How to Build a Boyfriend from Scratch. Sarah Archer

eyes lit up. “Girl. I’ve got this.”

      One Uber ride later, they arrived in a visibly grimier part of town outside a club named, with an impressive show of shamelessness, Bodies. Kelly gestured to the sign, where the “i” flickered repeatedly. “This bodes poorly,” she said.

      Priya gave her side-eye.

      The interior was eerily similar to how Kelly imagined it would be to shrink down, Magic School Bus–style, and travel to the inside of one of her own organs. The atmosphere was dark, humid, and hormonal.

      As difficult as it was to hear over the bass-charged soundtrack, Kelly and Priya found themselves approached by guys almost as soon as they wedged themselves next to the bar. But no guy who talked to them got further than three sentences before making some dubious claim about the down payment he had just placed on a condo in Los Altos Hills, or his app’s stratospheric IPO. They were the sort of statements that were off-putting enough in broad daylight, but were made even worse when shouted incongruously over lyrics that were mostly thinly disguised metaphors for fellatio. Everything in Kelly was telling her to flee again, to throw in the towel—after taking a thorough shower—but she truly wanted to make this work. All she needed was someone she could see enough times over the next month and a half for it to not be bizarre to invite him to her sister’s wedding. Was that really so hard?

      Priya turned her back to the bar and rested her elbows on it, gazing out over the heaving dance floor. Finally she pointed to a guy with spiky black hair. “Him,” she declared. “Go get him.”

      Kelly crinkled her nose. “Why him?”

      “Because I want his friend,” Priya said, eyeing the guy next to him. Kelly shook her head, smiling.

      “How am I supposed to ask this guy for a date when we can’t even talk?” Kelly yelled. The music would only be louder on the dance floor, the belly of the beast.

      Priya spotted the platform where a rainbow-haired DJ was hunched over a laptop, zoned out and nodding. “Chillax, I’ll take care of that. All you have to do is get yo’ man.”

      While holding a real conversation was impossible, it seemed that approaching within five feet of another person and making eye contact was all that was required of a courting ritual at Bodies. Kelly pursed her lips, furtively eyeing the movements of everyone dancing around her, assessing how to imitate them—her past few attempts at dancing had left her with as much faith in her own skills as in the structural integrity of a sandcastle. Fortunately, the courting ritual had been half the battle, as dancing at Bodies also seemed to consist mostly of proximity. But her partner came closer and closer, gyrating, running his hands repeatedly around her hips and over her jeans. Kelly gulped, but told herself to just go with it. Dancing was actually less awkward than any of her conversations had been. She smiled at the guy and he smiled back. Maybe she should give him a chance. It was time she moved in and completed her task.

      “I’m Kelly, what’s your name?” she asked Spiky Hair. She couldn’t call him that forever.

      “Totally,” he nodded.

      “I’m Kelly,” she shouted.

      He leaned in close to her neck, his nose on her collarbone. Kelly flinched instinctively, but then tentatively leaned her own nose toward him, attempting to mimic the bizarre dance move. But then he sniffed deeply and shook his head. “You smell fine to me,” he yelled. This was not working.

      Suddenly the bass halted mid-pound. As a slower, less ear-rattling selection began, Kelly glanced at the DJ’s stand to see Priya there, giving Kelly a thumbs-up. Kelly smiled as Priya swayed, getting into the jam, a throwback Mariah Carey tune. Now this Kelly might be able to work with.

      She turned back to her guy. “I’m Kelly,” she tried again.

      This time he got it. “Stan.” He nodded, pointing at himself. Kelly cleared her throat.

      “Do you—” But just when Kelly was about to make her proposition, a new voice entered the fray, battling Mariah’s and losing very, very badly. Priya had apparently gotten too deeply into the jam. Having somehow procured a mic, she was singing along, loudly, joyfully oblivious to the melody.

      “This isn’t a karaoke bar!” some guy shouted at her.

      “It is tonight!” she cried, soliciting a smattering of laughs and cheers. “Come on!” A few people started singing along halfheartedly.

      The time was now. If they didn’t get out of here soon, Priya’s “singing” was liable to get her arrested for a noise violation.

      “Do you want to hang out sometime?” Kelly tried again. Just as she got the words out, Priya unleashed a howl so resounding, so soulful, so reckless in its treatment of pitch, that Kelly worried every glass and eardrum in the place might break. Kelly turned to look at her friend, who had one arm raised in the air in triumph, swaying to the music.

      She turned back to Stan only to find there was no Stan. She wheeled around and worked her way through the pulsing couples around her, wondering if they had just gotten separated, but he was nowhere to be found. A hot wave of embarrassment flooded her. As soon as she had finally gotten up the courage to ask a guy out, he had vanished.

      Another man, this one wearing a vest with nothing under it, slinked up to her. “Girl, are you from Mars?” he asked, “Because—” He stopped and just stared at her, sipping his drink, apparently trying to remember the rest of the line. He found himself a spot and sat on the floor of the club to think it over.

      “Please go home,” Kelly instructed him wearily. It must have taken some pretty potent substances to give him worse conversational skills than her. Looking around, she realized that half the club was now singing along with Priya, cheering her on. Kelly gave a moment of silent admiration to her friend. Priya had truly pulled a Priya.

      As she wailed the last note, Kelly pulled her off the platform to the mingled cheers and boos of the crowd.

      “Why aren’t you dancing with someone?” Priya shouted.

      “Because I’m unattractive and have no social skills,” Kelly said.

      “What?”

      Kelly just shook her head, not wanting to repeat herself. “Spiky Hair vanished.”

      “I’m going to get a drink, you want one?” Priya shout-asked.

      Kelly shook her head no, but Priya held on to her. “Can you spot me some cash?” she asked. “I’ll pay you back at work.”

      Kelly reached into her jeans pocket, where she had slipped some cash at home, not wanting to carry a purse all night. But the pocket was empty. Frantically, she checked all her pockets, turning them inside out—nothing.

      “What’s wrong?” Priya asked.

      “Is it normal for a guy you dance with to keep feeling you up around the hips?” Kelly said.

      “It is when you’ve got an ass like that!” Priya swatted her playfully.

      But Kelly sighed. “I think that jerk pickpocketed me when we were dancing.”

      “What? No way. Where is he?”

      Priya shouldered her way through the masses, trying to spot the culprit, the fire of justice in her eyes, but Kelly stopped her. “Can we please just go?” She wasn’t sure which was worse, being ghosted because a guy didn’t want to go out with you or because he had just robbed you blind.

      Kelly wrestled with herself as she sat in front of her laptop that night, unable to fall asleep. Logically, she knew that online dating had long been destigmatized. Everyone did it. Normal people. Non-murderer people. She knew two separate couples who had gotten married after meeting online. But something about it still felt to her like giving up. Like admitting that even though she lived in the man-mine that was Silicon Valley, the traditional means by which humans had found mates for millennia had failed her. Or, more accurately, she had failed them.

      Then