor. He claims the slander began with a woman named Amy who misinterpreted everything he did and trashed him afterwards. Of course. As if I don’t remember how Brian did nothing when his best friend exposed himself to a wheelchair-bound Shauna Welks in high school. Or how he bragged about banging Lisa Rogers when he hadn’t, and she wound up switching schools. Or how I thought I loved him, and he pretended to like me back for a week, only to have his friend dump me in study hall.

“Ummmm… did you just hear a single word I said in there? Cause the students seemed to get it.”

“Just listen, please?” He shivers, watching the fog of his breath drift away on the breeze.

“What? The khaki-panted white man hasn’t received his fair shake? Watch how I weep.”

“Listen! This Amy, she gave me zero stars, and then of course blasted me in her comments, all crap, by the way, and everybody I dated after that read what she wrote…”

“Go on.”

“She poisoned their minds! After that, every time I held open a door or offered to pay, I was a chauvinist. A few more ratings and I was buried.”

Brian Benson probably isn’t the worst guy in the world. He’s not the guy with a knife that caught up to me in the park that day. He’s not the camp counselor who didn’t take no for an answer. He’s not my first boss, who couldn’t keep his hands to himself. Hell, he’s not even the worst guy I’ve dated. But he does sort of encapsulate a kind of run-of-the-mill toxicity that isn’t doing the world any favors. The bigger assholes probably started out just like Brian, then simply doubled down.

I tell him that he lived his life and people judged his actions. Amy has as much a right as he does to voice an opinion about the finer points of their relationship. The site doesn’t exist to reflect universal truths, but rather to illuminate the reality of flawed individuals who don’t always see eye to eye. Blah, blah, blah. This is always the part where I imagine myself as a jaded French woman, standing on the bank of the Seine in dark lipstick and a red dress, smoking cigarettes and telling my lover that none of it matters because life has no meaning. Cold, sure, but isn’t there a certain beauty there? Isn’t that more honest than the romantic comedies with their predictably twisted plotlines and the tearful, slobbery reunions that happen on cue in the last 15 minutes?

I unlock my rental car and reach for the handle, but Brian grabs my arm. “My profile is linked to Facebook. My friends are saying things to me. I could lose my job! And I can’t create a new profile unless I create a new Facebook profile, too, plus you guys track IP addresses anyway, so I’m screwed.”

I yank my arm away so violently it makes him teeter backwards. “Excuse me,” I say. “Time for me to catch a plane.”

“Right. You’re a cyber bullying expert, but you’re practically begging people to eat each other alive.”

“I don’t control human nature. I can only positively influence it.”

“Positively what, now?”

“Accountability is part of the SmartMeet credo. Perhaps you should’ve thought that through.”

“Whatever.” He turns and walks away, I presume toward the school, but as soon as I clamber inside the car, he opens the passenger’s seat door and slides in next to me.

My throat goes dry in an instant. It’s not that I’m afraid of this man. I’m SURE I could take him in a fight. But the presumption. The violation. It triggers a part of me I can’t exactly control. My eyes search for weapons. A pen in the cupholder. A killer heel on my shoe. My elbow. My head. “What about your job and those kids? What do you think you’re doing because you’re not going anywhere with me.”

“Drive.”

“I will miss my flight. I’ll miss ten flights before I take you anywhere.”

“Just drive. I need to think.”

“Who do you think you’re talking to? I’m no middle school girl.” Inexplicably, I pick up the pen and stab him in his thigh. A thumbprint-sized bloom of red darkens his Dockers and he howls in pain.

“Fuck,” he yells. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Frowning, tears well in his eyes as he takes in the scene: me with the pen, his injured leg, me with the pen, etc. I’ve never stabbed a man before and I’m horrified. I try to get past the shock and parse it out: did he deserve it or did I overreact? Am I mad or am I sorry? Am I safe or in danger? I can’t think over my panic, over this urge to run, but he hasn’t struck back yet, and that makes me think I’m still on top.

“What. The. Fuck. Are you mental?” he asks.

“Were you mental in grade school when you stabbed me in the thigh with a pencil? You know I still have a gray dot there? Lead embedded in my body. Do you know how many girls in this world have gray polka dots on their asses from idiots like you attempting to flirt? On behalf of us all, you had it coming.”

