Circus Read Free

and filling out some forms, he prepares himself for the task of writing his online profile. What will he do about a likeness? He hadn’t been worried about it initially, but now that he knows professional services exist to fashion ideal profiles, perhaps he ought to make more of an effort? Though he continues to ponder suitable haberdashery for a good first impression, he is sure anyone who is interested in his appearance alone is not to be trusted.
    When he arrives at his flat, Henry makes himself a cup of tea and sits down at the computer. The first questions are easy to answer, such as his name, age, gender, and sexual orientation. On the next screen, Henry is confronted with a list of seventy-eight questions, his answers to which will, apparently, give him a score and generate a personality profile so that he can be matched with individuals who have given compatible answers to the same questions. Henry drinks his tea and prepares to be assessed. He types:
    Angry Birds.
    Not likely.
    A weakness for strong cheddar.
    To Canada once, when I was a boy.
    Twilight
. I just needed to know what the fuss was about.
    Half full.
    Winston Churchill.
    The questions appear to be in a perplexingly random order. Still, he works his way down the list, answering quickly, honestly, and instinctively. Some of the questions are covertly intimate and sexual (Q: “Rough or gentle?” A: “Gentle.”), and someare frivolous and seemingly irrelevant (Q: “Have you ever been to the London Aquarium?” A: “No.”). What kind of person is he, based on these answers? He begins to regret his hasty approach.
    He uploads a photo Penny took of him during a winter stroll in Kensington Gardens. In the snapshot, he is wearing a winter hat and a duffel coat and laughing, his eyes wrinkled at the corners, while glancing slightly away from the camera. He suspects that the photo will at least attract women who like happy men, and he will come across as what he might describe – if he were writing an old-fashioned personal ad – as carefree and fun-loving. When he eventually hits “submit,” the webpage takes a minute to load before presenting him with a series of compatible matches. Henry gets up and goes to the kitchen to warm up his tea as a measure of procrastination. When he returns to his computer, he sees an overwhelming number of smiling, thumbnail-sized women. The highest compatibility match is 63 per cent, and Henry has no idea if this is a good or a bad sign. He opens up the first profile on the list: Robin Kendry, a librarian who has four cats and lives in Devon. His allergies rule that one out, so he scrolls down, browsing the coquettish poses and made-up faces. He picks up the phone beside his computer.
    “I don’t think I can do this.”
    “That bad? How far did you get?” Penny’s voice is hoarse.
    “I made my profile and now my screen is full of potentially dateable women.”
    “Right. Which picture did you use?”
    “Kensington.”
    “I was going to suggest that one. Look, I have to go, sorry.”Henry hears Garry in the background, asking who it is. Penny doesn’t reply. “Maybe just call it a night and we can go through the profiles together tomorrow? Lunch at that place that does free wireless?”
    “See you at twelve-thirty, then.”
    Penny has dated a number of men (and one woman) since she and Henry became friends all those years ago, and her partners have always been more interested in her than she has been in them. For a while, when she was in university, Henry could hardly keep track of their names, after having been introduced to what seemed to him like an endless succession of polo enthusiasts, thespians, future politicians, and semi-professional tennis players. When Garry, with his broad, muscular shoulders and his high-stress job in finance, had stayed on the scene longer than the rest, and eventually moved into Penny’s flat a year ago, Henry assumed that, as the two most important men in her life, they would