Page 57 of The App Trap
“Mum. We were fine. In fact, we loved having the house to ourselves at that age. What teenager wouldn't want that? We had parties all the time. It did our popularity no end of good.”
“Yeah, I know you did. And don't think I didn't notice the breakages. I may have been pissed, but I wasn't blind.”
“Oh. I genuinely thought that we’d got away with all those.”
She raised her left eyebrow. I put my arms around her and squeezed her tightly.
“I love you so much, my Danny. Now get your shit together and go get that fella.”
Chapter
Nineteen
Iset up a profile on a free app (not that I wouldn't pay for the privilege to talk to Harry, but y’know… free). I chose the profile name ‘CashierNo1’, which somehow came to me in the queue for the checkout at Tesco’s. Then I snatched a picture of one of my handsome friends that I thought he’d fancy (with his permission of course), and sent him an opener, short and sweet.
‘Pull my finger…’
I knew he’d go for a bit of old-school smut. He messaged me back and the LOLs rolled in. I played it cool, leaving three, sometimes six minutes between each message.
It was working. I even made up an absurd story about me having a slight stutter, so that I didn't have to go through the phone test with him. And yes, I’d even bought a burner phone so he didn't recognise my number. Jason Bourne had nothing on me.
I played the long game, and we began to build up a bit of a relationship online. We even started to have our own ‘in-jokes’, as was the way sometimes with these things. Ijust had to make sure I wasn’t using any of our old ‘in jokes’.
Usually by now, this sort of relationship could escalate into sexual content merely from one naughty trigger-word, but I wasn’t about to let that happen.
I’d purposely refrained from doing that. Sometimes it was hard to resist such behaviour with ‘randoms’, but Harry wasn't a ‘random’ and besides, he’d probably kill me when he inevitably found out it was me. I told him that I found the whole sexual conversation thing a bit tacky on WhatsApp, and that earned me a few brownie points and an extra couple of inches of nose growth.
I’d suggested a date for the hottest night of the week––Thursday––and he accepted. That meant that he was obviously still a fan of my waffling. He even told me that I was his ‘favourite’. That was the biggest accolade an online potential love interest can receive.
On D-Day, I went to work in my Thursday shirt. It was a new one that hadn’t even been worn yet. It still had some weird creases that I’d hopefully wear out during the day, because despite it being Harry I was going out with, I still couldn’t be bothered to get the iron out.
It was a good day. Not least because I managed to get that selfie with Neil so I could get him dumped later on.
For the date, I had picked one of those swanky little Central London cocktail places that you had to book in advance and get buzzed into. I intended to order mini-burgers and everything. One of the things I learned about Harry was that he really liked miniature food. I mean, who didn’t?
I opted to meet Harry outside as I had foolishly booked the table in my name, and thought that if I phoned up to change it, they’d think I was weird and cancel the booking.
My strategy was to turn up 10 minutes late as I knew Harry would be around 10 minutes late, and if he saw me waiting, he’d bolt and this whole meticulously executed plan would have been for zilch.
I wore my best gear, even down to my favourite pair of Paul Smith socks. Clearly, I was making a lot of effort and it was because I really wanted to make it work with him. I’d been lucky enough to meet someone that I’d had an invigorating connection with. Not only that, but I was satisfied with him. More than satisfied. I felt that if I could win him back, that would be it for me. I’d never do an Eric on him. Would I?
We all knew that the trouble with online dating was that it was so addictive. Sure, people complained about all the shit dates, but they’dalwaysgo back for more. Plus, the messages never stopped, so you were always getting bombarded with new options. Because it was so easy, you’d never win the fight with that urge to spark up a conversation with someone, even if it was just a back-up.
So, to meet someone like Harry, I felt lucky. It was totally worth giving up all the fun and games of online dating, meeting a new guy every night, the late-night kissing, the lottery of finding that explosive chemistry with someone that just lasts a night and somehow disappears by the second date, the adrenaline rush of receiving a new message from someone that you thought you had no chance with… actually, hang on… maybe not? That was a lot of really good stuff right there. Only joking––Iwasready.
And there was the small matter of completing the mission I got into all this for in the first place: to find my soul mate so that Mum could stop worrying about her youngest. Since she had her health scare, I wanted to do this more than ever.
At first I wanted to do it for her, but the more I dated and realised what a shallow pool I was paddling in, the more I knew that there had to be more to life. I couldn't end up doing this forever. Plus, like everyone, I was going to have a sell-by date––a cut-off point where guys simply stop looking at my profile and automatically swiped left. A time when you didn't realise how old you looked until someone mentioned it in a brutal way. I wasn't prepared to let that happen. So here I was at the biggest date of my life––The Boss Fight.
I waited by the Pret-A-Manger on Broadwick Street in Soho. It was a place I found infuriating, because they’d recently turned it into a ‘veggie’ branch. This meant I couldn’t pick up a Ham & Cheese Croissant if ever I walked past there on my way to an after-work social gathering. Anyway, I thought it would be a nice and discreet place to wait, as Harry felt the same about the place, and would therefore pay it no attention.
There he was, waiting outside the cocktail place. He was early. He took his phone out of his bag and started texting me. My stupid burner phone didn’t even have WhatsApp, and I actually had to pay for texts, so it was costing me a few quid. The dulcet tone of the stupid whistling text alert that I couldn't work out how to change sounded.
‘Here.’
I exhaled dramatically and walked over to him.
“Oh. Um… hello,” he said, looking around with an expression that clearly said,‘FUCK FUCK FUCK, PLEASE DON’T TURN UP NOW, BRAD!’
