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Plenty of Fish in the Digital Sea

Plenty of Fish in the Digital Sea

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Part II

(You can read Part I here.)

It was there in that ending of the second month and the beginning of her real and true fear that perhaps she should listen to her friends rather than herself, that she was scrolling through the app, her heart not really in it, sipping her coffee and sitting on the toilet, a thing she’d list under “Worst Habit” on the app if she didn’t have a plethora of other less private habits to list, that she saw him.

Her coffee mug slipped from her left hand, she’d entirely forgotten she was holding it, her left hand now at her lips, coffee and ceramic painted across her bathroom floor, a slight stinging across the tops of her feet where drops of coffee and a shrapnel of ceramic landed. It was him, there was no question. He’d lost a good thirty pounds, maybe more, and he’d gone blonde, a look she didn’t quite dislike on him as much as she’d have thought.

She instantly regretted everything about her profile, from the very practical and real photo she’d chosen rather than the Glamour Shots style of photo her girlfriends encouraged her to use, to that stupid tagline that made her sound like the world’s most uptight bitch ever, even if it wasn’t intended that way at all…she was spiraling through memories of him refusing to go with her to the gym because he was too embarrassed, even though she insisted everyone started somewhere and how he looked to anyone else didn’t matter because she loved him and he was there for his health not his looks, memories of him saying he would go blonde when he no longer loathed himself and her insisting that his brown hair was a perfect complement to his brown eyes that blonde would look all wrong and besides didn’t he love her brown hair, and the memory that she’d been avoiding for years as she picked herself up and her put herself back together and created the creature that was now happily single rather than lonely and broken and desperate for anyone with a pulse to show her some spark of attraction.

It had been five years ago, she was in her prime, or at least that’s what she’d thought at the time. She had everything she’d always said she’d have by that point in her life: an excellent career, a long-term relationship with the man she was going to marry even if he hadn’t proposed yet, and she’d just gone into escrow on a home she’d driven by every day for ten years and always wanted. At the time she didn’t notice that her excellent career caused her migraines, that the man who hadn’t proposed yet was never going to and was in fact suffering from a massive depression, and the home she’d gone into escrow on she’d purchased alone. She had an excuse, or several, for not seeing these things, for not allowing the truth to ruin her perfect vision.

It was the day her escrow closed, no less. She came home to “their” apartment and noticed everything dramatically amiss. Her first thought was that they’d been robbed, and it was only upon closer inspection that she realized her things were all still there. Not only still there, as in right where she’d left them upon her hasty exit this morning, running late to work, her morning cup of coffee on the toilet having gone overlong as she scrolled through her social media discovering another of her friends’ engagement pictures and forcing herself back into the vision she had of her reality rather than facing the glaring truth. It was so odd to see her things so perfectly untouched, as though she’d been living alone this morning, while all of his things had simply vanished.

Obviously his things hadn’t vanished, they’d been removed. He’d removed them. But how? He spent days on the couch now, there were even nights where he didn’t come to bed, “I just can’t sleep, I don’t want to keep you up.” So fine, they’d weather this storm, she’d thought. Incorrectly, it turns out.

Her first move was to scour the apartment for a note. Finding none, she picked up her phone and was moments from pressing his name in her contacts when a text came through: “Thank you for loving me, for believing in me, but this isn’t working.”

She read it twice.

She looked to see the familiar ellipses that would indicate he was typing, but there were none.

She realized she was standing in her living room with her mouth open, her phone in front of her face, a comic character from a television program.

And then there they were, the ellipses. Followed by a text the thoughts of which still brought fury to her every cell: “congratulations on the house.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?!?!” she screamed.

This #writethirtyminutes session was prompted very loosely from “A Year of Writing Prompts” by Writer’s Digest, available here
Your (Writing) Tagline

Your (Writing) Tagline

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Part I

Her friends insisted she try it. They were all married, engaged, or in committed relationships and naturally had to see her in same. Join, join, join. Of course they weren’t that obnoxious about it, no one ever is; if peer pressure were so obvious it would be so much easier to avoid. The lemmings never announce themselves.

“You’re amazing,” they’d say, “you really deserve someone who’s as wonderful as you.” “We just want to see you happy,” they’d say, “I really think you’ll feel more fulfilled with someone to give your love to who will love you in return.”

They meant well, really, but she almost felt like telling them she’d rather have a dog. But that would never go over.

So she joined. She joined this dating app, website, whatever. She wasn’t even entirely sure what it was, but it sounded like a joke and she thought they’d laugh along with her when she told them, “I joined ‘I’m Hooked!‘” Instead the conversation went askew, “I love that site,” “do you remember Tom? I met him there. That almost worked out,” “oh my gosh my co-worker is on there! Let’s make sure it didn’t match you up with him.” There were other comments, but everything turned to silence when her bestie asked, “so what’d you put for your tagline?”

Ah, yes, the tagline: each member, upon joining, was required to describe themselves in ten words or less. As though they were an M&M or a beer. And some of the taglines read very much like something the thinktank at Nestle would come up with: “Loaded for love and looking for you,” “I’ll bring the six pack, you bring the taco,” “It’s always ladies night at casa Miguel.” They were all ambiguous or disgusting, and none of them said a damn thing about the author.

She’d thought of doing the same: “Tired and quiet, seeks same for nights of reading and wine,” “Would rather have dog, friends insist on man,” “Might as well be you, bring take out,” but resisted. She decided if she was going to do this, she might as well do it right. It’s how she did everything, really, why pretend otherwise now.

