Whatever, I still want to show up at this Christmas party with my head held high and a date on my arm. Hopefully, he’ll be a decent person and bid on something there.
Now that I have a plan, I continue reading the description of the app.
TheHolidatesapp is the perfect answer to your busy lifestyle needs. With this dating app, find the perfect rental date; both parties set the terms and conditions, absolutely no strings attached.
“I like the sound of that.”
Without giving it more thought, I tap on the screen and start entering my information. My fingers fly over the screen as I fill everything out. When I get to where I have to add a picture, I get into the album I saved with all the sexy selfies I’ve been taking. I choose one, then upload it.
I hit save, and my account is finally active. I start poking around, making sure that all the settings are correct. I need someone who lives in the city because there is no way I will travel to God knows where to meet this person.
Once I am done setting everything up, I don’t know what to do. It feels anticlimactic somehow, like I was expecting to have my pick of a date as soon as I created the account. I hate that I have to look around and find someone.
My entire body is tight with all the tension that I’m feeling. I am wound up, and I have no idea how to undo it. I miss my best friend. She and I used to talk about everything before she moved out to Texas. Now she has a steady boyfriend, who just so happens to be a professional hockey player, and is happy. I don’t feel comfortable calling her with my problems.
On that note, I realize that I haven’t heard from Elizabeth in a long time. I look up her number and hit Dial.
“Hey, bestie,” she greets me when she answers.
“I miss you,” I blurt out without warning. “I hate that you moved away.”
She chuckles softly. “It was you who talked me into following Logan here, goofball.”
“Yeah, well…” I mess with a thin spot in the material of my couch. “I changed my mind. I want you back here.”
“Oh no, what’s going on?”
I huff. “How much time do you have?”
“For you, all the time you need me to listen.”
That is all I need to hear as I launch myself into the story of my current life.
“All these dates are so bad, Elizabeth!” My voice trembles when I speak. “They absolutely suck. This one guy kept on going on and on about these plants and his mother’s basement. And you know what?” I don’t give her time to answer. “They all seem to live in their mother’s basement. How is that possible? No one is independent anymore? I live by myself, Elizabeth. I can’t be dating a guy who has to ask his mom if it’s okay to be out past eleven o’clock at night!”
I get up from the couch and walk back to where I left my Coke. Taking a long sip of it, I sigh again at how good it tastes on my tongue. It’s also one of the worst things I could put into my body, and I should know since I took a class and got certified in nutrition.
Then again, I put a lot worse things into my body. Alex’s dick would be at the top of the bad things that entered me.
“Are you still there?” I snap at my friend when she doesn’t comment at all after I poured my heart out to her.
She takes a long time to answer. “Yeah, I’m here.”
I don’t believe her for a second. “So what do you think about what I just told you?”
“Uhhh… You said something about dating! Who are you going out with?”
“Okay, so at least you half listened.”
I roll my eyes at the phone, annoyed that she’s too distracted by whatever she’s doing over there to pay attention to me.
“I’m looking into online dating because I have an event in December that I want to attend. I refuse to go alone.” I sound bitter and angry by the time I finish saying that. “Alex is goingto be there, and there is no way I will give him the satisfaction of seeing me there without a date.”
She lets out a faint sound of sympathy, but that’s about it. I want her to be angry with me, feel all my anxiety and assure me that it will be okay.
“Online dating is scary,” she finally says just as I throw a handful of peanuts in my mouth.
I don’t see it as scary as I do annoying. “How so?” “That’s how people meet nowadays. It’s normal.”
