RomanceConnection.com (CLOSED)

[shannondreams]

Shannon logged into her romanceconnection page and clicked through a few messages. It still surprised her how many men thought an empty profile and "Hi babe, what's up?" were the way to go. Of course, they were better than the cockpics. She didn't get it. She had a pretty picture, but it was just her face. The profile didn't say anything to encourage perverts or slobs. It told the truth, she was a 22 year old woman looking for a long term relationship. She was in her last semester of college, she liked to read and cook, and she was starting a teaching job in the fall.

It had been a month since Tom had left. She'd endured a few dates, but they'd been awful. It was so hard to find a guy she could actually imagine as a boyfriend. Of course, she'd known Tom since the first day of kindergarten, and they'd been a couple all through high school and college. She wasn't going to find anything like that online, but she hadn't thought it would be so hard to meet a guy who could make it through a cocktail without checking his phone, or look up from her tits once in a while. The worst part of it was that it had been so easy to find a guy to hook up with.

Of all the stupid things. She'd gone behind the back of the best guy she'd ever known, and gone to bed with a stuck-up peacock she met at a bar, and the whole reason she'd done it was because she thought Tom was going to propose. She was 21, and she wanted to have a one-night stand, just once in her life. She'd been stupid about the whole thing, she realized, but at the time, she hadn't been thinking, just making moves. She'd picked the guy up at the bar on the corner of her block where everyone knew her. Tom found out, of course. He moved back to his parents house and she was left with the little apartment above the deli.

Worst of all, she couldn't stop thinking about the guy. She couldn't even remember his name he had been absurdly bad in bed. She had teased and stroked and licked and sucked him for what seemed like hours before he got hard enough to put a condom on, and then he had blown his nut after a half-dozen strokes. She didn't know why she kept thinking about him, or why she got turned on every time she did. The only good thing about the whole experience was that it had been a one-night-stand.

She sighed and opened the next message, and by muscle memory she slid the mouse over the "delete" button before she even read what he had to say.

 

[ElwoodB]

'Don't settle for just ANY-one... find THE one'

The ad just sat there at the top of the screen. RomanceConnection.com. He'd considered dating sites of course, but he'd never thought of it as a viable option before, more of a last resort. After all he wasn't unattractive. He'd studied art history at college, he wasn't a complete jerk (at least he didn't think he was)... all of these things he had in his favour, and yet he couldn't hold down a relationship for more than a month or two.

He knew he wasn't unattractive because he'd had plenty of offers in the past. He'd done his fair share of partying and sleeping around. What guy hadn't, right? And that's also how he knew he was slightly off kilter with the world. He'd discovered things about himself that weren't easy to talk about. Things he couldn't describe casually or in polite conversation. But things he could hide... in the short term at least.

He had an idea that he wouldn't find what he was looking for, but he was low on options, so he clicked on the banner. He filled out the 'application' form.

Name? Joe. Age? 24. Likes? Literature. He hovered over the keys debating the answer. Was the term Literature too snooty? He pressed delete, started again. Likes? The question sat there on the screen, as if it was judging him. Reading and movies, he typed. Dislikes? He paused once again. He couldn't think of anything that he found abhorrent or disgusting particularly... he typed simply, Smoking.

He found a non-threatening photograph to go on his profile. It had been taken at his birthday last year. He recalled it particularly because he'd met Lucy that night. And then, two months later to the day, she had walked out on him. He shook his head as if to dislodge the memories of her and clear his mind.

While the system attempted to find him a compatible match, whatever the hell that meant, he scanned through a few profiles... None of the women were hideous in any respect, in fact he found the majority of them attractive in some fashion. There were all kinds of women here. Professional women with no time for the unnecessary act of cruising bars to find a suitable guy; Single girls looking to hook up for short term fun; Single moms looking for willing men to become fathers to children that weren't theirs... the variety astounded him.

The mail icon flashed in the top right corner. The system had found him a match. He clicked on her profile with a sense of anticipation and curiosity. He read it through. Her photo looked legit, she had that girl-next-door look about her and he liked her eyes.

Would you like to send her a wink? the screen was asking him. He looked into her eyes again.

He clicked 'Yes'.

 

[shannondreams]

She deleted the message and as the screen refreshed, she saw a wink. She sighed, tired of the whole thing. It seemed so futile. She hadn't really thought of herself as difficult to please, but since she'd joined the dating site, she'd begun to think her standards were completely unrealistic. Maybe there just weren't any guys out there who wanted more than anonymous sex. She rolled her eyes. Like she was any better. Besides, she wouldn't find a guy by burying her head in the sand. She clicked the guys profile.

Joe. 24. He liked reading and movies. Disliked smokers. It wasn't much to go on, but at least his pic included his face. He was handsome. She wondered why he was even on a site like this. He didn't look like he'd have a hard time finding a girl. Then, nobody would look at her and think she'd have a hard time finding a guy, but here she was.

"OK," she said to herself. "What the hell?"

She looked over the profile again.

"We both like to read," she typed. "Who's your favorite author?"

She hit enter, and stood up. There was no point in waiting around for a reply. Just because the site said he was online, didn't mean he'd get back to her today. She wasn't going to sit around waiting on some guy. She grabbed a glass of water and settled on the couch to watch the latest episode of Walking Dead. She kept her phone handy, just in case, but she reminded herself again to keep her expectations realistic.

 

[ElwoodB]

He was still sifting through profiles when the message icon blinked in the corner of the screen. It was Shannon. He hadn't expected a reaction quite so quickly and allowed a curious smile to cross his lips. He read the message.

'We both like to read,' it said, 'Who's your favorite author?'

A nice normal question. No in depth analysis required. Your taste in author can say a lot about your personality, or it can say nothing at all. He sat and pondered the question.

Should he try and second guess what she was expecting his answer to be? He decided that a truthful answer was the best way to go.

"I have several actually, depending on my mood." He typed, giving himself some room to maneuver should their tastes differ. "Stephen King if I'm feeling dark; Michael Crichton if I'm in need of an adventure; Ian Fleming or Lee Child if I'm looking for something in between."

He wasn't sure how she would interpret the answer. He was fairly certain she would have heard of them and their work.

"What about you? Who fuels your imagination?" He phrased the question that way deliberately, attempting to demonstrate that he had half a brain at least. He clicked send before navigating back to her profile.

There was a little heart symbol which was designated Favourites. He clicked it and it glowed red. A box appeared notifying him that she had been added to his Hot list. Who came up with this stuff?

He checked the clock in the bottom corner of the screen. It was almost time for work.