It took her a surprisingly long time to come up with something that fulfilled the legitimate requirements of ten words or less and an actual description of her: “30ish and autonomous, seeks no one. Astound me.”

This wasn’t quite what her friends had in mind. “No one is going to respond to you sounding all conceited like that,” “would you be curious about some dude if that was his tagline,” “why didn’t you talk about your eyes? You have such lovely eyes,” “well, at least your sense of humor comes through.”

But she thought it was perfect. It did show her sense of humor. It also showed that she wasn’t really interested, which was true. She wouldn’t say no to the right person, or a good sounding date, but anyone interested in her was going to have to put forth some effort. Nothing in it was a lie and it was certainly memorable. And after promising her friends that if she didn’t meet at least one worthy man after three months that she’d change it, they agreed to let it go.

At first she didn’t concern herself with the three month deadline. She felt she’d made her point of view rather clear to her friends and that they’d let it go. But as the first month slipped by with nothing she’d call a real match, only men clearly looking to hook up and completely ignoring everything about her profile except that she was within driving distance, she began to worry that perhaps her friends had been right. That and they weren’t letting it go.

The monthly girls lunch began as it always did with hugs all around and the “how is your mom,” and “hey, is that ankle doing better,” etc. sorts of comments, but once orders were placed and the talking got around to serious matters it was all about her and the damn dating app. She explained calmly and quickly about the hook-up matches that were clearly not matches, and then sat quietly through the deluge of responses, “you have to change your tagline,” “what if you changed that part about your favorite book being The Handmaid’s Tale, I mean now that Netfilx has that series, someone could get the wrong idea,” “did you check the ‘no’ box for ‘casual relationships’?”

The rest of the lunch was a disaster but she tried not to let it rankle her. As the second month disappeared, all the lousy men having already contacted her and been ignored or blocked, and now not one single attempted match she began to wonder if maybe she really did want this whole app thing to pan out. She found herself disappointed that no one had contacted her, found herself checking the app to make sure her profile was still active, and searching her area to see if new men had joined.

Part II is here.

This #writethirtyminutes session was prompted very loosely from “A Year of Writing Prompts” by Writer’s Digest, available here
The Terrible Decision

The Terrible Decision

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She could have stayed. It may have been better to stay. How hard could it have been to stop, take a deep breath, count to ten? Too hard, apparently. She left. It was a split decision, even as she was doing it, she floated above, watching herself doing it. The walking to the hook, the grabbing of the key, the thoughtful stopping to pick out sunglasses and wallet from her purse…clearly she was able to think, and so the leaving must be seen as coherent, a decision.

Even as she drove away she was hovering above. Truly she was driving, sitting in the seat, the heated seat which had seemed an extravagance in California now a necessity in Montana, still she was physically in the seat and driving, her hands upon the non-heated steering wheel, an extravagance she’d gone without and now wished she’d splurged for…like remote start functionality. At any rate, there was her body, in the seat, hands on the wheel, feet on the pedals, and she was physically determining her future. But emotionally, psychically, she was floating above. Looking down at herself. Slightly in awe of her power and also completely overwhelmed by the happenings.

Would she be able to go back? Would she want to? Would she be allowed back? Would they want her?

Did it matter?

…

She’d always done things by the book:

  1. got good grades in high school
  2. got into a prestigious college
  3. graduated from said prestigious college
  4. obtained a successful career
  5. obtained a desirable partner
  6. got married
  7. bought a house
  8. had kids

She’d done all that was every expected of her, overtly or subtly. And as she was doing it, she knew it wasn’t right.

She realized near the end of high school that she’d been played.

Everyone else goofed off and had fun in high school. Everyone else partied. She studied. She got the perfect grades. She got the extra-curriculars that looked good and the extra tassels to wear at graduation and the pomp and circumstance and ridiculousness and she realized she’d been cheated. Never even had a beer.

But too late, because now she had to continue to tow the line because college was also required, expected, demanded. So now through the gauntlet again. Only now she was bitter about it, only barely making it through, changing her prestigious major for one that allowed her out in four years, anything, underwater basketweaving as they say. But she did it, and was done and out and on to the next thing on the list.

Her life was lived by everyone else’s rules but how could one point and complain or cry or rail against the injustice of it when one was ultimately accepting and following and not pulling up the reins and saying “NO!” It was too late. On to the next thing on the list.

The career came next, something with customer service that caused her to drink more coffee than even a night before finals required. Lots of smiling and cheek biting and swallowing of words, not to mention matching nail polish and jewelry to uniforms. Truly awful.

But she was good at it and up the ladder she rose. As expected, and therefore too late to back out and try something else.

Next came the husband. Good good, nothing to see here, move along.

A house. Kids.

Check. Check.

And then one day, it may have been the lack of sleep, insomnia being a result of those non-stop caffeine injections, or it may have been that the kids were just especially tired from the heat and the extracurriculars and school having started up again and the stress of all the things that used to stress her out about the unspoken and spoken expectations and the not-so-minor-aggressions inherent in them, and her inability to inflict upon another what was done to her and it was almost an audible snap.

Almost, because no one else seemed to hear it.

One minute she was arguing with herself in the form of a toddler and the next she knew this was all wrong. This was not her life. Or rather it was, but it oughtn’t be. None of this was her life and even though it was always too late to start over, every step telling her too late, too late, too late, she found herself out the door, in the car, down the road.

This #writethirtyminutes session was prompted very loosely from “A Year of Writing Prompts” by Writer’s Digest, available here