Page 48 of The App Trap
I have genuinely never moved that quickly, and I finally lost them as I ducked into the front garden of a residential care home and hid in the bushes there for about half an hour.
I spent the journey home being startled by the sight of anything multi-coloured. It happened to be Pride month, and there were a lot of flags dotted around the place, resulting in me pulling my now trademark karate moves every few streets.
All in all, it was a terrifying evening, but the worst bit, even worse than the anticipation of having to explain all of this to my work colleagues, was the message I received from Mark which read,‘That was the best fucking comedy night I’ve ever been to. When u playing again? I’ll bring some mates.’
Thursday
This was to be my last ‘official’ date of the week as I had something special lined up for tomorrow, which would be a perfectly explosive end to my dating career––if things worked out with Harry on Saturday, of course.
However, I decided to cancel, as the guy that I was going to date invited me to a wake, and had also thought that this was entirely acceptable. He told me that he didn't know the deceased too well, so I wouldn’t be the only one ‘out of sorts’.
Then as if by magic, Finn texted. He was out in town with some of his mates. They were all married, so he was on the scout for a wingman. I fancied a beer, so thought ‘fuck it’ and went to go and meet him in some god-awful establishment just off Leicester Square.
I trotted down the stairs of the sticky-floored bar and walked in on Finn and his workmates doing shots. All attention was focussed on Finn’s little brother and they tried to shove more alcohol down my throat than you’d have seen in a whole season of Shameless.
I was in the toilet when a weasel-like mate of Finn’s called Eric latched on to me. He was about 30, but looked a lot older. He was gravelly voiced and had a face like one of those big, scary Muppets. He was going a bit bald and had akind of front comb-over to try and disguise the tiny island of hair that clung to the top of his head.
“You go out on a lot of dates, then?” chipped in Eric excitedly.
“A few, yeah,” I said, dismissively.
“Shag loads of ‘em, do ya?”
Oh, God, here we go. The classic bored married man who wants to dine out on the life of a singleton. Is internet porn not enough for these guys anymore? The man was almost dribbling with anticipation.
“Sometimes, yeah,” I said, looking around for Finn or anyone else.
“Can I have a swipe?”
“I don’t think you’re gonna find your type on here mate,” I said.
“Go on. You can do the swiping. I just wanna have a look. Oh.”
“Told you.”
“It’s… I, I didn’t realise you were.-”
“Gay?”
Eric winced.
“It’s alright, you don’t have to look so awkward.”
“I’m not,” Eric said.
He pretended to be interested in the extensive range of Chupa Chup lollies that the bathroom attendant had on display, and quite frankly, I couldn’t be bothered to address whatever was going on in that mind of his.
I found Finn upstairs, looking worse for wear.
“What is it with that Eric prick?” I said.
“Oh, they’re all married and bored. They love all this dating stuff. I’m constantly being hounded about all my dating business,” said Finn.
“You might wanna hold it down a bit with old Eric. Anyway, how’s it going out in the field, anyway?”
“How do you reckon?”
“Same as me, probably. Although I’ve got a good ‘un lined up.”
