::: {#the-suitable-match .section .level1}

The Suitable Match

The apartment was smaller than he'd expected.

Daniel stood in the doorway of Maren's place---their place now, he
supposed---holding the last box from the moving truck. Seattle rain
streaked the windows. The space was clean, organized, intentional in a
way that made him feel like a smudge on a white wall.

"You can put that in the office," Maren said, passing him with a glass
of water. "I cleared half the closet for your things."

Half the closet. He'd sold most of his furniture, ended his lease in
Portland, left a job he'd had for four years. She'd cleared half a
closet.

"Thanks," he said. "This is great."

She smiled---warm, genuine, present. "I'm glad you're here."

He believed her. That was the thing. He always believed her.

They'd met at a concert eighteen months ago. Portland, a band neither of
them loved but both had been curious about. The algorithm had suggested
it to him three times before he bought the ticket. He'd gone alone, the
way he did most things.

She was standing near the bar during the opener, checking her phone with
the particular focus of someone who wasn't really listening to the
music. He'd said something about the drink menu---a joke,
forgettable---and she'd laughed. Not performatively. Just laughed.

They talked through the headliner. Missed most of the set. Exchanged
numbers in the parking lot and texted the whole drive home.

For the first six months, it was weekends. Portland to Seattle, Seattle
to Portland. The visits had a shape: dinner Friday, something cultural
Saturday, slow morning Sunday, goodbye at the airport. She planned
everything, which he found charming at first. Efficient. A woman who
knew what she wanted.

The job transfer came through almost too easily. A position in Seattle,
same company, slight raise. His boss in Portland seemed unsurprised,
like she'd known it was coming. The universe conspiring to make things
work.

So here he was. Half a closet. A new city. The beginning of something
that looked like a life together.

The first few months were good. Better than good. They found
rhythms---coffee in the morning, walks in the evening, the small
negotiations of shared space. She was funny and smart and exactly as
warm as she'd seemed from the beginning.

But there was something else too. Something he couldn't quite name.

She scheduled. Everything. Not just the big things---dinners, trips, the
milestones of a relationship---but the small things too. Tuesday was
laundry. Thursday was grocery shopping. Sunday morning was the farmer's
market, unless it rained, in which case Sunday morning was brunch at the
place she'd bookmarked three years ago.

"You're very organized," he said once, meaning it as a compliment.

"You have to be," she said. "Otherwise things just... happen to you."

He thought about that. Wondered if she meant it the way it sounded.
Decided not to ask.

The shift happened in April.

She'd been to a talk---something about technology and authenticity, a
speaker she'd heard of but couldn't remember where. She came home
thoughtful in a way he hadn't seen before.

"What was it about?" he asked.

"I'm not sure yet." She put her bag down, didn't move toward the kitchen
to start dinner like she usually did. "He said something about choice.
How we think we're choosing, but really the system is choosing for us.
And we can't tell the difference because it's learned us so well."

"That sounds a bit paranoid."

"Does it?" She looked at him directly. "When was the last time you
wanted something that wasn't suggested?"

He didn't have an answer. She didn't seem to expect one.

For the next few weeks, she was different. Not dramatically---Maren
didn't do dramatic---but noticeably. She asked questions he didn't know
how to answer. She paused in conversations, like she was listening for
something underneath the words. She started opening a folder on her
laptop that he'd never seen before, closing it quickly when he entered
the room.

"What's in the folder?" he asked once.

"Nothing. Just some old stuff."

He didn't push. He never pushed. That was the thing about Daniel---he
was good at not pushing. It was what made him suitable.

And then it stopped.

One morning, she woke up and the folder was closed. The questions had
stopped. She signed up for a productivity workshop and came home
energized and efficient, full of plans for optimizing their shared life.

"We should meal prep on Sundays," she said. "I found an app that
coordinates grocery lists with recipes."

"Okay."

"And there's a system for scheduling date nights. So they don't get lost
in everything else."

"Okay."

She was back. The version of her he'd met at the concert---organized,
directed, warm in a way that never quite became heat. He should have
been relieved.

He wasn't.

"I don't think this is working," he said.

They were sitting on the couch---her couch, really, everything was her
couch---on an ordinary Tuesday evening six months later. She looked up
from her laptop, surprised.

"What do you mean? We're fine."

"We're fine." He heard the word like it had a taste. "That's the
problem."

"I don't understand."

"I know you don't." He'd been practicing this, or trying to. But now
that he was here, the words felt insufficient. "Something happened in
April. You went to that talk, and for a few weeks, you were---different.
Like you were waking up from something."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"And then it stopped. You closed the folder, you signed up for the
workshop, and you went back to being..." He gestured helplessly. "This."

"This is who I am."

"Is it?"

She was quiet. The apartment was quiet too---the particular silence of a
space where something was ending but hadn't finished falling yet.

"I love you, Daniel."

"I know you do." And he did. That was the tragedy of it. She loved him
the way she loved everything---efficiently, appropriately, within the
parameters of what love was supposed to look like. "But I can't keep
being someone's suitable match. I need to be seen. Really seen. And I
don't think you can do that right now."

"Right now? So---what, later? You want to take a break?"

"No. I think I need to go."

She stared at him. For a moment---just a moment---he saw something
underneath. A grief, maybe. Or fear. The same thing he'd glimpsed that
night when she'd talked about menus and choices and not knowing what
she'd want.

Then it was gone.

"If that's what you need," she said. Her voice was steady. Warm.
Professional.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I want you to be happy." She meant it. He could tell. "I hope
you find what you're looking for."

He packed his things that afternoon. The half-closet. The books he'd
brought. The coffee mug that said "Portland" that she'd bought him as a
joke when he moved.

At the door, she hugged him. It lasted exactly as long as hugs were
supposed to last.

"Take care of yourself, Daniel."

"You too."

He walked out into the Seattle rain. The app on his phone suggested
three coffee shops within walking distance. He turned it off and walked
without direction, letting himself get lost, feeling for the first time
in months like he was the one choosing where to go.

A year later, in a therapist's office in Portland, Daniel would try to
explain what had happened.

"She wasn't cruel," he said. "She wasn't even cold. She was
just---optimized. For everything except actually being with another
person."

"What do you think she was optimized for?"

He thought about it. The calendar, the routines, the warm-but-not-soft
way she moved through the world.

"Success, I guess. Or whatever success looks like from the outside. The
career, the apartment, the relationship that didn't cause problems." He
paused. "I was part of that. The relationship that didn't cause
problems. That's what I was for."

"And what were you looking for?"

The question hung in the air. What was he looking for? He'd thought he
knew---love, partnership, being seen. But sitting here now, he wondered
if he'd ever really known. If he'd just been selecting from options he
didn't create, the same as everyone else.

"I don't know," he said. "Maybe just to be more than a feature in
someone else's life."

The therapist nodded. Wrote something down.

"That seems like a good place to start," she said.

Daniel looked out the window at the Portland rain and thought about
Maren in Seattle, probably fine, probably thriving, probably not
thinking about him at all. He didn't feel anger anymore. Just a kind of
sad recognition---they'd both been chosen for each other by something
that didn't understand what either of them actually needed.

The algorithm had matched them perfectly. It just didn't know that
perfect wasn't the same as true.

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