Free Agents of the Internet Apocalypse by Wayne Gladstone

that would be awful. No I meant a sponsored bar.”
    Tobey explained that during the Apocalypse, dating sites had been raising revenue by throwing events at bars, where you paid an admission fee and filled out a questionnaire. Coordinators then interpreted the results and grouped like-minded individuals for some sort of vaguely entertaining twenty-first century dating game/auction. So around eight, we headed for Tobey’s Matrix.
    â€œWould it kill you to lose that fedora?” Tobey asked.
    â€œI’m sorry, Tobes,” I said. “I know your Black Flag T-shirt is the epitome of fashion, but I’m keeping the hat.”
    â€œ And the white sports jacket?”
    â€œYes. Both. I’m in L.A.”
    â€œWhy does a Miami Vice jacket mean L.A. to you?”
    I stopped for a moment. “Hmm, that is curious. Anyway, I’m willing to take my chances.”
    Tobey drove us to a bar on some street I barely noticed because being aware of my surroundings was starting to make me uneasy. The bar looked standard and fratty, but there was a blue banner hanging outside that read, “OKCupid.”
    â€œWhy are we going to an OKCupid bar?” I asked Tobey.
    â€œInstead of?…”
    â€œI dunno, Match.com? eHarmony?”
    Tobey looked at me with vague disgust. “Gladstone, are you looking for someone to see a Coen Brothers movie with you or get your dick sucked?”
    Inside, there were lots of seats, just like at the Hash Tag, and that was nice. Not sure why it took the Apocalypse to get some decent bar seating. Or maybe it was an L.A. thing. We paid our forty dollar entrance fee which came with two free-drink tickets, and a form of about twenty questions, replete with a tear-off number for identification.
    â€œWhat did you put for the sexual-preference description?” Tobey asked.
    â€œâ€˜Somewhat adventurous.’ How about you?”
    â€œSex criminal.”
    â€œThat’s not a choice,” I said.
    â€œI wrote it in,” Tobey replied. “You think they grade these by Scantron?”
    â€œFair enough.” I crossed out my answer and scribbled in “pervert.”
    When we were done, we handed our finished forms to one of the four perky young coordinators, two girls and two guys with lots of smiles. After about thirty minutes, some local comic emcee got up on a makeshift stage, not unlike the one at The Hash Tag.
    â€œJesus,” I said. “When the Net went down, I should have invested everything into plywood.”
    â€œYeah,” Tobey agreed. “And desperation.”
    Apparently, they were trying to split the crowd up into four distinct personality types and make pairings. Having seen our coordinators, I was pretty sure the process was less than scientific. And when they called the numbers, I was even more sure, because Tobey and I were in the same group.
    We took the stage, standing in a line with fifteen other guys, while the emcee started introducing us by reading our three-line bios. I seemed to be the oldest. (Indeed, that’s why Tobey didn’t even bother taking us to a Tinder bar). I could tell instantly that this was a highly flawed re-creation of a dating site, even if I’d never been on one. Nothing could be less like the Internet than consensually being put up on stage for harsh viewing.
    â€œYou’re missing the point,” Tobey said. “None of that matters.”
    â€œDoesn’t it?” I asked. “Isn’t that what the Net’s about? Putting your best foot forward. Slimming pics. Lying about your height?”
    â€œYeah, a bit, but not dating sites so much. On a dating site the main point is you’re on a dating site.”
    I didn’t understand.
    â€œLook,” he continued. “You hit on a woman in a bar, a bookstore, a coffee shop, whatever, she can be annoyed with you. Maybe she’s just trying to drink her skinny latte without being bothered. And even if