Clementine stared blankly at her overflowing closet, trying on different combinations of clothing in her mind. The short pink dress she had originally imagined wearing suddenly felt overkill, feminine in an obvious and in-your-face kind of way. She couldn't choose her favorite off the shoulder gray top since she had it on it in two different pictures on her Hinge profile. Her navy slip felt overly sexy and her favorite low-rise jeans were too tight since she was on her period.

It was four in the afternoon, three hours before Clem was supposed to meet Joshua at the AMC theater in San Jose. After a week of back and forth messages about the differences between the East Coast and the West Coast and which one was superior (they both landed on the West Coast), Clem strategically steered their conversation to the pros and cons of Los Angeles, then more specifically about Hollywood, and finally to her favorite actress who just so happened to be starring in the blockbuster summer movie playing at the nearby theater. Eventually, Joshua took the bait and suggested they go see a movie together on a Thursday evening in late June.

Movie theater hang-outs served a very specific purpose in Clem’s mind, reserved for times when she was going to be spending time with someone without having to actually speak to them. Since movies provided almost no space to actually talk with the person, Clem often suggested seeing movies with two different types of people: people she either genuinely liked but felt nervous about spending time for fear of disappointing them, and people she knew she was supposed to spend time with but didn’t actually like. It was reserved for hangouts with her cool cousin she was convinced she’d somehow tricked into thinking she was also cool but knew she’d inevitably let down if they talked too much, or for friends from middle school Clem had nothing in common with but felt obliged to see.

Unfortunately, Joshua had suggested they meet up early to give them time to get to know each other before going into a silent, dark room staring at a screen unable to talk. Clem knew she should have found this flattering, knew it showed he had actual interest in getting to know her and didn’t just want to make out in a theater, but it had made her want to cancel the date entirely. In the end, Clem decided to invent a conflict that would only allow her to meet up one hour before the movie (obligatory time with her grandparents!).

Although Clem had been active on the app for over a year, Joshua was the first person she had ever met in person. When she’d been using Hinge on campus, she often saw guys she matched with while she was out at parties, whom she always avoided by ducking out of the room. While a couple of guys from school had suggested they meet up, either with an invitation like coffee at the popular bakery just down the hill from the campus or with a drunken text suggesting she come to a house party at two am, Clem always was able to come up with some excuse as to why she couldn't go. “Ugh, too much work today :/” or “Ah, sorry, it’s a girls night” she’d type into the white message box. While she was aware she was killing the possibility of romance or hook-ups that she chastised herself daily for not having, she was also always certain these messages were for the best. She knew her potential dates would be disappointed in her, perhaps for her looks or for her personality or both, and she figured it was better to just save them both the trouble.

Clem spent the three hours leading up to the date painting her nails a light shade of pink and plucking her eyebrows into perfect arches while watching twenty-minute video essays on Hinge catfishes and how to spot them. The smell of acetone filled her room.

Clem wasn’t worried that Joshua would be a catfish. Unlike some profiles she saw, he looked pretty much the same in all his pictures, his dark curly hair and blue eyes recognizable in every shot. His profile also stated he was 5’11’’, which felt like a sign that he was honest, not the type to lie about being six foot when he wasn’t.

No, Clem wasn’t worried that Joshua was a catfish, she was worried that she was one. As she did her makeup, applying her favorite light-pink blush and shimmery gold highlighter, Clem flipped between the selfies she had uploaded and her own front-facing camera app, alternating between her public profile and her real-life appearance as she tried to decide if she had captured herself honestly. One of the pictures was from over eight months ago at a party with Jen in early October, and she wondered if her body still looked like that, tan and glowing from the day they’d spent at the nearby lake. Clem re-read their conversation, checking to see if her messages sounded more clever than she actually was. She was shocked to see how entertaining her banter was, able to match and even one up with his dry sense of humor. Was she really that witty in real life?

Because Clem worried she was a catfish, she had decided not to tell anyone about her date. She figured there was a 50/50 chance that Joshua would walk away immediately upon seeing her, and Clem didn’t want to risk having to explain to someone why she was back from her date five minutes after it was supposed to start. By keeping him a secret, Clem could just pretend the date had never happened if and when Joshua rejected her.

The only downside to this plan was that it also meant that Clem didn’t have anyone to turn to for first-date advice. She had therefore spent the morning scrolling through wikiHow and skimming niche internet blogs for any tips or tricks that might be useful. Thanks to the suggestion of one site, she had compiled a list of questions to ask Joshua, ready to fill any moment of silence that might occur. She knew she had no issue with spouting question after question for endless amounts of time, something she did in almost every social situation, regardless of who with. Clem had also thought of clever answers to the questions in case Joshua turned them around on her. She figured that was unlikely but decided it was better safe than sorry.

