Meet Me – Short Series Part 1

Laying on my couch looking up at the ceiling, I’m thinking to myself, “the hell with celibacy!” I need to find some company and find it now! Well… I could find a mobile companion on one of these… what’s it called, dating sites… ugh! I don’t want to date, not right now! I am now known as one of the best selling authors in my state. Putting my face out there on any of these sites could be scandalous! Let me think…

Scrolling through my phone app store… Tinder… nop! Uh… Match.com big no!… Meet me… hmmm, downloading, let’s see what this app is about. Filling up info, adding the radius to where I’d like to talk/meet someone, ok so far, so good. It’s asking for a profile photo! Hum, half a face would do, plus I doubt any of my entourage will be on here. Also, putting the fake name “Lola” to finalize the profile, and we’re all set. Damn, I’m hungry; I’ll have the leftover quinoa bowl I grabbed on my way to meet a client yesterday. A loud Ping interrupts my hungry thoughts from my phone. Could it be from Meet me? Another one followed.

Let’s see… 37 years old engineer not too far says, “hello gorgeous!” He looks creepy. Let me check the other one. 55 years old Italian restaurant owner says, “I want to see your full face” I smile. A sudden attack of messages starts to come in one after the other, whoah! Slow down; I can’t keep up now. There must be an option in the settings somewhere to filter out the number of messages I can receive at a time. Checking the settings… no luck! I guess I’m going to ignore some of these.

I can also swipe on some of these fellas, so Tinderish! I skip that option. Well, hello greek god! I tap on his profile pic. Deran, 33 years old, working temporarily in my state from Europe… nice, what does he do? Scrolling… Doesn’t say. He’s younger than me, tall as hell, beautiful smile, 4 miles away… It could be a fake profile. Let’s poke him anyway! His profile button turns green. 

Oh, snap! He’s online! Ok, act cool…

“Lola” (what, just Lola… rolling my eyes)
“Deran”
“How are you?”
“I’m well, you?”
“Good, what are you doing?”
“I am working” (Lies)
“And you’re on meet me while working…”
“Yes”
“What exactly are you looking for here?”
Well, damn, talk about not beating around the bush!
“Small talk nothing serious” (right)
“I can do small talk ;-)”
(and more…)
At this point, I can either leave the conversation and block his indecent ass or go with it. But then again, I’m a writer, I tell myself this could be good material for one of my novels, so button up my gal this is happening!
“like?” (Oh, I love the banter!)
“I can show you more than I can tell you.”
“maybe another time” (Retreat! retreat!)
“Right because you’re working.”
“that’s right.”
“yet you’re still here, and I have the feeling you looking for more.”
This dude…
“Tell you what, he followed, meet me after work at the steakhouse on Crescent Rd, we’ll grab dinner and keep this conversation going.”
Taking charge. Yes, sir.
“Sure, what time?”
“6:30 traffic should ease by then; I notice you’re not that far.”
(Damn! my share location is on)
“well, see you then.”
“see you.”

His green light is still on. He is still online, but he didn’t say anything else. My heart is racing. I usually write about this stuff, they don’t happen to me so casually, but then again, a little part of me is saying, “live a little, damn it!”

What time is it?

5:00 pm, damn, so I gotta show up in some type of office attire to keep up with the lie. A button-up dress should do the trick. I don’t want him to think I’m jumping him right away. I’ll eat a little bit of my quinoa so that my stomach doesn’t growl when I’m there.

5:30 pm I’m ready already. I can’t wait to meet actually. I probably should not be excited about this. What if he is a rapist, or a registered sex offender, or even worse, a murderer?

6:00 pm The steakhouse is like 5-10 minutes away, I’ll make it at 6:15 pm, hopefully before him so that I can sit in the car and see if I recognize him walking in. I do my makeup and look myself over in the mirror, pretty! I grab my pepper spray and slap it in my purse just in case, and off I go.

6:10 pm The steakhouse parking lot is packed. Great! Happy hour time! Hopefully I can find a great parking spot and scan my horizon clearly to spy on my blind date. I keep my dark shades on and park the car in a miraculous empty spot.

6:15 pm A Mazda pulls up next to me, and an older man stepped out with his wife. Phew… close! I almost passed out. Across from me, an AMG GT C pulled up with blinding bright light. Godamnit, can you shoot me in the eye and be done with it! Stupid idiot! Can you turn your light off! I lower my visor. He finally turned his engine off and stepped out. I recognize the face! I’ll be damn…

“Deran…”