I have been scammed. I have been scammed by soulmate.com, the website I got to from lovecalculator.com, which is the website that told me I had a 24% chance of having a successful relationship with my boyfriend. 

On a quiet afternoon in February as I sat in my room twiddling my thumbs, I decided to google “love.” The fourth website that popped up was lovecalculator.com, favorite site of thirteen year old girls, perverts, and me. It immediately grabbed me.  “We all know that a name can tell a lot about a person.” Right, right, I thought. “Names are not randomly chosen: they all have meaning.  Doctor Love knew this so he made another great invention just for the lonely you!”  The lonely me!  Oh thank you, Doctor Love!

For the sake of curiosity (for no other reason, I swear), I entered my name in the slot of “Person 1” and my boyfriend’s name in the place of “Person 2” and eagerly awaited the results.  24%! “A successful relationship is possible, but you both have to work on it. Do not sit back and think that it will all work out fine, because it might not be working out the way you wanted it to. Spend as much time with each other as possible. Again, the chance of this relationship working out is very small, so even when you do work hard on it, it still might not work out.” 

Fuck.

What now? There must have been a mistake, and I, of course, (thinking logically,  I might add) needed to find another calculator that would fix it.  So, I clicked on the link to soulmate.com, because after all, that’s what I really wanted to know about anyway.  It says they’re going to text me the name of my soul mate; I can’t wait.  Click on my gender. Click on my star sign.  Enter my phone number. Enter the pin they text me. Agree to the terms of agreement without reading them.  (I’m getting really desperate now.)  Automatically get signed up for my horoscope for $5.99.  A month? A week? Get really depressed.  Get a text that reads: MALVINA.

Malvina? Malvina, where are you? Where have you been all my life? Malvina? Give me my money back! Get another text. Reads: “Pisces: Don’t let them blame you.”  How wonderfully vague, yet how well they know me. Yes, they do blame me, they hate me, it’s my fault, and the Love Doctor knows that.  He knows me so well! 

Who knows how many other pathetic souls have been scammed like me.  I sadistically hope, and realistically assume, that it is many. Many lonely (or bored) people who google “love”, in search of confirmation, or more likely, hope.  That’s love for you. Happy Valentine’s Day. 

I should have stuck with the 24%. It’s better than the chances of getting into Penn, half of the divorce rate, and a lot cheaper than soulmate.com.  And who knows how long it will take for Malvina to come along?