by Seth King
~
As I started slipping into my suit again half an hour later, she slid down the bathroom wall and slumped at the floor.
“Your body,” she said, leering at me. “Oh my God. Are you sure you’re not a football player or something?”
“I was a swimmer in high school.”
“It shows.”
“Thank you. I needed that, actually.”
“Why?”
I stared off at nothing for a second. “I guess because I was raised by people who treated me like a stray cat, and sometimes I need help believing in myself. That’s probably why I’m such a dick.”
“Pretty deep,” she panted, her breasts dripping in the foggy air. “And damn. I have never been so exhausted in my life. What have you done to me? I can’t feel my vagina.”
“And I can’t feel my heart,” I murmured to no one. The sadness was already sliding back in, and I didn’t understand why. Why was it physically impossible for me to just be happy? Not happy-ish, or happy-esque, or sort-of-happy. But happy?
“What was that?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“You know what’s strange?” she said in a moment. “You seemed so mysterious before, but now that we just had sex, I feel like I know you even less.”
“Hmm. That is strange.”
“What’s under all that…that Penn-ness?”
“You don’t want to know,” I said as I stuffed my thousand-dollar wallet into my back pocket. “Nobody would. Oh, and Jess?”
“Yeah?”
“Write good things about me, please. And don’t mention how many times I made you come. I don’t want to start a riot of jealous girls storming into this office.”
“Um…okay. You’ll text me sometime, right?”
“Yeah, sure,” I said as I slammed the door behind me and went home to get ready for my date with Hannah, which I was currently planning with her. But what, exactly, was I going to encounter there?
Hannah Goncalves
Hi there, a guy named Josh said shortly into my adventure with online dating. I tossed aside my knife, as I’d been trying to follow some YouTube video on how to make homemade peach salsa, and grabbed my phone.
Hi, I responded.
So this app tells me you’re close, he said. Where do you live?
Upper West. Near the park. And you?
Home is Greenpoint, Brooklyn…but I’d like to find a home in your moist vagina, too.
I cried out in horror and blocked him the instant my eyes fell on the word “moist.” Seriously? I wondered as I tossed my phone aside and gagged. MOIST? This guy had one chance to try to impress me, and he’d chosen to use the single worst word in the English language? Which disgusting, creepy term would he mention next – a gooey pudding, a fresh pair of panties? What was happening to the world?
The next charming message came while I was attempting to jog again.
Sup, someone named Aaron said.
Hi.
How’s it going? he asked.
Fine. Just trying not to get murdered by this rainstorm. You?
Just imagining how much wetter I’m going to make you when we meet, you sexy lil’ thang. So is your hair color natural, or dyed?
I didn’t even bother blocking him, I just slid my phone back into my pocket as my hope for the human race plunged even lower. What was wrong with these losers?
More similar conversations followed. Nick called me a frigid bitch because I wouldn’t let him ask me my favorite position in bed, and Anthony even called me “sugar tits.” One of them told me that my boobs in a certain photo looked like “jugs of milk.” I didn’t even ask him what he meant, I just blocked him and thanked the Lord for my vibrator, since I was clearly going to be single forever.
Just after my second disastrous Spark conversation in as many hours, I sat in a café with Rachel, whom I’d called for an emergency carb session.
“What’s wrong with me?” I asked, really starting to panic. “Seriously, I don’t get it. Why is every dude in this city either a loser or a weirdo?”
“Because dating is a game of musical chairs, and all the single ones past a certain age are either gay or un-date-able.”
“Ugh. If this is what’s out there, I’m becoming a lesbian for real. I’m just waiting for one of them to be homeless.”
“Hey, don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. Beggars can’t be choosers. Pun intended.”
“Whatever. And even when I do act nice and talk to them, they get offended. I don’t even say anything rude, I just challenge them and keep up with their conversation, and it threatens them. They want Charlotte York and I’m giving them Samantha Jones. And my manly shoulders aren’t helping.”
“Stop. You’ll find someone who isn’t potentially a criminal or a sex offender,” she said as she sipped her coffee. “Just keep trying. I hear Jewish guys like strong women, it reminds them of their strong mothers.”
“Number one, that was vaguely racist. And number two – I already met a Jewish guy at a Kosher café. He said he had a stomachache and left as soon as I told him I’d never convert for a man.”
“Good job, Hannah! You’re making so much progress! Ugh, not. By the way, I talked to a headhunter today, and she said there are always basic secretary jobs available. I put in a word for you. So at least you have that going for you.”
I threw a hand in the air. “Me! Working as a secretary! The job invented in the middle of the last century to catch women right as they entered the postwar workforce and shackle them to menial office tasks while their male coworkers climbed the corporate ladder! What a world!”
“Well unless you have another job lined up, you’re shit out of luck. Maybe prostituting?”
“I’m too much of a bitch to be a hooker. What would I say to my clients? ‘Hey, my name’s Hannah. Say one condescending thing to me during sex and you’re getting stabbed? Vote for Hillary, by the way!’”
