The perfect man

So Thursday night rolled around. I donned my favorite Janny Renoir suit -- off-white, three-piece, custom-tailored to fit me like a glove. I slid into my almost-but-not-quite-obsolete RingletGloves -- Titanium three-knucklers with a faux copper finish. And finally, I popped on my flash new UltraReality Goggles. Sharper Image $3,000. Thank you very much. For an extra $2,000, I could have had the matching UltraSensory full body glove, but at that point in time, I was in no way ready for a pervsuit. The very idea of virtual sex gave me the willies.

My pothead friend, Marla, is always telling me what a waste of money all this swank geekgear is, that I should be saving up to go neural like her. She's even working a third job to buy herself the operation. I've always said the girl would turn herself into ones and zeroes if she could.

Once I'm goggled and gloved, I get comfortable on my white leather sofa, gog into my homesite, which is an exact replica of my living room, and give my avatar a good once-over in the virtual mirror. I dress her in the same suit I'm wearing, then try out a couple of different hairstyles. Nothing too extreme. I want to appear stylish, not desperate. I go for the mod bob. Ash blonde. Other than that (plus a little "help" in the chest region) I don't falsify my avatar. What's the point? What do I get out of pretending I'm a supermodel? The only person I need to impress tonight is designed to love me exactly as I am.

A cluster of icons for my favorite sites hover like thought balloons above my virtual desk. Among them is Pritchard's link. I aim my ringletted right pointer finger at it and wink. It lights up in neon blue for a second, then everything goes black.

A moment later, I'm sitting on a bench in some swanky urban neighborhood with people criss-crossing the sidewalk in front of me. Avatars or scenery, I can't tell. The taxis are huge and black and the sky is that dark steel blue you don't find in the U.S. unless it's about to rain. On the corner to my left is the giveaway: a person-sized red phone booth. London.

Across the street I notice a guy on a bench sneaking looks at me over the top of a newspaper. Longish dark hair, faded jeans, a camel tweed suit jacket and a muted orange shirt. When he sees me looking at him, he puts down the newspaper and heads toward me. There's a four-lane street between us, which gives me plenty of time to give him the old up and down. Tall: check. Slim: check. When he's about two-thirds of the way, I make out the details of his face: high cheekbones, a large nose angled slightly to the left and a wide goofy smile. His teeth are perfect, except for a twisted left incisor.

When he makes it onto the sidewalk, he offers his hand, looks me right in the eye and says, "Lucy?"

The "u" sound is deliciously English.

Much as I'd like to report that I took his hand, smiled confidently and said, "Why Pritchard, what a pleasure to meet you," I cannot. I'm stricken, mesmerized, hypnotized by his eyes. They're a shade of green I've never seen before. Not quite emerald, but brighter than hazel, with tiny flecks of black in them. They're the only otherworldly feature in his achingly human rendering. The man is stunning. Not in any predictable way. He's no movie star. He's the guy in your Renaissance Lit class. You know the one: sits alone in the back, shoots you tortured glances you can't interpret.

Well done, AI4U.

"Let's take a walk," he says. Then he lays this nuclear smile on me. I swear he could melt glaciers with that thing. So I take his arm and now we're walking through virtual London. For reasons I can't yet grasp, I'm too nervous to look at Pritchard, so I take in the sights instead. It's a topnotch 'scape, the chewing-gum-free sidewalks and reverse-flowing traffic utterly convincing. Even the snippets of dialogue from passersby are authentically English.

"I chose London," Pritchard says, "because I thought you'd like it."

"Yeah," I say, a fountain of eloquence. "I guess I am a bit of an anglophile."

He smiles darkly and says, "So I presumed."

That's when it hits me. It hits me like a slap in the face. This is no date. Pritchard is not some helpful, accidentally gorgeous Brit playing impromptu tour guide to my lost American tourist. He's a gigolo. He's an artificial gigolo and I'm a sad, thirtysomething spinster.

Now before you rain down a storm of duhs on me, understand that this is my very first intimate encounter with a humanoid AI. Sure I've interfaced with animated bots and had conversations with soft agents with human voices before, but I've never, you know, dated one. I have no analog for this. Somehow in the rush to design the perfect man, I forgot to anticipate what the actual date would be like. Now that it's happening in real time, it feels dirty. And I don't mean dirty in a good way.

To avoid revealing this inconvenient rush of squeamishness, I decide to clam up and let Pritchard walk me around. He tells me some quasi-interesting factoids about London's architecture, then takes me to a public square where a handful of college students are mugging their way through a scene from "A Midsummer Night's Dream."

I manage a full sentence: "Do you like Shakespeare?"

Of course he likes Shakespeare. I designed him to like Shakespeare.

Pritchard laughs and says, "Is that supposed to be Shakespeare?"

I try to follow up with a joke. Something about Shakespeare turning over in his grave, but it's pitiful. I'm in terrible form. My usual charming self has called in sick and hired a joyless bimbo for a temp. Pritchard takes it all in stride. Every time I say something stupid he laughs gently like I am the most adorable thing he's ever seen. I wish I could say this was endearing, but it wasn't. Truth be told, it annoyed me. Any self-respecting man would have faked an emergency and left me in the dust back at the intros.

Eventually we make our way back to the bench portal and the merciful end to this contender for worst date ever. After a pause that lasts an eternity, Pritchard takes my hand and says, "Lucy, I'd like to see you again."

Now I know that Pritchard is designed to want to see me again, but I let the words reassure me anyway.

"There's an orchid show in Covent Garden," he says. "What do you think?"

On the one hand I'm thinking, no effin' way am I going through this weirdness again. On the other hand, I'm thinking: orchids, interesting. I never said anything about orchids in my profile. Initiative: check.

"Sunday," he says. "I'll e-mail you the link."

He doesn't even wait for me to consent. Now that's confidence. Without so much as a suggestion of a good-night kiss, he starts across the street, then turns one last time to lay the smile on me. He's smooth. I'll give him that.

"Phone home," I say, and virtual London disappears.

When I take off my gogs and look at the clock, I'm shocked to discover only twelve minutes have passed. But even more shocking than that is the weird pang of anticipation bubbling up in my stomach. For I know at that moment, despite the conviction that I've just endured the creepiest dating incident of my life, that I am going to see Pritchard again. Somehow, the guy has qualified for a second date.

Next page: I had no choice but to modify all of my flexible parameters