Page 2 of Stranger Session

Mariah

Ican usually scroll through my feed and find a little entertainment, but the well is a bit dry today. Maybe everyone is learning how tacky it is to air your dirty laundry on social media. God, I hope not. How else will I spend my time if I’m not reading their tales of woe?

I scroll a little further down and spot an ad for a photography course. My thumb stays a bit too long as I go to scroll again, and the screen takes me to their business page. Fuck. Now every ad I see for the next week will be about photography. I close the app.

It’s nice to have a day off from work, but I don’t have anything to do. My life has become the definition of boredom. I wake up, wander around my small house for a few hours, binge some television, then go to sleep.

Alone.

It’s not that I haven’t tried dating, but the men I meet are just so disgusting. It seems everywhereI turn I come face to face with a cheating piece of shit, as if I have a sign on my head that labels me as an eternal side piece. I want to be someone’s main course, and that means waiting until the right man comes along.

And that’s what I do. I wait. I’ve stopped putting myself out there because I’m tired. Dating in today’s market will exhaust even the most enthused woman, and I’m far from enthused anymore. If life could just put Mr. Right into my path, that would be great.

I check through my texts and spot a few party invites from work acquaintances, though I’m not sure why they bother inviting me. My party shoes went into the trash a long time ago, right around the time I got a phone call from my most recent ex’s wife.

A text comes through from a coworker asking if I can cover her shift tomorrow. With a sigh, I agree. What else did I have planned? A little extra money never hurt anything either.

A groan leaves me when I see which shift she needs covered. I hate mornings.

I grab a pint of ice cream from the freezer and go back to scrolling on my phone. Someone got engaged. Someone’s baby did something normal that they thought was special. And oh, look, a photography ad.

I roll my eyes and keep going, but the next ad catches my eye.

A man and woman pose by a lake, and the love practically shines in their eyes. I click the ad, more interested in seeing pictures of the mystery couple than the text on the screen. I’m taken to a business page for a photographer running a special on something called a stranger session. I find it hard to believe that these people hadnever met before these pictures were taken. I’ve been on enough blind dates to know that this sort of chemistry doesn’t just happen. Mostly it’s a lot of looking at your phone and asking awkward questions.

The terms and conditions fill the screen when I click the post, pushing the pictures further down. It costs nothing to take part in a stranger session as long as both parties agree that the photographer can use the photos as promo material. My thumb hovers above another link. This one will take me to a sign-up sheet, where I’ll enter my information for the photographer’s consideration.

I’m a glutton for punishment, so I click again.

Five minutes pass, and I’ve uploaded a photo and signed my name on the dotted line. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little excited. This opportunity gives me a reason to dress up a bit and look pretty, and if the guy they choose for me has a good personality and a nice smile, all the better. I’m halfway through a daydream about our first year of dating when my phone pings with a notification, and a follow-up email dashes my visions of the perfect man.

The photographer will only choose one lucky man and woman for the stranger session, and the deadline to sign up is six p.m. Winners will be notified over the next twenty-four hours. This means I’ll be up against all the other women who signed up for this opportunity, but how many bored single women could there be?

Probably a lot.

“Too good to be true,” I mutter as I shove my phone into my pocket.

I grab the small watering can from beneath my sink and fill it to the brim. As I take a turn around my living room and water each of my plants, I’m reminded of just howboring I am. Instead of a dog or a cat or even a fish, I have fucking plants for pets. I vow to take the next exciting opportunity that comes my way, no matter how scary or strange it is. Whatever life throws at me, I’ll open my arms and catch it because I refuse to stay inside this lackluster box. It’s time to live.

Chapter Three

Del

The wheel on my mouse clicks as I scroll online. I sat in front of my computer as soon as I got back from my run, and I’m mentally preparing myself to look up the stranger session Taylor mentioned. It can’t be worse than those blind-dating games on television where strangers sit across from each other and awkwardly chat while looking like they’d rather be anywhere else. Or the moment as neither person says something funny enough to deserve it, yet both people force weird, pained laughter. I die inside at the thought alone, to be honest.

I find the photographer on Facebook and click the post about the stranger session. Blind-date photo shoots look deranged, even if the pictured couple is kind of cute. Reading through the post, I learn how it works.

Two people are set up for a photo shoot. They’re blindfolded until the moment they get a look at the person they’ve been paired with. They could be beautiful, homely, nice, mean. Who the fuck knows? But that’s not the worstpart. You’re expected to takeintimatephotos with each other. Like, couples photos. Handholding, kissing, longing-looks photos. I can’t picture doing any of this with someone I just met.

I scroll further. The strangers are kissing, and it looks so natural, despite such an unnatural set up. Happiness and attraction radiate from the participants’ faces. Just thinking about it forces a cold sweat onto my brow.

My face isn’t capable of making my expression look that happy or comfortable if I’m not feeling it. If I’m not attracted to my partner, the photographer will paste our mutual embarrassment for all of the internet to see.

I’m too inexperienced for this. I grew up with very religious parents, and I didn’t go on my first date until I was eighteen. My virginity remained intact until I was nineteen, but I was still a heathen in my parents’ eyes because I didn’t wait until marriage. In my defense, if I had listened to them, I would have been a virgin until I died.

Either way, it wasn’t a particularly happy childhood, and I never had an outlet for my repressed anger and feelings. I’m surprised I didn’t become a psychopath from being forced to mask my emotions growing up.

Maybe it affected my ability to love, and maybe that’s why I’m so against dating now. Maybe I gave it the good old college try with Lisa. Maybe I knew all along how it would end up because I could never give her what she wanted. What she needed. Maybe that pushed her beneath another man.

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