By the time it was six o'clock, Clem had scrolled through every dating advice website on the first and second pages of Google and had watched six YouTube videos on how to nail a first date. Her travel size perfume, spearmint tic tacs, and light-pink lipgloss were all secured in her purse and she had made sure to leave a note in her room explaining where she was in case Joshua turned out to be a murderer and her parents needed to find her body. At 6:50, five minutes later than she would have had to depart to arrive exactly at seven (“make him wait” had been on every dating-blog she’d read), Clem left her house, satisfied at the idea that Joshua would be standing outside looking around for her when she arrived at the theater.

Joshua was, of course, slightly shorter than Clem had imagined, likely closer to 5’10” than six foot. But, besides this discrepancy, he looked like he did on Hinge. His brown hair was tucked into a small black cap, curtaining his heart-shaped face perfectly. He wore dark brown cargo pants with oversized pockets and a simple, striped cotton t-shirt that draped over his broad shoulders. Clem noticed he had on newly released sneakers that she was certain he’d had to wait online for in order to purchase.

Clem called his name as she approached, the idea of having to either tap his shoulder or stand expectantly at his side waiting for him to notice her too unbearable to imagine. As he turned to greet her, his tan arms rising for an embrace, Clem searched his face for signs of disappointment. To her surprise, she was met with a warm smile that extended up to eyes, crinkled in joy. She figured he had probably gone on enough Hinge dates to know how to hide any initial shock.

After noting he’d arrived five minutes prior and had purchased the tickets, Joshua led Clem across the street to the park directly opposite the movie theater and the two of them began the standard practice of listing the names of people they sort of knew that had attended each other's colleges. After going at this for ten minutes, Clem had learned that Joshua had gone to preschool with a girl she barely knew in the grade above her at college.            

            “I’m hoping to double double major in Comparative Literature and French,” he said, after Clem asked him about his courses. “So I’ve taken a lot of Classics classes.”

            “Nice,” Clem wracked her brains to remember anything she’d learned in her first year Women in the Classics seminar where they’d read Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, but Joshua didn’t give her a chance to reply.

            “I just couldn't get enough of Don Quixote,” Joshua was shaking his head, seemingly in wonder. “The work is considered as the first modern novel.”

Clem nodded her head. It didn’t seem like he was going to ask her opinion on what she thought of Miguel de Cervantes either.

“And you’re majoring in…” Joshua waited expectantly for Clem to finish his sentence.

“Art History and minoring in English.”

“Ah, nice.”

They moved to discuss what they had been up to that summer, and Clem learned that Joshua was interning at a tech start-up his childhood best friend’s dad had started that seemingly had nothing to do with his interests. He made a joke about it, so at least he was self aware, Clem thought. They also shared their favorite things about San Jose (they both agreed that it was the city’s proximity to other places). Clem liked that Joshua knew the good beaches just south of the city, not naming the touristy spots everyone knew.

At 7:50, Joshua led them both back across the street, lecturing her about the friendship between director Quentin Tarantino and actor Christoph Waltz, and the two of them made their way to the concession stand where he bought an extra-large Diet Coke for Clem and Cherry Coke for himself. She’d asked for Coke and didn't know what to make of his decision for ordering her a diet one. She wasn't sure whether she should be offended (did he think she needed to diet?) or flattered (did he think she was thin and therefore probably only drank diet sodas?). It was also almost 8pm and there was tons of caffeine in Diet Coke, so it’s not like she would drink it anyway.

The first half of the movie passed uneventfully. Clem stared intently at the screen, every so often shooting quick glances to her right to check if Joshua seemed to be enjoying himself. She wasn’t sure if they were supposed to be talking, whispering discreetly to each other about the actors on screen, or making out, wrapped in each other's arms, oblivious to the plot. Clem tried looking around for other couples in the theater, desperate for someone to tell her what to do, but the room was too dark to provide much help.

She thought back to one of the YouTube videos she had watched on the importance of movie-theater dates. In the video, the creator had stated that going to a theater was a great way to learn someone else's body language. They enthusiastically declared that you can learn a lot about someone based on how they behave in a theater, suggesting that viewers note if their partner is on their phone during the movie, and how this might be a sign of not being able to be present, or if they are unable to sit still, a sign they might not be comfortable in their own skin. To Clem’s knowledge, Joshua hadn’t checked his phone the entire time and was seemingly paying close attention to the plot. To her horror, however, she realized she was doing everything that the creator had warned her not to do. She was sitting stiffly in the center of her velvet chair and had not said a word since the opening credits had rolled, two things that were not to be done if she wanted to have a successful date.

