"It does! --Normally, we have a session that explores sexuality, but because of your values I wouldn't give you any job that involves sex. Luckily, it seems like you'd do fine pretending to be dating a gay man so his family won't disown him, we get a lot of those."

"I could probably theoretically do this."

She was actually kind of expecting the whole being married thing to involve sex, but if she's wrong then that's cool? Not that this is going anywhere anyway, because it definitely is not.

"It's 100% fine if you're not comfortable with this, but a request we get surprisingly often is 'good hugs.' Do you mind if I hug you? Once again, totally not a problem if you don't want to."

"Sure, why not."

Pauline hugs her!

Hug!

She's not really sure how one ranks hugs, but she feels like she gives solid ones. Maybe 8/10 sort of hug quality, here.

Pauline gives no indication of whether this was a Good Hug that would cause her to reach the highest echelons of Hug Quality. 

"So break for lunch," Pauline says, "and then we'll have you fill out your request forms, so I know exactly what kind of person to match you with."

"Alright!"

She was kind of just assuming that they were going to match her with whoever was interested in her, given that she is not really in a terrific bargaining position, but maybe they want to weed out definite no's for efficiency reasons.

If they're just trying to weed out the obvious "no"s then their forms are waaaaay too extensive for the purpose.

Appearance! Gender! Sexual orientation! Religious and political beliefs! Occupation (which includes a section for vetoing people with unethical professions)! Dietary preferences! Quiet or loud! Night owl or early riser! Hobbies! Favorite books! An extensive list of disabilities, with the option to write in other disabilities she prefers or has dealbreakers about! Love languages! Number of children, and if she says "yes" to "has children" or "wants children" then she can go fill out form 2A on parenting preferences!

This could be kind of interesting if taken as a purely hypothetical exercise which will produce zero real-world results!

Male, not a rabid antitheist, not personally an abortion doctor or Planned Parenthood employee, should probably speak English with something approaching fluency, capable of carrying on an interesting conversation but if it can't be aloud then that's whatever, ever enjoys fiction but if it's not books that's OK, not violently opposed to children (and if they do have them then her parenting opinions are far more extensive than her opinions on partners).

Kind.

...makes her feel safe and valued and want to be a better person. In an ideal world. In this one it's whatever.

And Pauline will hand her a check for ten thousand dollars and say "thank you so much, dear, we'll be in touch when we find someone!"

"Thanks so much!"

That was fun! Time to deposit the check and pay off medical fees and then save the rest very responsibly, because she's never getting anything like this ever again! And then it's time to return to her routine of working three jobs and completely forget about any momentary mild lapses in sanity that have occurred in the past two days.

Two days later, she gets a phone call from Pauline. 

"Is now a good time? I think we found someone for you."

What the heck.

"Sure! I can come over whenever," she says, because she doesn't actually have a plan for what she's supposed to say in situations like this.

"Okay, I'll see you tomorrow at 9am!"

"Cool! See you!"

She calls her cousin and tells her where she's going again and reiterates very thoroughly what should be done if she disappears off the face of the earth.

"First thing, we'll have you sign this non-disclosure agreement."

The non-disclosure agreement would like Karen to know that if she mentions anything that she finds in this file to anyone, she will be Extremely Sued. 

"So just things in that file, and not any things I know now? Because I did tell some people where I was going in case anyone decided to kidnap me. For reasons."

"Of course! We're trying to protect the privacy of our wealthier clients, not trying to stop you from taking measures to keep yourself safe."

"O-kay."

NDA read over and signed.

And she gets to look at the file!

Lev Aarons. Billionaire Marriage Brokers's name is mostly marketing fluff, but Lev is the real deal, one of the youngest billionaires in the world. He founded Yenta, which is best-known for using the world's first successful dating-site algorithm.

Professionally taken photos that don't stop him from looking profoundly uncomfortable. Personality test: 95th percentile openness, 90th percentile conscientiousness, 5th percentile extroversion, 60th percentile agreeableness, 99th percentile neuroticism. Daily life: he works ninety hours a week, half on Yenta and half on the Aarons Foundation, which gives money mostly to global health and development, but also to pandemic prevention and the development of lab-grown meat; in his spare time he reads science fiction novels and comics; there is a notable absence of any reference to friends. Expectations for his partner is mostly a list of 'no's: Karen will not be expected to exercise, to maintain a certain weight, to go to parties, to help with the business, to talk to Lev's family, to feign interest in Lev's hobbies. The "no" box on "have sex" is circled with particular enthusiasm. There's a big line through the entire appearance section of his preferences for his partner. In messy handwriting, the section about desired personality says:

-Kind
-Smart
-Likes books
-Gives good hugs

and then a fifth item that was scribbled out.

Aw man.

Aw man.

They're supposed to hand her someone who's really transparently a bad idea to hang out with for reasons that she'd forgotten to think about during the application process, and then she's supposed to say no and go on her merry way and slowly grieve her dying niece and regret forever that she didn't go with that one thing that was probably a scam but which could maybe have saved her.

Reads science fiction novels and comics. Gives money to global health development. Wants to meet someone who is kind, smart, likes books, and gives good hugs.

".... doesn't the guy who made a working dating site algorithm have other methods of obtaining dates?"

"He is very very shy." She opens to the personality test page. "99th percentile neuroticism, 5th percentile extroversion, he can't handle a dating site without having a panic attack."

"Ahhh."

Well.

"So assuming, hypothetically, that my reaction to this information is not 'no, actually, I would rather watch my niece die'..."

"We typically do a one-week trial, followed by a six-month trial. He will cover all your living expenses while you're with him, and all the costs of your niece's medical care. You'll also get two thousand dollars at the end of the first week and forty thousand dollars at the end of the first six months, to compensate you for the disruption to your ordinary life and the risk associated with him rejecting you."