Circus

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HENRY BOTTLESWORTH HAS GIVEN HIMSELF thirty-one days to find love on the Internet. For the past ten years, his friends and relations have been setting him up with their co-workers, friends of friends, sisters’ friends, former schoolmates, and second cousins. Henry has dutifully attended every date and allowed himself a carefully measured dose of optimism each time. He always takes note of buffed fingernails, a well-loved purse, or a hand-knit scarf and saves these details for later, just in case. Too polite to refuse his friends’ matchmaking efforts, he has sat through more silences punctuated by bouts of awkward eating than he cares to count.

Henry has, with time and experience, learned a thing or two about the culinary ins and outs of first dates. Sushi, for instance, invites a rice explosion. Ordering a saucy noodle dish or a dressing-laden salad is asking for a spill, and Chinese broccoli is impossible to eat all in one bite without losing one’s dignity. In his own way, Henry has become an expert in the etiquette of courtship:

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