She laughed so hard she spit out some tea. “My point exactly. It’s either become a secretary, or move onto the streets. And don’t feel bad, lots of people do temp jobs these days while they look for something else. And God, what’s so bad about dating? You might actually find a nice guy this time. I swear, you’re a glutton for punishment. When you do date, you chase disaster. You wouldn’t know a good guy if he slapped you in the face.”
“Yeah, because that’s abuse, and I’d slap him in the face first.”
“Seriously. You’ve gotta stop this cycle. I’ve seen tons of nice guys hit on you, and you blow them off and seek out the douchiest guy around. What would you do if someone was actually nice to you?”
“You’re blowing this out of proportion. I’ve dated plenty of nice guys.”
“Like Adrian, the guy who cheated on you with our own cousin?”
“His grandma had just died! He was vulnerable!”
“Okay, what about Corey, the one who got caught sexting someone else at our birthday dinner? While sitting with our family?”
“He was depressed after being laid off.”
“Hannah. Seriously. Look into therapy. It’s like you have a face tattoo that says Hello losers, please treat me like your doormat and dump all your problems into my willing mouth! Extra credit if you have latent mommy issues!”
This was really starting to annoy me. So what if I liked a little emotional unavailability?
I stared out the window at a world I didn’t agree with. “You know what? It’s not okay.”
“What’s not okay?”
“The world today. This system that forces us to search for a relationship, even if we don’t want one. When did we let men do this to us? When did we agree to let them decide that we needed them? I don’t need them. I don’t need anyone. Human mating, aside from the obvious reason of continuing the human race, has become irrelevant.”
Finally she got serious. “How do you figure?”
“A lot of reasons,” I said, my mind really starting to run away from me. “In the caveman days,
women were confined to the cave, and needed a man to go out and literally bring them food, for the sake of survival. Bringing home the bacon – that was literally a real thing, because the female humanoids weren’t expected to leave the cave and fend for themselves. And in the Middle Ages – it was so bad for women that any woman who was independent or self-sufficient or had a mind of her own was banished from the town or burned at the stake. For centuries we’ve been pairing off with men because we weren’t allowed to do anything else – we needed males for survival. But it’s a new century, and all that is changing. I’m allowed to go out and get a job, and there’s a good chance that with my brain and my degree and the better societal conditions that exist, I’ll get one. So why do I need a man to bring home the bacon? I can buy my own fucking bacon, thank you very much.”
“Wow,” she said soon. “I think you just out-lesbian’d yourself.”
“Hey, I am not a lesbian! Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But I love penis. I just don’t want the owner of that penis to fart in my bed and use my bathroom sink and sit in my kitchen every day, expecting me to make him cereal. Someone asked Whoopi Goldberg her views on marriage, and her response was ‘I don’t want someone in my house.’ I agree with that wholeheartedly. And don’t even mention how bad social media has made the dating world get – as if men weren’t horrible enough before, now they can download some app and have hundreds of women throw their vaginas at whoever will accept them. It’s imploded a situation that was already desperate.”
“Good luck tonight,” she sighed. “With this attitude, you’re going to need it.”
“I don’t need luck. I need vodka.”
“That, too.” She leaned closer. “Look – why don’t you get it? Love is awesome. Do you know what it was like to have someone to come home to every night, someone who would be my best friend and also have sex with me sometimes, someone who would come if my tire went flat or I needed to go to the ER because I’d swallowed the wrong pill?”
“Yeah, he was awesome, until he wasn’t. Until he left. And dumped you in a Snapchat message. Did you forget about that? Snapchat?”
She set her jaw. “You’re right, he did leave me, Hannah Banana. But he was there for a while. And those memories will be with me forever. Even when I don’t want them to be.” She grabbed her bag and stood up. “Now go and make some of your own memories before it’s too late and you become even more of a lonely spinster.”
I ducked out of the cafe a few minutes later and started up Sixth Avenue for my apartment on the Upper West Side. For a moment I just breathed in the dirty Manhattan air and thanked the universe that I was even here.
I’d always felt this pull towards New York City, this strange, thrilling gravity sucking me in, and now that I was here I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else. It was my own personal heaven. Sure, I’d come here full of my suburban fantasies of a Sex and the City-like Manhattan filled with cupcakes and cocktails and couture, only to learn that New York was actually a crowded, sweltering canyon of concrete that smelled of rotten garbage juice and usually featured more crack heads than actual cupcakes. A twelve-pack of Diet Coke from the corner store cost eleven dollars, a single coffee could easily be the same, and a tiny apartment cost more every month than a used car. But you know what? I adored it even more for all that. I loved the action, the energy, hell – I even loved the sweaty crowds and the piles of trash all over the streets, because it reminded me that even if the city was dirtier than a strip club’s bathroom, it was still the center of the Godforsaken world. Who cared if I was a little lonely at the center of this beautiful storm?
Actually…it was a storm. My life was, at least. A wreck. Sometimes I wished someone would’ve told me that adulthood was a lie, that there was no such thing as growing up, that “the real world” was just a bunch of very large children stumbling around in the darkness, trying to find their way in the chaos. Where did I go wrong?
“Hey, sugar cakes! Over here!”
