They barely do anything. I scroll through faces and torsos and one-line bios and feel nothing shift, not even a little. The not-feeling-anything starts to feel worse than feeling too much would.
I try answering a few of them, aiming for funny and flirty the way I know how. That’s when I discover something deeply unfortunate.
I have absolutely no idea how to flirt with men. Flirting with women has always come easy. I know the rhythm, the timing, the little cues that make it flow. With men, it feels like I’m walking into a conversation I’m not yet sure how to navigate. Every single word feels forced. I have to stop, think, rewrite, and second-guess before I hit send.
I want this. I want to explore this side of myself more than I’ve let myself admit out loud. But right now, it just feels awkward or unnatural. It doesn’t feel right.
The whole thing leaves me uneasy and unsettled. I drop the phone on the coffee table and stare at the screen like it might bite me. Here I am, throwing myself headfirst into something new while George is probably out there living his best fucking life, completely unbothered by any of the mess currently twisting me up inside. The thought stings more than it should.
I pick my phone back up because apparently, I enjoy suffering.
Then Elliot messages me. Twenty-nine, three miles away. He’s an architect who says he’s here to actually meet people, not just collect matches he never speaks to.
His message pops up.
Elliot: You’re a nurse? Because you just took my breath away and my ability to come up with a decent opening line. Stat.
It’s cheesy as hell, but for a second I forget what I’m doing here and just enjoy that someone’s trying.
His photo shows a clean-cut guy in a linen shirt and a nice watch. Polished, put-together, someone who probably has his whole life color-coded and planned out six months in advance.
He’s about as opposite to George as a person can get while still belonging to the same species.
We trade a few messages. I study his picture and wait for some kind of spark, some pull, anything. But nothing comes. He’s attractive. I can see how this is supposed to go, but it never moves past that. I realize what I’m actually doing is holding every single one of these guys up against George without meaning to, and every single one of them loses. I don’t know what to do with that fact except to keep scrolling like the answer is one more profile away.
After a while, I close the app. The icon sits there like it’s already bored of me. Everything I look at after that hits the same invisible wall. I’m starting to get annoyed with myself.
I let my head fall back against the couch cushions.
“Wow,” I mutter. “I might have let a six-foot-four mechanic with the emotional range of a concrete wall completely reset my standards.”
The clock on my phone reads 8:47 PM. My head is starting to throb and my chest just getting all too tight for my liking. Not me having a myocardial infarction at this age over a man I don’t know how I should treat now with all this realization kicking in.
There’s some knocking on the door.
I sit up so fast my phone falls off my chest and hits the floor. It’s 8:49 PM. No one else just shows up at my apartment unannounced.
The knocks get louder, more insistent this time.
My heart is pounding as I stand up and walk to the door, my mind racing through possibilities. Package delivery at almost nine? Wrong apartment? Or worse, did someone die?
I unlock the door and pull it open.
George is fucking standing outside my front door.
11
George
Lance answers the door with his hair a mess after what I assume was a long shift, eyes tired but bright with surprise at seeing me. He has both hands braced on the door frame, like he needs the support, while his expression shifts through a few reactions before settling on the one he thinks will work. By the time he speaks, he lands on casual irritation, which might have been convincing if I had not watched the whole thing happen in real time.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Hanging out.” I shrug, stepping past him into the apartment without waiting for an invite. I put my keys on the kitchen counter in the corner where I always put them, next to his ancient coffee maker, and I’m aware of doing it before I think about it. It’s the same way I know which drawer has the bottle opener and that the good blanket lives in the basket under the side table.
Lance follows me in with his arms crossed, watching me with that look he gets when he’s trying to read my face without making it obvious.
“Hang out?” he asks. “You were on a date.”