A smug smile. “So you do remember me,” he says.

I’m struck by his childish face and fattish nose. I can’t believe I ever found him attractive. Still, between his bloody leg and his glasses that are Scotch taped together at the hinge, he doesn’t look threatening anymore. He looks injured. I lean over to unwind his necktie. He flinches when he sees me coming, but lets me take it off. His forehead is slick with sweat now, and I hope it doesn’t mean he’s going to faint.

Now how do tourniquets work again? Above or below the wound? I can’t remember, so I just tie it over top so it’s like a Band-Aid of sorts. Blood smudges my fingers and soaks through the side of his pants, forming a fuzzy trail from the wound down to the seat. I hope this fucker doesn’t have a communicable disease.

“Thank you,” he says. “And sorry about the pencil thing. I obviously don’t remember that.”

“Why would you? You probably pencil-stabbed all the girls.”

The car smells faintly of onions and desperation, so I crack the window, then turn on the engine for some heat. I forgot I had the station tuned to 80s on 8, and the Go-Go’s song We Got the Beat rings out at top volume. Jesus.

“Well this is quite a pickle you’ve gotten us into, isn’t it, Brian? Might I suggest that in the future, you abstain from entering women’s cars uninvited, especially when they’re pretending they don’t know you. I apologize about the leg, and if you leave this car now, I’ll resist the urge to pop open my laptop and destroy your life for good when I get home. Probably.”

“What’s your rating, Carol? Tell me, are you a five? With a whole lot of supporting evidence?”

“Out of your league, obviously.”

The sun is out now, bright and strong, and it’s condensing the snow to waterlogged Swiss cheese. The trees drip and the sound makes me miss Seattle. Brian seems to be curling himself into the contours of the car door, face aimed out the window.

“Are you having a breakdown? Is there someone I should call?” I ask.

I feel a little badly for the guy but he is still the person that fake-dated me for a week and then had his friend dump me. And when I say fake-dated, I mean it. Our romance literally consisted of two phone calls and a combined two minutes of handholding. I didn’t even get a kiss out of it.

“Don’t you wish there were more people out there that really knew you?” he asks.

“I’m not sure it much matters. We’re headed towards extinction, you know. You have no idea how quickly we’ll be there.”

“All the more reason to see a movie. Or eat a nice meal with someone.”

“Or get a pet or see a therapist.”

“You know, it’s really cool what you’ve done with your life. Don’t get me wrong. I hate your app. It’s actually bringing about the downfall of humanity, which I think you already know, but it’s still admirable that you did something good for yourself.”

My impact on the world has been good, hasn’t it? For the most part?

The song Red Red Wine comes on the radio. I wonder if Brian remembers that the time he fake-loved me back, in seventh grade, we slow-danced to this song in a barn, straw scattered at our feet like rank confetti. He kept brushing his cheek against mine, pulling his head back as if to align our lips, but the kiss never came. I stayed positive, sure that I’d get it sooner or later, but no. The window of opportunity closed. I would always think of that phantom kiss as my first failure.

Brian breathes deeply and inserts the pads of his index fingers into the corners of his eyes, the way men do when they want to act like the problem is really some discharge rather than tears. He says, “You know I really did like you. That one time.”

I open both our windows all the way, letting cool air sweep through the car. “You were nice to me once. It was when I first started wearing glasses, and everybody was deciding whether to make fun of me or not. You told me I looked like Kelly McGillis from Top Gun.” That, I realize, must’ve been the inciting incident. The love trigger. One kind sentiment was all it took. More than I’d gotten from anyone at that point.

“Better than Kelly McGillis.” I search his face for cracks in his sincerity, but surprisingly detect none.

“I think it was just because my hair was a little like hers at the time. You know, tousled wavy bob…”

I’m thinking about that kiss again, thinking about it so hard that I barely even realize I’m leaning over and taking it. We make out for a moment, middle school style, until the song ends. Then, we sit, listening to the dripping trees and the songs from our childhood. I glance over at him and he’s touching his blood-smeared fingertips to his lips like he’s never felt them before. Like they’re back from the dead. This is how I’ll remember him, and I smile and touch my lips, too. Then, I lean across him and open the door so he can get the fuck out already.