Free Not My Type by Melanie Jacobson Page A

don’ts of Internet dating, it lights up with page hits. We want to tie it more closely to the Salt Lake experience, not just generic Internet dating tips. We’re going to launch a weekly column about the online dating experience in the Salt Lake area.”
    “How do I fit into this?” I didn’t like where this was going.
    “You’ll take the LDS point of view in your column, since that’s half our readership anyway. The hot site everyone uses right now is LDS Lookup. We’ll pay for your account and ask you to set up one date a week. We want it to be safe, so we’ll always know when you have a date and where you’ll be going. You’ll write the column under a pen name so your dates won’t guess who you are, although we’ll leave it up to you whether you want to tell them that you’ll be writing about the date. You’ll need to disguise their identities.” She’d been typing as she talked, and now she turned her laptop to face me. The LDS Lookup site was on the screen, looking sleek in tones of sage green and slate blue. She gestured for me to click around on it and then continued her spiel.
    “Whenever possible, we want you to leave it to your date to plan the activity. We think it will better reflect what the experience is like for other women doing the online dating thing. Your column will be your take on the experience, and we’ll run it every Tuesday, giving you a couple days to write it. What do you think?”
    She was offering me a job. Right? I didn’t know what to think. This was so far off from what I thought I’d be doing. “Why me?” I asked, realizing I shouldn’t let the silence drag on too long. “Why not one of the other people on staff?”
    She shrugged. “Several reasons. We only have one writer who isn’t in a relationship or married, and she flatly refuses to do it. I can’t make her. I can only find someone who is looking to get their foot in the door, and that’s you.”
    “That’s blunt,” I said.
    “Yes. But true, and it’s an amazing opportunity for you.” She pushed the laptop to the side and leaned forward, her eyes bright. “Think about it. It’s your chance to start at the ground level of something new and exciting. You can be a part of taking Real Salt Lake to the next level. You get to stamp this column with your personality, and if your blog is anything to go by, that’s where your writing will shine. Besides, you’ll have a date every week.”
    I shook my head. I wanted to find a way to break into journalism, but the idea of Internet dating sounded awful. I had no interest in a relationship, so why would I suffer through weeks of awkward dates just so I could write stories that would force me to relive them online? I could play in interstate traffic every Saturday and then report on it every Tuesday and feel more excited about the notion.
    Ellie must have sensed that I was about to reject the offer because she rushed to keep me on the hook. “I’ll sweeten the pot,” she said. “If getting a break in the news business and starting off with your own column aren’t enough for you, consider the potential. We can’t pay you a salary at first—”
    Hold the phone. I wouldn’t even get paid for this?
    “—but we can offer you excellent exposure and experience.”
    “I’m sorry,” I said, unable to believe what I was hearing. “You want me to go on a date every week with a complete stranger, write about it, and then not get paid for it?” I felt like I had landed in the offices of Crazy Town.
    “Of course we’ll pay you for it,” she said. “We just can’t offer you a full-time position. You’d be the equivalent of a stringer at a large paper.”
    I made a mental note to look up stringer . “How many hours a week should I expect to work?”
    “Right now, it would be the time you spent on the dates and then writing about them, but we wouldn’t be paying you hourly anyway.”
    This was getting weirder and weirder. In the dozen or so “How to