January 14, 1998

Today after school, some of us went to Curb Café. A bunch of popular seventh-grade guys came in and Zach was with them. Unfortunately, Hannah was with us, too.

Kaylee and Hunter have been flirting, so Kaylee wanted me to do this “compatibility test” for the two of them. It just has to do with lining up your names, giving each letter a numerical value, and crossing off letters in a methodical way until you end up a number from 1-100 percent. That’s how compatible you are.

It’s the dumbest thing in the world.

I did it for Kaylee and Hunter and they came out to just 32% compatible. Zach popped up over my shoulder and said, “Oh, I know how to do that test. Emily and I are 91%.”

I was shocked that he had taken the time to figure that out. Then he continued, “But if you put the other person’s name first, it totally changes it. Like me and Emily the other way are only 72% or something.”

I corrected him: “73%.”

He looked at me funny. “How do you know?”

“Because I figured it out.” There was an awkward silence, and I could feel him looking at me. But when I finally looked up and our eyes met, Hannah ruined it by announcing, “Zach and I are 97%!” I just shrugged.

[This compatibility test was one of my tried-and-true flirtation devices for the majority of my middle school career. It didn’t matter how compatible you ended up being with someone; just the fact that you took the time to figure it out indicated an interest. And if that interest wasn’t returned, you could always back out of it by claiming to have done it as a joke. Brilliant.]