Clem took a deep breath, a sound she hoped Joshua interpreted as a reaction to something happening on-screen, and let one knee flop to the right one inch so that it grazed his jeans. Instantly, as if he had been waiting for permission, he stretched his arms out to lay one along the back of Clem’s chair. Her head was pulled back as his sleeve caught her long hair. He re-adjusted, wrapping his hand around her shoulder and pulling her towards his warm body. They sat like this, still in silence, but she could feel him looking down at her, his eyes burning a hole into the side of her head as she continued to stare straight ahead towards the screen. She hoped her hair didn’t look too frizzy.

“Can I kiss you?” Joshua’s words were deep and heavy.

The question materialized in the air, not unexpected yet still startling. Aware that Joshua could probably feel her body stiffen and her heart rate quicken, Clem took another deep breath. She hoped he somehow interpreted this motion as one of pleasure. Unsure how to respond, she turned her head to face his, shocked to see a newfound intensity in his eyes. Joshua seemed to take this movement as a “yes,” saving Clem the trouble of having to verbally answer, and leaned towards her. His mouth tasted like raisins and warm melted chocolate from the Raisinets he’d purchased with his soda.

They made out for what seemed like twenty minutes, Clem’s exposed ribs jabbing into the plastic cup holder that separated their seats. The palm of his hand cupped her jaw in a not unpleasant way while his fingers brushed away strands of hair that fell across her face, gently tucking them behind her ear.

Clem wasn’t sure how long they were supposed to stay like this. It wasn’t that she was not enjoying it, she liked feeling his warm skin on her cheeks, his soft lips lightly touching down on her nose every so often. Still, she could hear snippets of the conversations taking place in the movie and was curious to see what was happening on screen. After what she hoped was an appropriate amount of time, Clem started to pull away slowly, adding a second longer to the time between each kiss, before eventually leaning back into her own chair.

On screen, she was shocked to learn that the villain, a thirty year old pawn shop seller with a thick Jersey accent, had turned out to be an undercover detective. She found herself annoyed that she had clearly missed a pivotal scene, and re-positioned her body in a way she hoped indicated she planned on watching the rest of the movie without distraction. She tried to piece together what she might have missed in her brain. Unfortunately, Joshua didn’t seem to be on the same page. His hand rubbed up and down her exposed thigh, every so often finding its way under the edge of her gray cotton mini skirt, and she could feel his eyes trained on her lips. It was not until the ending credits started to roll that Joshua finally leaned back into his own seat.

It was just after 10:30pm by the time they exited the theater into the Bay Area summer air. Clem had been nervous about this timing since the moment they had selected the 8pm showing, aware that it would be early enough that they could continue to hang out if they wanted to but late enough for Joshua to fairly justify ending the night if, or when, he didn’t like her.

On their pre-movie walk, Clem had hinted about having to wake up early the following day for an undisclosed plan, planting the idea in Joshua’s mind that she would likely have to leave right after the movie ended. While she often did this in part for herself, to give herself an out if she ever needed it, she mainly did it to give the other person an exit strategy they could easily take without having to openly reject her. She often made up imaginary night time plans so that she could leave dinner with her friends without them having to worry about inviting Clem to hang out with them afterwards. As they exited into the cool nighttime air, Clem mentally thanked her past self, grateful that she had given Joshua a solid excuse to leave without blatantly hurting her feelings.

“So,” Joshua said, turning his body to face her under the light of the glowing marquee sign. His eyes were still pointed directly at hers.

“So,” Clem responded, unsure how to respond.

“You’re not free to hang now, right?” Joshua smiled down at her.

“No, unfortunately I really have to be up early,” Clem heard her voice trail off. She heard the words come out of her mouth without being able to stop them.

“You sure?” Joshua leaned in to kiss her again, an act that felt much more intimate outside the anonymity of the theater.

“I wish I wasn’t.” Clem curled her bottom lip down in a way she hoped looked like a sexy pout. She wasn’t sure why she was going along with this lie. It could easily be undone, still could be. She just didn’t believe he didn’t actually want to hang out, that he was saying this just out of politeness, and that he didn’t want her to say yes.

They said goodbye with a warm hug and both turned to leave in opposite directions. Clem walked the ten blocks home from the theater in silence. While Joshua seemed smart and driven, and she liked that he cared about nature and seemed knowledgeable about movies, Clem was sure she would be totally fine if she never saw him again.

She was almost one hundred percent certain he didn’t want to see her again. She sighed, scrolling through her phone as she walked. If Dasha had been the one on the date, she was certain they would have ended up back at his place, hooking up against the wall or something. Clem wondered when, if ever, anyone would be interested in having sex with her.

Still, Clem smiled to herself. She imagined telling her friends that she had gone on a date, excited to show them that there was a man that was interested in her and who she was (maybe) interested in. Most of all, she was excited that she had gone on a first date, that she would finally be able to contribute to first-date conversations, able to nod her her in real understanding when some imagined person would bring up what it was like to walk up to a date they’d met online for the first time and the guy was shorter than he’d listed in his profile.