Suddenly a guy across the street catcalled me, and I flipped him off and told him exactly where to insert the hand he was holding out. Apparently you didn’t even need to be on an app to be treated like a slab of flank steak! I hadn’t felt this objectified since I’d gone to a Halloween party dressed as Kim Kardashian, just to prove my theory that men only cared about the opinions of women who had no opinions to offer. (I was extremely correct, and I was chatted up by ten times more guys than had ever approached me in the past.)
As I thought over the ramifications of my conversation with Rachel, my phone pinged. I pulled it out of my bag to find a message from someone named Penn. (At least it wasn’t Jerry, who’d sent me an unsolicited penis picture the day before. I did the same thing, and sent him a penis I’d found on Google Images. He responded saying he was straight, and that he didn’t want to see a penis. I responded by telling him I’d never asked for one, either, and that I hoped he enjoyed the taste of his own medicine.)
Anyway, Penn was kind of quietly gorgeous, with short hair and thick brown stubble and a slightly cocky smirk that even I found kind of attractive. And his eyes – they were this dark, opaque, swirling hazel-green that just made me want to know more about him. I didn’t know whether I wanted to punch him or suck his dick, and that was an intriguing combination of reactions. He only had a few photos, and his profile info simply said “Ask me.” Considering that most other guys’ profiles were full of braggy information about their cars or apartments or TMI statements about certain body parts, this terse confidence was refreshing. Still, he didn’t look totally arrogant, which would’ve been a deal breaker. There was nothing more intolerable in the world than a hot guy who actually knew he was hot, and there was nothing more endearing in the world than a hot guy who had no clue about it.
Hi, he said.
Hello there, I responded as I got into my Uber, which smelled like a mixture of old gym clothes and curry chicken.
You look pretty swell. How’s about dinner.
He didn’t ask that last part – he said it. No question mark necessary. I kind of respected that. I also respected that he didn’t say “moist” or “panties” or any other horrific word that would’ve made me vomit.
Aren’t we going to exchange awkward pleasantries first? I asked. It took him a full four minutes to respond, which in iPhone time was an eternity.
I guess I’m not a “pleasantry” type of guy, he finally said. Buddakan in Meatpacking at eight, what do you say?
I bit my lip and stared out the window, the word nice ringing in my head. Rachel had told me to look for nice guys to break my cycle of, well, cycling through guys so I never gave myself the chance to actually like someone. This Penn person certainly didn’t seem nice…but then again, something in those burned-out eyes told me he was worth investigating. And besides, I had to face it: I was running out of options. I was going to have to find someone who could deal with my shit, and lock him down before the weekend so I wouldn’t lose the bet. I had to. The other option was not acceptable.
And also…this would be a free dinner. At Buddakan. The place where Carrie Bradshaw had her rehearsal dinner. It would be worth it for the selfies and free food alone. What was more Manhattan than that?
So that decided it. I looked down at my next casualty and prayed that this guy would be “nice” and quiet and submissive as I typed four little letters:
Sure.
I tossed my phone into my bag and sighed. My options were now to either make this random dude become my boyfriend, or see my carefully constructed life go up in flames. Still, one thing was for sure: this poor guy had no idea what was coming for him.
Penn Sparks
I spent the rest of the afternoon getting lost in my creation. I couldn’t believe I’d never really used Spark, save for a research date here and there. But what I found was actually kind of horrifying. I swiped through girls faster than a marathon runner on a jog around Central Park. They told me about their boring ex-boyfriend problems, one of them told m
e she wanted to have my children, and another flat-out told me she was only interested in marriage, and that if that wasn’t a “shared goal,” I should leave the conversation immediately.
“I just want you to know that marriage is definitely on my radar for the next two years, and if our timelines don’t sync up, I’m gonna have to ask you to delete me.”
I didn’t understand what was wrong with these people. Someone’s job on the first date – anyone’s job, not just women – was to be cool, breezy, funny. Be a little charming, but not too nice to where you came off as overly available and desperate. You were putting off the best possible impression of yourself – the “you” that existed in your dreams. Meanwhile, these girls had me afraid they were going to chase me off with an axe if I so much as deflected their questions about how many children I wanted. Was every single girl in Manhattan this crazy?
And also: was I contributing to all this? When I created Spark, all I thought I was doing was fulfilling a need. But was I hastening our downfall? Was I creating a generation of moral-less sluts? How could any of us know who we were, when we were sending out thousands of little pieces of ourselves every day on Match?
I was ashamed to say that I even started missing Nicole, the daughter of Satan herself. But then I’d take myself back to that place, that hell, that she’d created with her secrets, her lies, her deceit. I didn’t care that she was gay, I cared that she left me. She’d made purgatory explode in front of me, and I never wanted to feel like that again. She wasn’t coming back, and I had to live with that.
All this was on the outskirts of my brain as I sat in a downstairs private dining room at Buddakan a full twenty-five minutes after my scheduled date time. I was supposed to drop by some charity event at the Whitney Museum later to drum up some publicity for Spark, and I was starting to get seriously annoyed. Where was this girl? And who did she think she was, making me wait like this? Making anyone wait like this? Didn’t she respect other peoples’ time?
