The Circle

person who wants to find out more about an actual potential
     romantic interest. Can I have a volunteer?”
    Gus looked out to the audience, theatrically peering around with his hand shielding
     his eyes.
    “No one? Oh wait. I see a hand up.”
    To Mae’s shock and horror, Gus was looking her way. More specifically, he was looking
     at Francis, whose hand was raised. And before she could say anything to him, Francis
     was out of his seat and headed up to the stage.
    “Give this brave volunteer a round of applause!” Gus said, and Francis jogged up the
     steps and was enveloped in the warm spotlight, next to Gus. He had not looked back
     to Mae since he’d left her side.
    “Now what is your name, sir?”
    “Francis Garaventa.”
    Mae thought she’d puke. What was happening? This isn’t real, she said to herself.
     Was he really going to talk about her onstage? No, she assured herself. He’s just
     helping a friend, and they’ll do their demonstration using fake names.
    “Now Francis,” Gus continued, “am I to assume you have someone you’d like to date?”
    “Yes, Gus, that is correct.”
    Mae, dizzy and terrified, nonetheless couldn’t help noticing that onstage, Francis
     was transformed, just as Gus had been. He was playing along, showing his teeth, acting
     shy but doing so with great confidence.
    “Is that person a real person?” Gus asked.
    “Of course,” Francis said. “I no longer date imaginary people.” The crowd laughed
     heartily, and Mae’s stomach dropped to her shoes.
Oh shit
, she thought.
Oh shit
.
    “And her name?”
    “Her name is Mae Holland,” Francis said, and for the first time, looked down to her.
     Her face was in her hands, her eyes peeking from under her trembling fingers. With
     an almost imperceptible tilt of his head, he seemed to register that Mae wasn’t entirely
     comfortable with the proceedings thus far, but just as soon as he acknowledged her,
     he turned back to Gus, grinning like a game-show host.
    “Okay,” Gus said, typing the name into his tablet, “Mae Holland.” In the search box,
     her name appeared in three-foot letters on the screen.
    “So Francis wants to go out with Mae, and he doesn’t want to make an ass out of himself.
     What’s one of the first things he needs to know. Anyone?”
    “Allergies!” someone yelled.
    “Okay, allergies. I can search for that.”
    He clicked on an icon of a cat sneezing, and immediately a stanza appeared below.
    Likely gluten allergy
    Definite horse allergy
    Mother has nut allergy
    No other likely allergies
    “Okay. I can click on any one of these listings and find out more. Let’s try the gluten
     one.” Gus clicked on the first line, revealing a more complex and dense scroll of
     links and text blocks. “Now as you can see, LuvLuv has searched everything Mae’s ever
     posted. It’s collated this information and analyzed it for relevance. Maybe Mae’s
     mentioned gluten. Maybe she’s bought or reviewed gluten-free products. This would
     indicate she’s likely gluten-allergic.”
    Mae wanted to leave the auditorium, but knew it would make more of a scene than staying.
    “Now let’s look at the horse one,” Gus said, and clicked on the next listing. “Here
     we can make a more definite assertion, given it’s found three instances of messages
     posted that directly say, for example,
I’m allergic to horses
.”
    “So does that help you?” Gus asked.
    “It does,” Francis said. “I was about to take her to some stables to eat leavened
     bread.” He mugged to the audience. “Now I know!”
    The audience laughed, and Gus nodded, as if to say,
Aren’t we a pair?
“Okay,” Gus continued, “now notice that the mentions of the horse allergy were way
     back in 2010, from Facebook of all places. For all of you who thought it was silly
     of us to pay what we did for Facebook’s archives, take heed! Okay, no allergies. But
     check this out, right nearby. This is what I had in mind next—food. Did you think
     you might take her out to eat, Francis?”
    Francis answered gamely. “Yes I did, Gus.” Mae didn’t recognize this man on stage.
     Where had Francis gone? She wanted to kill this version of him.
    “Okay, this is where things usually get ugly and stupid. There’s nothing worse than
     the back and forth: ‘Where do you want to eat?’ ‘Oh, anything’s fine.’ ‘No, really.
     What’s your preference?’ ‘Doesn’t matter to me. What’s yours?’ No more of that