The Perfect Wife
The parties hereby contract not to take illegal drugs, “legal highs,” or abuse prescription medication, and to submit to random drug testing at a frequency to be determined by the other party…
The parties hereby contract to eat meat-free meals at least three (3) days a week…
“Wow,” you say, flicking onward. “This is pretty comprehensive.”
Tim shrugs. “That was the point of it. Great fruit salad, by the way.”
Further on, your eye is caught by a section headed Affection and Intimacy.
The parties hereby contract to spend at least one (1) full day per week devoted to family, without work.
The parties hereby contract to take at least two (2) vacations each year, with at least two (2) additional long-weekend excursions.
The parties hereby contract to spend at least one hundred (100) minutes alone together each week…
Each clause is accompanied by a detailed list of the consequences for infringements, from a ten-thousand-dollar fine for working too hard to a hundred thousand for missing a vacation.
The section on finance is relatively brief.
The parties hereby relinquish all rights in the other’s preexisting property, assets, stock options, and intellectual property. In the event of separation or divorce, spousal maintenance will be set at one-fifth of the higher earner’s net income.
The final, and longest, section is headed Childcare and Education.
The parties hereby contract that their children will take the name Cullen-Scott in perpetuity.
The parties hereby contract that their children will follow an ambitious curriculum valuing arts and sciences in equal measure…
And then Danny came along, you think. Turning all these carefully worked-out assumptions on their head.
“The point was, we agreed on pretty much all of this stuff anyway,” Tim’s saying. “It really wasn’t a big deal. And there’s no harm in being clear about what your expectations are, right?”
You flick back to the section on drug tests to see what the penalty for failing was.
The party at fault will immediately book into a substance abuse rehabilitation clinic of the other party’s choosing, for a duration of no less than ninety (90) days…
In addition, the second party hereby contracts with the first party to attend monthly drug counseling sessions with an authorized representative of the Moving On rehabilitation clinic for a period of no less than ten (10) years from the date of the marriage, or until mutually agreed with the first party…
“What’s this?” you ask. “Abbie went to drug counseling?”
Tim nods. “It was part of her rehab program. The most effective way to prevent a relapse is to go on seeing a counselor regularly.”
You sit back, thinking. It seems to you that what Tim had taken for drug-induced mood swings—a little too happy sometimes—might equally be the highs and lows of a secret love affair. But you’re not going to say so, at least not until you have proof.
And a plan, too; what to do with that information.
What were those words he spoke to you last night? I had to build the right tools. That’s all you are to him, you realize. An appliance. Like a socket wrench or a motorized screwdriver.
Well, this tool has a mind of her own. And she’s going to start using it.
51
“I must admit,” Megan Meyer says cheerfully, “I never expected to see you here.”
The matchmaker’s offices are in San Mateo, equidistant from San Francisco and Silicon Valley. You came in an Uber, summoned with a tap on your phone. You could even use the app to choose the playlist on the car’s stereo, thus ensuring the driver didn’t talk to you. As you crawled through the endless traffic you found yourself reflecting that, really, no one needed robots or driverless cars, when human beings were already this automated.
Megan’s offices were much as you expected. A water feature burbled in the reception area. There were fresh flowers in alcoves, tasteful art was hung on the walls, and the magazines in the lobby ranged from MIT Technology Review to The Economist.
Megan herself, though, was a surprise. You’d been expecting someone like Judy Hersch the news anchor, coiffed and brittle. But although Megan is equally well groomed and even more expensively dressed, her eyes are shrewd and humorous.
“I used to be a headhunter, filling leadership roles in start-ups,” she confides as she leads you into her office. “But so many of my clients asked if I had any friends they could date, I realized there was no one catering to that side of their lives. Tech people might be able to write the code for a dating app, but they’d be the very worst at using it. They don’t have the social skills to decode profiles, they tend to choose on appearance rather than personality, and when they do date, they often have no clue how to behave. So my pitch to them is, no swiping, just old-fashioned matchmaking. Besides, I’m good at it. I’m curious about people. And I genuinely believe that everyone, however strange they may seem, has a soulmate out there somewhere.”
You realize something else about Megan: She’s one of the very few people who immediately talks to you like a person, rather than a machine.
“What about Abbie?” you say as you take a seat on one of Megan’s two enormous sofas. “Was she Tim Scott’s soulmate?”
“Well, he thought so. And he’s my client, so…” She smiles.
“But you weren’t sure?”
She hesitates, then leans forward. “Look, I probably shouldn’t say this. But I knew two things the moment I met Abbie Cullen. First, that Tim was going to fall in love with her. Heck, he was already in love with her. That’s why I made a point of going to talk to her that day. He’d just ignored every single one of the women I was trying to pitch him and gone on and on about this incredible artist he’d hired.” She sits back again. “And second, I knew it would end in tears.”
“Why?”
“Do you know what I mean by Galatea syndrome?”
You shake your head.
“The men who start tech companies…they tend to be a particular type. First, they have impossibly high standards. Second, they have a vision. Which is to say, a view of the world. Often they like nothing better than to impart that view to some receptive, impressionable young person. If the young person is fresh and sweet and drop-dead gorgeous, too, so much the better. And, to be fair, the younger person is often just as keen to learn as the older one is to teach.