My Secret Life as The World's Worst Professional Matchmaker

I don't know how I landed this job. But the most surprising part is that instead of helping my clients find love, they helped me get out of an abusive relationship.

Illustrations by Alice Yu Deng | Story edited by Genelle Levy

“The bruise is shaped like a penis, Karie.”

Joy laughed to herself and shook her head. It wasn’t the sort of laugh you laugh back at, though. It was the kind of laugh meant to hold back tears. She took a deep breath and scrunched her face in a familiar way, a way I’d scrunched my own face before, a way that says, “No! I will not let myself be a fucking mess right now!” Joy, whose name, like those of the other clients mentioned in this piece, has been changed to protect her privacy, had been single for years, too afraid to date again. By the time she found herself in the chair opposite me, she was in her late 30s and had become a self-proclaimed cat lady. She told me about how, a week before, on a Friday night, while her co-workers were out on dates they’d found on eHarmony or Match.com, she’d been masturbating in the shower again. Her eyes were closed, and she was really starting to get into it, when her cat snuck behind the shower curtain, stuck his paw out, and popped her multiple times, claws out, on the forehead. Disoriented, she tried to stand up and ripped the curtain down, slipping and landing on the faucet.

She found herself standing naked in her bathroom with a dick-shaped bruise on her ass, blood dripping down her forehead, and her closest friend, a Russian blue, licking its paw in the corner. The next night, she signed up for Match.com. After only a couple of days of browsing through profiles, she was overwhelmed and canceled her account.

“That’s why I decided to come to you, a professional,” Joy said, her eyes focused on mine like a bird staring down prey. “Is my soul mate in that filing cabinet, Miss Karie?” I suddenly felt very uncomfortable. I took a sip of my stale coffee and shifted in my chair.