Page 16 of Sparks
In my room, I flung myself onto my bed and closed my eyes. Time to get my mind off Mr. Unavailable. I felt a zap of nervous thrill when I thought about that ridiculous Sparks app. I chewed the inside of my lip as I curled up and opened it. First things first, I deleted the picture of me in a bikini. If I saw a bikini pic on some other girl’s profile I wouldn’t even blink an eye, but I just wasn’t ready to feel exposed to the general male public yet.
My nerves were making me sweat a little. Holly and the others would laugh their asses off to see my hand shaking like this. I clicked the icon to browse the men who’d “liked” me. I didn’t trust any of them who only had one picture and no bio at all. Any pictures or bios that reeked of ego went left, and that was a lot of them. Got abs? Don’t care. But I will stare at them a hot minute before I swipe left. The whole process was a bit shallow. I realized if I was meeting these guys in real life the physical attraction would still be the first thing that caught your attention, but after you start talking to someone you often find yourself more attracted to the personality or turned off by it, regardless of the attraction. But alas. We were not at a bar.
Left. Left. Left.
I wanted someone with a genuine smile. Someone whose bio sounded normal or made me laugh. Blue eyes would be nice. And a uniform.
And then I realized…I was basically looking for Shawn.
Ugh.
I shoved thoughts of him aside and focused hard on the men. Perhaps too hard. Holly would say I was being ridiculously picky.
Too young. Too old. Forehead too big. Chin too weak. Hair way too pretty. I couldn’t date a guy prettier than me. Or a guy with a rock-hard body who wanted me to be a gym rat too. I needed a man who could appreciate a soft body and thick thighs. Should I put that on my bio or would that scare people off? Wait, did I care if they got scared off by my curves? No, I didn’t want them anyway. And then I felt annoyed that men would be judging me based on my appearance, just like I was doing to them. This was all sorts of icky.
Left, left, left.
Why did so many men say they went to the school of Hard Knocks?
I stopped when that guy in a suit with a cute face popped back up from earlier. Dean. Twenty-five. One year older than me. Worked in Manhattan at a law firm but lived in Jersey. Liked craft beers. That was it for the bio. I went through his pictures and found a nice variety. One sweaty gym picture but he had a sleeveless shirt on. He was tall. Wow. Really tall. Six foot three, exactly a foot taller than me. Oh, and he looked adorable in a backwards baseball hat at a Mets game. Okay.Here goes nothing.
I swiped right. Immediately a match came onto the screen and sparked, then lit like an exploding firework, and our two profile pictures came together. We were matched. Gah! And now it was telling me to write him a message! Oh, shit. I had to talk to him? Of course, I had to talk to him! Oh, my God. This was a real person. A man. A complete stranger.
What was I doing?
Holy crap, I was sweating. I fanned my shirt a couple times and took a deep breath, reminding myself this was all normal. This was how people dated. It wasn’t a big deal. But I wasn’t ready to message this Dean guy yet. I would just keep browsing.
My phone bleeped and a banner filled the top of the screen.Dean Sent a Message!
I cursed out loud, heart racing, and touched the banner super fast like it was a stream of lava. It took me to a message screen.
Hello gorgeous!
I stared too long, heart pounding, before responding, my thumbs whizzing across the screen.
Hi. You should know that I have thick thighs.
The moment I hit Send my eyeballs bulged. What the fuck was wrong with me? I cringed super hard until his response popped up.
Lmao! I like thighs…
Omg. I’m so sorry. You are literally the first guy I’ve ever talked to on a dating app. I swear I’m mostly socialized.
It’s all good. You’re funny.
I smiled, feeling relieved that he was nice.
You’re 6”3’? I’m 5”3’
Can you climb?
I let out a chirpy giggle.
Yep. And with my strong thighs I can hold on tight.
Perfection.
I couldn’t stop grinning. This wasn’t so bad.
